Paolo Gabriele
Papal butler convicted for his role in the ‘Vatileaks’ scandal
PAOLO GABRIELE, who has died aged 54, was the Vatican butler whose theft and leaking of private papers belonging to Pope
Benedict XVI touched off what became known as the “Vatileaks” scandal, with stories of internal squabbles, turf wars and allegations of corruption.
In January 2012, an Italian television show hosted by Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast private letters to the Pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the apostolic nuncio to the US and former deputy governor of Vatican City, in which he demanded a clean-up in the Church and complained of “corruption and mismanagement” in the Vatican’s financial affairs.
Nuzzi subsequently published a book, His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, which included other documents, and sparked an investigation into leaks at the Vatican.
Among other things, the book included documents purporting to show evidence of cash donations from banks and a talkshow host who wrote to the pontiff enclosing a cheque for 10,000 euros for his charity work and asking for a private audience in exchange.
Nuzzi described how an unnamed whistle-blower had contacted him and given him a USB drive with the leaked documents on it. The source explained that he was coming clean because “hypocrisy within the Vatican goes unchallenged and scandals multiply”.
In April the Vatican gave an investigative team led by Cardinal Julián Herranz a full “pontifical mandate” to join Vatican police in finding the leaker. Gabriele was taken into custody after investigators found “tens of thousands” of documents in his Vatican apartment, including documents published in Nuzzi’s book.
The arrest of a member of the pontiff ’s closest circle of helpers caused deep shock in the church. Put on trial on charges of “aggravated theft”, which he denied, Gabriele admitted he had leaked the documents, but insisted that he had acted “out of love for the Church of Christ and of its leader on Earth”, whom he felt was being manipulated.
“Seeing evil and
corruption everywhere in the Church,” he said, “I was sure that a shock, even in the media, might be just the thing to bring the Church back on the right track.”
He was found guilty in October 2012 and sentenced to 18 months in jail. In December, however, Pope Benedict granted him a pardon as a “paternal gesture”, but banished him from the Vatican.
Paolo Gabriele was born in Rome on August 16 1966. He began work as a cleaner in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State then worked as a member of the domestic staff of John Paul II before being promoted in 2006 to the post of Benedict XVI’S butler.
Along with four women housekeepers from the Memores Domini movement, Gabriele was one of the very few lay people closest to the Pope. As well as serving his meals and helping him don his garments, he accompanied Benedict abroad and often appeared in photographs alongside him.
In an interview with Nuzzi he explained that he had started putting aside documents after John Paul II’S death: “Initially I did it sporadically. When I saw that the truth coming out in the newspapers and official speeches did not match the truth in the documents I put everything aside in a folder to try and investigate and understand.”
One of his Memores Domini colleagues described Gabriele in court as “very pious. He went to the mass celebrated by the Holy Father every day and prayed a lot.”
However, psychologists who interviewed him in detention found “an impressionable subject able to commit a variety of actions that can damage himself and/or others”.
Gabriele was married and had three children.
Paolo Gabriele, born August 16 1966, died November 24 2020