Many Catholics are probably familiar with the feeling of ambient, unspecified guilt. And not just lay Catholics, apparently! Pope Francis would also like to apologize for... something.

“I would like to ask for forgiveness in the name of the church for the scandals that have happened in this last period both in Rome and at the Vatican,” the pope said during his weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square. “I ask for your forgiveness.”

However, according to the New York Times, Francis did not say exactly for which scandals he was asking forgiveness, which honestly feels like a bit of a cop-out. Was it the Kim Davis thing? Was it the gay-priest-fired-for-admitting-he-is-gay thing? Was it the trees thing?

Asked about the pope’s ambiguous apology on Wednesday, the Times reports that Vatican spokesman Reverend Federico Lombardi said that if he pope had wanted to identify a particular scandal he would have done so. So instead the paper of record gets to dig into some Vatican kremlinology:

This week, an Italian blog published what it said was a private letter written to the pope before the gathering of some 300 prelates had even begun.

In it, a group of 13 conservative cardinals expressed their concern that the outcome of the synod would be a foregone conclusion, and not the result of open debate.

After the letter was published on Monday, several of the cardinals cited as signatories denied any involvement, while other cardinals said they had signed a letter with a markedly different content, adding to the intrigue.

The letter not only highlighted the liberal and conservative divisions within the Vatican, but also prompted a frenzy of behind-the-scenes speculation in the news media that the pope’s authority was being challenged, or even subverted.

Fun!

Apparently, later in his address the pope went on say, ‘It’s inevitable that scandals happen, but woe be to the man who causes the scandal.’” It was totally the trees thing.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.