The Popes butler arrested

[jagman]

This just in on the wire. Sorry no link yet
Officials at Vatican City say they have arrested the Popes butler for leaking secret
documents. At the time of the butlers arrest documents were found in his possession.

[Wantsthetruth74]

Thats is really too bad he got caught with them. Something tells me he "under contract" now. I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall over there. lol

[Cidersomerset]

Beat me to it mate..LOL..Steve

The Guardian.....



Pope Benedict XVI with his butler Paolo Gabriele (bottom left) and private secretary Georg Gänswein. Photograph: Andrew Medichini/AP

The pope's butler has been formally charged over suspicions he leaked a large number of confidential letters addressed to Benedict XVI which have lifted the lid on alleged corruption and nepotism at the Holy See.

Vatican magistrates charged Paolo Gabriele, 46, with illegal possession of secret documents and said a wider investigation would take place to see if he had any accomplices who helped him leak them.

Gabriele, who has worked as Benedict's butler since 2006, was taken into custody after investigators reportedly found a mass of documents in the Vatican apartment he shares with his wife and three children.

The arrest comes a month after the Vatican gave an investigative team led by Cardinal Julián Herranz, a member of Opus Dei, a full "pontifical mandate" to join Vatican police in rooting out the perpetrators of what has been dubbed Vatileaks.

Gabriele is a member of the 85-year-old pontiff's closest circle of helpers, assisting him in his papal apartment at the Vatican alongside four female members of the Italian religious movement Comunione e Liberazione who cook and clean.

The Rome-born butler is in custody in the Vatican's cells.

"We have cells," said a Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. "It is a simple structure, since this is a small state, but we have them."

Among the most serious leaks published this year is a letter from Carlo Maria Viganò, the former deputy governor of Vatican City, denouncing inflated contracts with friendly companies, false invoicing and missing cash.

Further revelations were published this week in a book by a journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who described how an unnamed whistleblower sent emissaries to sound him out before they held secret meetings in an unfurnished rented flat near the Vatican. "I wore a USB round my neck for six months with the leaked documents on it," Nuzzi said. "It was like something out of a film."

In the book, the source says he was coming clean because "hypocrisy within the Vatican goes unchallenged and scandals multiply".

The book, which was described as criminal by the Vatican, alleged that the editor of the Vatican's newspaper started a gay smear campaign against a rival editor, with the help of a newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family.

Letters depict collusion between the Berlusconi government and the Vatican over how to avoid EU pressure to make the Catholic church pay tax on its properties.

Huge cash donations to the pope from banks and a TV presenter are described, as well as a €100,000 (£80,000) truffle sent by a businessman which was donated to the poor.

"After Pope John Paul II's death I started putting aside copies of some documents that came into my possession thanks to my work," the source told Nuzzi.

"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."

The source said his growing disenchantment with the "personal interests and hidden truths" at the Vatican was shared by other people living and working in the city state, but "nobody knows who all the others are".

The letters show the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a bad light but spare the pope. "The source backed Benedict's reforming spirit. The problem is that the pope has not been able to achieve things very quickly," said Nuzzi.

Marco Tosatti, a Vatican expert at La Stampa newspaper, said: "I don't believe they would have arrested him if they didn't have real proof, but I believe he is not the only guilty one. I imagine he will go before an Italian court and risks 20 years for stealing correspondence from a head of state."

Other letters reveal a row over improving transparency at the Vatican bank after it was implicated in the 1980s in the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano whose chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging under London Bridge.

On Thursday, the Vatican bank's president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was brought in to improve transparency, was ousted "for not having carried out various responsibilities of primary importance regarding his office," the Vatican said in a statement.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...?newsfeed=true

Sounds like another book for Dan Brown coming up !!!!

[Maia Gabrial]

He should be commended for revealing the corruption....

[ghostrider]

the messenger of God has secrets ??? thought he was supposed to bring people to the light of the truth ??? Jesus didn't keep any secrets.. thought the pope was supposed to forgive, show mercy , be like Jesus, heal, teach, help the poor, open blind eyes not hide things from them. sorry feeling a little sarcastic today. The pope obviously isn't following the teachings of Jesus.

[gypsybutterflykiss]

Posted by ghostrider (here)
the messenger of God has secrets ??? thought he was supposed to bring people to the light of the truth ??? Jesus didn't keep any secrets.. thought the pope was supposed to forgive, show mercy , be like Jesus, heal, teach, help the poor, open blind eyes not hide things from them. sorry feeling a little sarcastic today. The pope obviously isn't following the teachings of Jesus.

Have the Catholic Churches or the Vatican ever followed the teachings of Christ? I lean towards the answer of no. It'll be nice to see these dolts lose power..
Things are turning around.. Hats off to the butler! His conscious must've been getting the best of him these days..

No need to apologize for sarcasm Ghostrider, I have a feeling many of us are a little sarcastic as of lately.

[jagman]

The Butler always knows everything! All joking aside, Mr.Gabriele life is probably in danger.

[Fundy Gemini]

For anyone interested, this is a new site that I've recently been exploring:
Vatileaks (like wikileaks for the vatican) http://www.vatileaks.com/

.. this is the year for secrets revealed

[ghostrider]

Posted by jagman (here)
The Butler always knows everything! All joking aside, Mr.Gabriele life is probably in danger.

yea , the butler did it.

[apokalypse]

Posted by ghostrider (here)
the messenger of God has secrets ??? thought he was supposed to bring people to the light of the truth ??? Jesus didn't keep any secrets.. thought the pope was supposed to forgive, show mercy , be like Jesus, heal, teach, help the poor, open blind eyes not hide things from them. sorry feeling a little sarcastic today. The pope obviously isn't following the teachings of Jesus.

damn right, last year i saw this program they show the place where Vatican kept all of files/documents, one interesting is one area that they cannot show or nobody can go in which i believe they call it secret Vatican archives...till this day i keep asking what is it they must keep it as secret nobody allow have access to? i have told to some people about the area where they keep the files considered as Top Secret Documents but no use, they still fall asleep no questioning on Vatican and demand them reveal all of the files...

[nearing]

The Pope shouldn't HAVE a goddamn butler!

Frickin' hypocrite.

[CurtisW]

Posted by nearing (here)
The Pope shouldn't HAVE a goddamn butler!

Frickin' hypocrite.

Completely untrue....

It's a well-known fact that Jesus had a rotating staff of 12 butlers, and a (more or less) full-time cleaning lady in Mary Magdalene.

Shouldn't the Pope, as Christ's representative on earth, be accorded the same meager privileges?

[songsfortheotherkind]

Posted by CurtisW (here)

Posted by nearing (here)
The Pope shouldn't HAVE a goddamn butler!

Frickin' hypocrite.

Completely untrue....

It's a well-known fact that Jesus had a rotating staff of 12 butlers, and a (more or less) full-time cleaning lady in Mary Magdalene.

Shouldn't the Pope, as Christ's representative on earth, be accorded the same meager privileges?

Jesus and his 12 butlers! I'm falling about all over the place here.

[Bryn ap Gwilym]

It will be interesting to see if the PopeOfile will practice what is in the Great book.
Turn the other cheek - Vengeance is Mine saith the Lord!

[Maia Gabrial]

The Butler always knows everything! All joking aside, Mr.Gabriele life is probably in danger.

Isn't it ALWAYS the butler who did it....?

[Chuck]

Posted by CurtisW (here)

and a (more or less) full-time cleaning lady in Mary Magdalene.

Always amazing to me what people come up with...

[Arrowwind]

Of course this brave butler will suffer the consequences and the law of the vatican nation... but perhaps the vatican lawyers and secret service will blunder everything and he will get off the hook the way Daniel Ellsburg did with the Penatagon Papers. I hope he has another stash somewhere ready for release.

Either way he should be commended

[noxon medem]

typical:

The Butler did it ...

:- )

and the real criminals
are still hiding in the
shadows ....

(it will be sorted, do not relax)

[noxon medem]

Posted by Bryn ap Gwilym (here)
It will be interesting to see if the PopeOfile will practice what is in the Great book.
Turn the other cheek - Vengeance is Mine saith the Lord!

turning the other cheek
could be turning the
cheek of vengeance ...

and you might be the lords
only sword, here on earth ..

( there is many .).

..
-

nm

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

it will be interesting to find out what the punishment will be. I think eh will die bedfore that happens though. Or diappears.