Pope visits jail to pardon ex-butler who leaked private papers
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | December 23, 2012 0:21
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict made a surprise pre-Christmas visit to the jail holding his former butler on Saturday and pardoned him for stealing and leaking documents that alleged corruption in the Holy See.
Gabriele was convicted of aggravated theft on Oct. 6 in a case that shone unwelcome publicity on the Vatican and had been serving an 18-month sentence in a jail cell in the city state’s police headquarters.
“This was a paternal gesture towards a person with whom the pope shared his daily life for several years,” Father Federico Lombardi, a spokesman, said.
Gabriele was arrested in May after Vatican police found many documents in his possession that had been stolen from the pope’s office.
The former butler gave them to the media in what mushroomed into an embarrassing scandal for Benedict’s pontificate that became known as “Vatileaks.”
Gabriele told investigators he had leaked the documents because he saw “evil and corruption everywhere in the Church” and that information was being hidden from the pope.
Gabriele will no longer be able to work in the Vatican but will be helped to find a job and start a new life outside its walls together with his family, the Vatican said.
A former member of the small, select group known as “the papal family”, Gabriele was one of fewer than 10 people who had a key to an elevator leading directly to the pope’s apartments.
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