‘Vatileaks’ of modern-day Judas shakes Catholic Church
Pope Benedict XVI’s personal butler, Paolo Gabriele, has been living a rollercoaster – sliding downward with an incredible speed.
The 46-year-old, who is described as shy and private, helped the Pontiff get dressed, served his food and held his umbrella. This all changed when he was accused of leaking sensitive documents to the media.
The scandal has come to be called ‘Vatileaks’.
The documents included letters by an archbishop who was transferred to Washington after blowing the whistle on what he saw as a web of corruption and cronyism, a memo that portrayed a number of cardinals in a negative light, and documents alleging internal conflicts about the Vatican bank.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, once a candidate for the papacy and the former archbishop of Milan, wrote in an Italian newspaper that the Pope has been “betrayed” just as Jesus was 2,000 years ago.
Church leaders should “urgently win back the trust of the faithful,” Martini wrote, adding that the Catholic Church would have to emerge from the latest scandal cleaner and stronger.
Mr. Gabriele was arrested on Saturday and was formally charged on Sunday with stealing confidential papal documents.
Pope Benedict’s aides say he is “saddened and pained” by the scandal and the arrest of his butler, but he didn’t make any reference to either of those incidents in his two appearances on Sunday.
THE BANK JOB
“I feel very sad for the Pope. This whole thing is such a disservice to the Church,” Carl Anderson, head of the Knights of Columbus charity group who is also a member of the board of the Vatican bank, told Reuters. The bank’s president has been suddenly dismissed over what the board called “a fundamental failure to perform his basic responsibilities”.
Anderson was one of those who voted no-confidence against Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the Italian president of the Vatican bank.
Tedeschi has been a critic of lack of transparency in the bank and says that is the reason he has been fired.
Anderson rejected his accusations, saying “categorically, this action by the board had nothing to do with his promotion of transparency. In fact, he was becoming an obstacle to greater transparency by his inability to work senior management.”
According to a memorandum of the meeting that ousted Gotti Tedeschi that was obtained by Reuters, he had shown “progressively erratic personal behaviour” and failed to defend the bank “in the face of inaccurate media reports”.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who first leaked some of the documents in January and aired them on a television show, published his book “His Holiness” earlier last week.
He says he did not pay for any of the information, but obtained them from people loyal to the Church who wanted to expose corruption.
These are among the most turbulent times in the recent history of the Catholic Church.
Its principle of secrecy has come under attack yet again. Gabriele could be imprisoned for 30 years if proven guilty.
It is seen as very unlikely that the ‘holy’ men of The Vatican will take the opportunity to scrutinise their affair
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Doubts over whether Pope’s butler leaked documents
The Vatican is reported to be hunting for the masterminds of damaging leaks, with few believing the Pope’s arrested butler was behind the scandal, according to an AFP report in the Daily Telegraph.Vatican officials confirmed on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI’s personal butler Paolo Gabriele was arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential documents from the pontiff’s private study after secret papers were found in his home.
His arrest was greeted with disbelief as the 46-year-old Mr Gabriele was well-liked throughout Vatican City and known for his devotion and loyalty to the Pope.
The Italian press has been filled with speculation that the butler, one of a limited number of people who have access to the Pope’s private quarters, was a pawn in a game of intrigue and struggle for power inside the Holy See.
“No one thinks the butler was capable of orchestrating the ‘Vatileaks’ by himself and so the focus is on a higher, ecclesiastical level,” wrote the Corriere della Sera under the headline “Vatican braces for new arrests.”
The Catholic News Service reports that Vatican spokesman Father Lombardi said Gabriele was arrested the evening of May 23 by Vatican police after they found the illegally obtained documents in his home, which is on Vatican territory.
He was still under arrest on Saturday, the day the Vatican statement was issued.
The dark-haired assistant can often be seen with the pope sitting in the front seat of the popemobile, next to the driver during papal general audiences on Wednesdays.
The spokesman said Vatican judge Nicola Picardi has completed “the first phase” of a preliminary investigation and Vatican judge Piero Antonio Bonnet has begun the next step of the inquiry.
Father Lombardi said on Friday that Gabriele, then unnamed by the Vatican, had been questioned by Vatican judges in order to obtain further information.
Gabriele has named two lawyers to represent him during the Vatican investigation and he has already had a chance to meet with them, Father Lombardi said.
The investigation will continue until enough evidence has been collected and then Judge Bonnet will either call Gabriele to stand trial or be acquitted, he said.
A committee of three cardinals Pope Benedict XVI appointed in April to look into the leaks had asked the gendarmes to investigate.
Dozens of private letters to Pope Benedict and other confidential Vatican correspondence and reports, including encrypted cables from Vatican embassies around the world, were leaked to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi. He published the documents in a book, Your Holiness, released May 17.
In a statement two days later, Father Lombardi called the publication of the letters for commercial gain a “criminal act” and said the Vatican would take legal action.
The publication, he said, violated the right to privacy and the “freedom of correspondence” of Pope Benedict, the letter writers and the pope’s closest collaborators.
THE LAITYTUDE 