Vatican demands UK newspaper issue "immediate and unambiguous" retraction

Looks like the Vatican press office is trying to earn its paycheck today:

The Vatican has demanded that The Times retract a "completely untrue" story that Pope Benedict XVI planned to present a "luxury facsimile" of the 1530 appeal by English peers to Pope Clement VII asking for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

[Damian Thompson has a photocopy of the letter, and some fascinating background.]

Frankly they could be doing this sort of thing every day, considering the amount of trashy reporting that gets printed about things Catholic in presses around the world.

But UK tabloids are particularly bad about spreading false (and often clearly false) Vatican rumors.

update - to their credit, at least one reporter has apologized.