Vatican Trial Leaves Unanswered Questions

By Dario Thuburn
Herald Sun
October 7, 2012

www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/vatican-trial-leaves-unanswered-questions/story-e6frf7k6-1226490080613

STARTING with the victim - Pope Benedict XVI - there was nothing normal about the trial of Paolo Gabriele, the Vatican butler convicted of stealing secret papers from the papal palace.

The defendant said he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to rid the Vatican of "evil and corruption" and the main judge was from an aristocratic family that has served the papacy for generations who has been knighted by the Vatican.

Gabriele on Saturday was found guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced to 18 months in prison, although Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said a pardon from the Pope was "very likely" to come soon, before the sentence was actually implemented.

Adding to the unique nature of a trial in the world's smallest state where the Pope has supreme powers, the sentence began: "In the name of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who reigns in glory, and invoking the Holy Trinity."

In his final statement in a wood-panelled courtroom decorated with Vatican insignia and a large portrait of Pope Benedict, Gabriele said he had acted out of "visceral love for the Church of Christ and for its leader on Earth".

The biggest trial in modern Vatican history leaves many questions hanging.

One of the most pressing is whether Gabriele really did act alone as he claims; another is whether the Vatican will investigate some of the most serious allegations of fraud contained in the papers Gabriele leaked to a journalist.

An investigation is ongoing and Vatican gendarmes are still analysing computer files seized from Gabriele's home after finding "more than 1000" sensitive documents including letters the Pope had marked "To Be Destroyed".

The findings of a parallel inquiry into the "Vatileaks" scandal conducted by a committee of cardinals appointed by the Pope have also not been made public. The cardinals interviewed dozens of people working in the Vatican.

Lombardi said only "a limited part" of the criminal inquiry was complete and that other more serious charges - such as the violation of state secrecy, defamation and conspiracy - were still being considered by investigators.

The trial gave a few hints of Gabriele's social network and the jealousies and tensions under the surface in the Vatican's tight-knit community.

He himself claimed there was "widespread discontent" in the Vatican and said that senior cardinals and the Pope's former housekeeper had confided in him.

In the only interview he gave before his arrest in May, Gabriele said there were "around 20" like-minded people spread across different Vatican departments.

Gabriele also told the police that he had confessed his crime to a priest, Father Giovanni Luzi, and handed him copies of the documents he was leaking.

The priest said he burnt them since he knew they were illegally obtained.

In one interrogation, Gabriele said some papers he leaked with allegations of corruption in the Vatican police had been given to him by a third person.

But investigators have so far identified only one other person who has been charged with aiding and abetting the butler. Claudio Sciarpelletti, a Vatican computer technician, faces a separate trial in the same 19th-century courtroom.

Prosecutors said they first thought he must have acted with others because of all the secret papers found in a search of his home - many more than were ever published - but had since found "no evidence" of accomplices.

The documents published in a book by the journalist who received the leaks, Gianluigi Nuzzi, were "peanuts compared to what he had accumulated in his apartment", said Paul Badde, a Vatican expert for German daily Die Welt.

"There are many unresolved contradictions. It is quite possible that this could be the beginning of a far more dramatic and important story," he said.

But Marco Politi, a biographer of Pope Benedict and Vatican expert for the Il Fatto Quotidiano daily, said he believed the Holy See wanted to "hush up" the Vatileaks scandal by not probing deeper into Gabriele's network of sources.

Gabriele's career is also an open question as the court did not accept a request from prosecutors for Gabriele to be banned from positions of responsibility in the Vatican and the butler is only suspended from his duties.

Nuzzi has said the investigation should not be into how the documents were leaked but into the actual allegations contained in the documents.

"With the end of the trial, will the contents of the book be discussed or will there still be a commotion aimed at discrediting Gabriele?" he asked.