A verdict in the case of the pope’s butler accused of leaking papal documents may help close one of the most damaging scandals of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy. But even after Paolo Gabriele’s fate is decided by a Vatican tribunal on Saturday, a core question will remain open: Did he really act alone in exposing the secrets of one of the most secretive institutions in the world?
Gabriele faces up to four years in prison if he’s convicted of aggravated theft, accused of stealing the pope’s private correspondence and passing it onto journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose book revealed the intrigue, petty infighting and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons that plague the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. It has been, in short, the gravest security breach of the papal entourage in recent memory.
In his testimony this week, Gabriele insisted “in the most absolute way” that he had no accomplices.
But in earlier statements to prosecutors, he named a half-dozen people who “suggested” he take action, among them Vatican cardinals and monsignors. He even identified one layman as the source of a segment of Nuzzi’s book His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI’s secret papers detailing some questionable conflicts of interest of some Vatican police officers.
Gabriele distanced himself from such statements during the trial, saying he didn’t recognise himself in the prosecutors’ reconstruction of his interrogation.
That said, on the eve of Gabriele’s verdict, Nuzzi tweeted that after Gabriele’s fate is decided, “Will the protagonists of the papers who emerged be persecuted with courage?”