Pope's butler convicted in leaks, given 18 months

(October 06, 2012) The former butler of Pope Benedict XVI, Paolo Gabriele has been convicted of stealing the Pontiff's private documents and leaking them to a journalist in the gravest Vatican security breach in recent memory. He was sentenced on Saturday to 18 months in prison, but the Vatican said a papal pardon was likely. Gabriele also has to bear the court fees. Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre read the verdict aloud two hours after the three-judge Vatican panel began deliberating Gabriele's fate. The sentence was reduced in half to 18 months from three years because of a series of mitigating circumstances, including that Gabriele had no previous record, had acknowledged that he had betrayed the Pope and was convinced, although “erroneously'' that he was doing the right thing, Dalla Torre said. Gabriele was accused of stealing the pope's private correspondence and passing it on to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose book revealed the intrigue, petty infighting and allegations of corruption within the highest echelons of the Catholic Church. He has said he leaked the documents because he felt the Pope wasn't being informed of the ``evil and corruption'' in the Vatican, and that exposing the problems publicly would put the church back on the right track. In his final appeal to the court Saturday morning, Gabriele insisted he was no thief. He said he feels strongly convinced he “acted out of exclusive love.” “I would say visceral love, for the Church of Christ and its visible head,'' Gabriele told the court in a steady voice. "If I have to repeat it, I am not a thief," he added. Gabriele's lawyer, Cristiana Arru, said the sentence was ``good and balanced'' and said she was awaiting the court's
formal explanation of its verdict before deciding whether to appeal. She had asked the court to reduce the charges from aggravated theft to misappropriation and for him to be freed. Arru said Gabriele would return to his Vatican City apartment to begin serving his sentence. He has been held on house arrest there since July after spending his first two months in a Vatican detention room.