Fwd: Letter #26: The Verdict

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Fwd: Letter #26: The Verdict

[2012-10-07]

[Engleză]

October 6, 2012, Thursday -- Guilty

The Pope's butler has been found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail

==============

Guilty, but a reduced sentence

The trial of the Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, 46, is over, and the sentence
has been handed down by a Vatican court: "Guilty" of stealing confidential
papers from the Pope and his closest advisors, Gabriele was sentenced to 18
months in jail.

(Here, Paolo Gabriele in the Vatican court. He was found guilty and
sentenced to
18 months in prison by a Vatican court after a trial that opened one week
ago)

This is a lighter sentence than the 3 years that prosecutors had asked
for, and
lighter than the 6 years that had been reported as the possible maximum
sentence
for this crime.

The Italian press reported this as a "compromise" decision.

The defense had asked the court to reduce the charges from "aggravated
theft" to
"misappropriation," and for him to be freed.

In his final statement before sentencing, Gabriele said he did not see
himself
as a thief, and that he had acted out of "love for the Church," a "visceral
love."

During the trial, he testified that he loved his employer, Pope Benendict
XVI,
"like a son," and that he took the documents in an attempt to do something to
help the Pope in his efforts to "clean up" corruption in the Church.

"What I feel most strongly inside myself is the conviction that I acted
exclusively out of love, I would say a visceral love, for the Church of
Christ
and its visible representative," Gabriele said this morning in a flat voice
betraying no emotion. "If I have to repeat it, I am not a thief," he added.

The Pope could still pardon Gabriele, Father Federico Lomnbardi, the Pope's
press spokesman, said today. Lombardi said the trial transcript is now
part of
the public record, and will be available to the Pope to evaluate as he
makes his
decision.

Until such time, Gabriele will serve his sentence under house arrest in his
Vatican apartment, with his wife and three children, and even be allowed
to walk
in the Vatican Gardens (photo) under escort, and not go to an Italian
jail. If
he is not pardoned, he will be taken to an Italian jail, is foreseen by
bilateral agreements due to the Vatican's lack of any such facility, his
lawyer
Cristiana Arru told journalists.

(Here, Pope Benedict XVI, 85, who is said to be deeply saddened by his
butler's
betrayal of his trust; he could still pardon the butler)

The sentence was reduced, the judges said, due to "mitigating
circumstances": because he had no previous criminal record and because he had
"acknowledged that he betrayed the trust of the Holy Father."

Gabriele, who served the Pope his meals and helped him dress, admitted in
court
that he had photocopied sensitive documents in the presence of his immediate
superiors, the Pope's two personal secretaries -- Monsignor Georg
Gaenswein (who
also testified at the trial) and Monsigner Alfred Xuereb -- in a small office
adjacent to the papal living quarters in the Apostolic Palace.

Vatican police testified that they discovered more than 1,000 photocopies and
also many original documents, including some the Pope had marked "to be
destroyed," interspersed among many "hundreds of thousands" of other
papers and
newspaper clippings in a huge armoire in the family apartment inside Vatican
City walls.

One issue that was not settled by this trial was whether Gabriele had
accomplices.

This summer, in mid-July, the German journalist Paul Badde (photo, with Pope
Benedict), writing in Die Welt, suggested that Gabriele had been in
communicatiion with, and supported by, others in the Vatican, and he named
three
people in particular as "supporters" if not accomplices of Gabriele: Cardinal
Paolo Sardi, 78, currently Patron of the Soveriegn Military Order of Malta
and
formerly Vice Camerlengo of the Roman Catholic Church and the head
official in
the Vatican Secretariat of State in charge of preparing the final texts of
the
Popes speeches and addresses; Archbishop Joseph Clemens, 65, currently the
Secretary (the #2 post) in the Vatican's Council for the Laity, and formerly,
for almost 20 years, from 1984 until 2003, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's
personal
secretary, being succeeded by Monsignor Gaenswein; and Ingrid Stampa, 62, a
German laywoman trained as a musicologist, who took the place of Joseph
Ratzinger sister, Maria, who had been Ratzinger's housekeeper in Rome
until her
death in 1991, and who is regarded as one of the Pope's closest confidants.

(Here is a photo of Ingrid Stampa and Archbishop Joseph Clemens with the
Pope's
older brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger)

Father Lombardi issued a public statement after it was picked up in the
Italian
press a week later., saying the article was false.

But Badde, who is beleived to be close to the Pope's present secretary,
Monsignor Gaenswein, has told Inside the Vatican that he stands by his story,
and he maintains that the trial and sentencing of Gabriele is the end of only
the first phase of a larger story that will continue for some time.

During the trial, Gabriele said that, from his post at the Pope's side day
after
day as papal butler, he was able to see how easily a powerful man could be
manipulated by aides and kept in the dark about things he should have known.

Gabriele told investigators before the trial began that he leaked the
documents
because he saw "evil and corruption everywhere in the Church" and that
information was being hidden from the Pope.

====================

Puzzles remain

There are many puzzles about this case even now, after the verdict.

For example, Gabriele testified that he was "sparked into action" in the year
2010, when he saw a particular need to begin to collect documents in his
private
home.

But, as Gaenswein testified, the documents in Gabriele's home go back to the
year 2006, to the very beginning of his service.

This seems a serious contradiction: that fact that Gabriele was collecting
documents from the first moment he became the Pope's butler seems to
contradict
the story that he "sprang into action" only in 2010.

And this opens onto another question: How did Gabriele get the job of papal
butler? Who suggested him? Despite the long investigation this summer and now
the week-long trial, this popint has never been fully clarified.

Third, it has never been made clear how Gabriele got into touch with
Gianluigi
Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who then took the document Gabriele brought
to him
and published them in his book, His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Pope
Benedict
XVI, which appeared just five months ago, in May 2012, touching off the
"Vatileaks" scandal. Gabriele said he contacted Nuzzi by mail, but Nuzzi
writes
in his book on p. 17 that a fellow journalist, not named, was the
intermediary.
Which version is the truth.

Fourth, regarding the qustion of accomplices.

During the winter, on an Italian television program, Gabriele, speaking
anonymously, with his face covered and his voice muffled -- but it is now
known
that it was indeed Gabriele -- said "about 20" others in the Vatican had
helped
him to furnish documents to Nuzzi. During this trial, Gabriele referred to
seven
people in the Vatican as people who had "suggested" to him that he work to
shine
light on Vatican corruption, but denied that any had actually been his
accomplices.

Now, perhaps these remarks were "red herrings," that is, lies.

Certainly Gabriele has now been tried and condemned as, evidenrtly, the sole
sources of the "Vatileaks."

Still, in Italy, in addition to Badde, others have written that "Gabriele did
not act alone, he was simply a pawn in a larger Curial struggle."

So the case of the Pope's butler was closed this morning.

But there may be more to come on the general matter of who is helping and
who is
hindering Pope Benedict as he attempts to lead the Church in our time in
keeping
with the message of Christ and the tradition of the Apostles, preaching
ceaselessly the "Good News" of Christ in a world that often seems to
desire that

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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