The Butler did it!

Pope's Butler Indicted in Vaticzn Leak Case
By Alan Cowell and Elisabetta Povoledo
Monday, August 13, 2012

A judge at the Vatican on Monday ordered the former butler of Pope Benedict XVI to stand trial on charges of taking and then leaking documents from the pope’s private apartment that raised allegations of corruption at the Vatican.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that under law, Pope Benedict XVI could issue pardons. (Gregorio Borgia/Associated Press)

Related

• Vatican Allows That Butler Scandal Is Hurting Trust (May 29, 2012)

• In Vatican Whodunit, a Punch Line of a Suspect (May 26, 2012)

Paolo Gabriele, left, with Pope Benedict XVI in May 2008. (Luca Bruno/Associated Press)

The accusations, including a charge of aggravated theft, against the butler, Paolo Gabriele, were set out in a 35-page indictment that, for the first time, accused a second Vatican employee of involvement. The employee, Claudio Sciarpelletti, 48, a computer expert, was charged with aiding and abetting a crime.

Previously the Vatican had said that Mr. Gabriele, 45, was the only person under investigation.

Even so, Mr. Sciarpelletti was described in the indictment as a close friend, not an accomplice, of Mr. Gabriele, and it said his role was limited. He spent one night in jail after an envelope containing sensitive material was found in his desk, the indictment said.

The Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, told reporters that under Vatican law, Benedict could pardon the two accused men at any time, but it was not clear whether he would do so. Father Lombardi said the two men would probably be prosecuted in a single trial, but not before late September, because the tribunal that would conduct the trial is in recess until September 20.

Mr. Gabriele, whose tasks included serving the pope’s meals and helping him don his heavy clerical robes, could be imprisoned for up to six years if he is convicted. The indictment said that he had acknowledged taking the documents.

The case has shaken the Vatican since January, when leaked documents that chronicled internal power struggles in the Vatican and gave details of suspected corruption began appearing in Italian newspapers and on television. In May, an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, published a book containing material apparently based on sheaves of documents from the pope’s office.

According to the indictment, Mr. Gabriele, who was arrested in May, told investigators he took the documents because he believed that the pope was not adequately informed of “evil and corruption” that the butler wanted to expose and expunge.

“Seeing evil and corruption everywhere in the church, I finally reached a point of degeneration, a point of no return, and could no longer control myself,” he said.

The former butler was said to believe that “a shock, perhaps through the media,” would provide a “healthy” way “to bring the church back on the right track.” He was said to have told investigators that in some ways, he saw himself as an “infiltrator” acting on behalf of the Holy Spirit.

The indictment also said that a search of Mr. Gabriele’s apartment at the Vatican turned up other purloined items there, including a check for 100,000 euros, about $123,000, made out to the pope, a golden nugget and a 16th-century translation of Virgil’s “Aeneid.”

The indictment said Mr. Gabriele told investigators that he might have removed those items from the pope’s offices in “the degeneration of my disorder.”

Paola Nuvola contributed reporting from Rome.