Paolo Gabriele, formerly Pope Benedict XVI's butler and a key member of the Pope's inner circle, goes on trial this weekend, along with his accomplice, Claudio Sciarpelletti, formerly a computer expert in the Vatican's office of the Secretary of State.
The trial will be held in a Vatican courtroom by a Vatican tribunal. Gabriele has confessed to stealing personal, sensitive, and confidential documents (including letters) from the Pope and leaking them to Italian media.
A particularly fortunate beneficiary of Gabriele and Sciarpelletti's theft and breach of fiduciary responsibilities has been Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who received so many of the Pontiff's private letters and other documents that he used them in a wildly successful book titled "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's secret papers".
If convicted by the Vatican court (and they probably will be), Gabriele and Sciarpelletti face up to 4 years in an Italian prison.
So far, Gabriele's key defense or response has been that he leaked secret Vatican papers to the media "as an agent of the holy spirit" to help clean up corruption in the Catholic Church.
[www.todaysthv.com/news/September 28, 2012/ "Pope Benedict XVI butler Paolo Gabriele goes on trial"; news.yahoo.com/September 27, 2012/ "Pope's ex-butler goes on trial for leaked papers"; www.reuters.com/article/09-27-2012/ "Trial of Pope's ex-butler to shine big light on tiny Vatican"; www.upi.com/09-28-2012/ "Trial of Pope's butler set to begin"]
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