Vatican News, the Holy See's media portal, said Mr Gabriele died on Tuesday after a long, undisclosed illness.

Mr Gabriele's case kicked off the first of two Vatileaks scandals, exposing the internal tumult and turf wars in the Holy See and allegations of corruption and wrongdoing at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

Mr Gabriele was arrested in May 2012 after Vatican police found what they called an "enormous" stash of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment that he had stolen from the papal apartments.

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Gianluigi Nuzzi faced court over his last book (Vatican SpA) for leaking confidential Vatican documents.

His new book is called Original Sin: Secret Accounts, Hidden Truths, Blackmail and the Forces Blocking Pope Francis's Revolution.

The book will be released in Italy and France on 9 November.

Some of the documents reproduced in the book are said to come from the Vatican bank archives and the Institute for Religious Works.

The book is said to cover the period from Pope Paul VI in the 1960s to Pope Francis.

Nuzzi and fellow journalist Emmanuele Fittipaldi were tried in a Vatican court in 2015 after they published books based on leaked documents.

The documents exposed greed, mismanagement and corruption among the Church's senior clergy.

After an eight-month trial, the Vatican's criminal court said it had no jurisdiction to prosecute them.

It convicted Monsignor Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda, who was sentenced to 18 months, and public relations consultant Francesca Chaouqui, who was sentenced to 10 months.

Balda and Chaouqui were members of a dismantled Vatican commission set up to look into the Vatican's finances.

Chaouqui received a suspended sentence, while Vallejo Balda was granted "conditional freedom" by Pope Francis shortly before Christmas 2016.

Source

• Crux
• The Salt Lake Tribune
• Image: Chiarelettere

A Vatican court acquitted two Italian journalists whose books contained material from leaked confidential financial documents.

The court ruled it did not have jurisdiction over Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi.

But Msgr Lucio Vallejo Balda will get an 18 month prison sentence for leaking documents.

Francesca Chaouqui was given a 10 month suspended sentence.

The court decided her role was one of encouraging the leaks.

Prosecutors had earlier described her as the instigator of the leaks and had recommended a long jail sentence.

Msgr Balda's secretary, Nicola Maio, was acquitted at the conclusion of the trial which started last November.

The five defendants were being tried under a new law created by Pope Francis to criminalise leaking.

Breaking this law carries a maximum eight-year prison sentence.

Both Ms Chaouqui and Msgr Balda had been appointed by Pope Francis to serve on a high-level commission to overhaul the Vatican's finances.

Nuzzi's book, Merchants in the Temple, and Fittipaldi's book, Avarice, focused on the irregularities uncovered by the commission.

Widespread financial mismanagement inside the Holy See was revealed.

Also revealed were embarrassing details about the canonisation process, which costs up to €500,000 and the size of cardinals' apartments.

Msgr Balda, who has been under house arrest, is likely to serve his sentence in one of the handful of the Vatican's prison cells.

It has been speculated, however, that the Pope might pardon him during the Year of Mercy.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Image: The Tablet

"I can assure you that no reserved documents ever passed from my hands," Chaouqui said. "Never, never," she during her testimony at the resumption of the trial that centered on the publication of two books based on leaked documents.

Chaouqui said she only gave journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi an invitation to a Vatican reception and a collection of newspaper clippings.

Nuzzi's book, "Merchants in the Temple," and Emiliano Fittipaldi's "Avarice" depict a Vatican plagued by financial irregularities.

Chaouqui is on trial along with Monsignor Vallejo Balda, Nicola Maio, the monsignor's former assistant, Nuzzi, and Fittipaldi.

Balda, Chaouqui, and Maio have been accused of "committing several illegal acts of divulging news and documents concerning fundamental interests of the Holy See."

Nuzzi and Fittipaldi were accused of "soliciting and exercising pressure, especially on Vallejo Balda, in order to obtain confidential documents and news."

Sources

ABC News
Catholic Herald
Daily Mail
Image: Catholic Herald

Chaouqui, a former member of an economic reform commission established by Pope Francis, is accused of conspiring with Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda to leak documents.

Vallejo Balda, who had sat on a top level papal commission overhauling the Holy See's finances, admitted giving confidential financial documents to journalists.

But he said he did so under duress having been effectively blackmailed by his female colleague.

Chaouqui, who is married, has categorically denied having sex with the cleric.

She implied that Vallejo Balda had confided in her about a previous gay encounter or relationship.

"He told me something in confidence, something he said only I knew," she wrote.

Chaouqui said the cleric's claims against her had made her decide to reveal what he had told her in court.

The prosecution claimed during the last court session on Tuesday that Chaouqui had sent the Spanish priest a WhatsApp message in which she warned: "I will destroy you in the press and you know I can do it."

He has also claimed that she led him to believe she had links to the Italian secret services and contacts with the mafia and powerful politicians.

The Holy See has been pursuing the prosecution of two investigative journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who have published books based on leaked documents.

Sources

AFP/Yahoo
Daily Mail
NanoNews
Image: AFP/Daily Mail

"Yes, I passed documents. I did it spontaneously, probably not fully lucid," said Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda during a Vatican City trial on Monday.

"I was convinced I was in a situation without exit," said Balda, former secretary of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs.

Balda is one of five people, including two journalists, who face up to eight years in jail, for breaking a Vatican law created by Pope Francis in 2013 criminalizing the leaking of documents.

The priest admitted passing material to journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi who both wrote books revealing widespread financial mismanagement in the Vatican.

Balda said he was under pressure from fellow defendant and member of the commission, Francesca Chaouqui, a 34-year-old PR expert.

He explained that he felt under pressure from Chaouqui who at one time he had been close to.

The priest said he believed Chaouqui mingled in a "dangerous world" of Italian power brokers.

Sources

The Guardian
AFP/Yahoo News
Catholic News Agency
The Tablet
Image: Getty Images/The Guardian

The trial has been adjourned for three months to enable computer experts to recover deleted email, text and WhatsApp messages between some of the accused.

Francesca Chaouqui, a pregnant former PR adviser to the Vatican and one of the accused, has been granted the right to call as witnesses Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, and Cardinal Santo Abril y Castello.

Chaouqui has been accused of conspiring with Spanish priest Lucio Vallejo Balda and his assistant Nicola Maio, to leak secret documents they had access to as members of a commission appointed by Pope Francis to spearhead a financial clean-up shortly after his election in 2013.

The two journalists on trial, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, have published books based on the documents at the heart of the trial.

All five accused have been prosecuted under anti-leaks legislation, which could see them receive prison terms of between four and eight years.

The Vatican has been criticized by press freedom groups for pursuing the prosecution of the two journalists, who say they were only doing their jobs by revealing problems that believers and the broader public have a right to know about.

Sources

AFP/Yahoo News
The Irish Times
ANSA
Image: ANSA

This statement came during his general audience in St Peter's Square on Wednesday.

The Pope said: "Before beginning the catechesis, I would like to ask forgiveness in the name of the Church for the scandals that have happened in this last period both in Rome and at the Vatican. I ask forgiveness."

The Pope's apology came at the beginning of a catechetical reflection that was focused on caring for children.

There has been speculation as to which specific scandals the Pope was apologising for.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, Vatican told reporters later, "if the Pope uses a broad and general formula, that is what he intended".

Fr Lombardi said Francis wanted to reach out to ordinary people who are "disturbed or pained" when they read about scandals caused by "the Church or men of the Church".

Vatican commentator John Thavis wrote in his blog that there were several scandals for the Pope to choose from.

• "The gay official of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation who recently came out with his partner, saying the climate at his workplace was homophobic?"
• "Accusations of sexual impropriety made by a group of Catholics against priests and an official of the Carmelite religious order in Rome? "
• "The resignation of Rome's leftist mayor, Ignazio Marino, following press reports that the Pope was unhappy with the mayor's action on a number of issues?"
• "The accusations of sexual abuse against a Vatican diplomat, who was found dead in his Vatican residence in late August before he could stand trial?"
• "Or this week's leak of a ‘Letter of 13' cardinals to the Pope, contesting the direction and methods of the current synod of bishops on the family, which was followed by a series of confusing denials and clarifications?"

Thavis also said that the Pope's subsequent references to the care of children could suggest that it was a reference to clerical sexual abuse.

But he added that there is also growing concern at the return of the "Vatileaks" syndrome that helped convince Pope Benedict XVI to resign in 2013.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• John Thavis
• Reuters
• Image: Manila Bulletin

"This is a choice for obscurantism, far from transparency and press freedom," Gianluigi Nuzzi said on his Twitter account.

In the scandal that globally became known as Vatileaks, Nuzzi published a book "Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI".

Nuzzi had submitted his accreditation application online on behalf of the private television channel La7.

He said he received a letter on Monday saying he had been denied without any explanation.

More than 5,600 journalists have been accredited to cover the election of the next pope.

Source

• Inquirer News
• @GianluigiNuzzi
• Image: Lanostratv.it

"They want to be briefed on the report," said a cardinal, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity. "But it is a very long report and technically it is secret," he said.

The contents of the report came up during the morning session but the Cardinal declined to say if the requests to be briefed were made in the formal sessions or informal coffee break discussions or both.

However Cardinal Agnelo, 79, emeritus archbishop of Sao Salvador da Bahia and primate emeritus of Brazil, was a little more forth-coming. Speaking personally, he says he wants the report given to the 115 cardinals who are going to vote in the conclave.

"If there was a commission and they reached any conclusion, we will want to know it," he told Folha.

Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis, president of Brazilian Conference of Bishops, also said he expects to see at least a summary of the findings before voting.

"It is important to know what is said in these papers. Up to now, all I know is from what the news is saying," he said.

Chicago's Cardinal Francis George however was somewhat more coy when asked if cardinals wanted to be briefed on the report.

"As far as the state of the church here in Rome is concerned, I would imagine that as we move along there will be questioning of cardinals involved in the governing of the curia to see what they think has to be changed and in that context anything can come up," George said.

The report was prepared for Benedict, who is now "Pope Emeritus," by three elderly cardinals who investigated the so-called Vatileaks scandal last year. The three are attending the preliminary meetings but will not enter the conclave.

Benedict decided to make the report available only to his successor.

Sources

• Reuters
• Folha
• World Crunch
• Image L'Osservatore Romano
  

The wiretaps were part of its Vatileaks investigation.

The admission came as Panorama magazine reported Thursday, that the Vatican Secretariat of State had ordered wiretaps on the phones of several Vatican prelates as part of an investigation into the scandal in which confidential documents were leaked to the news media and the author of a tell-all book.

Vatican watchers have described the wiretapping as a shocking breach of trust and an indication of the high levels of distrust since the leaks scandal.

Panorama's Vatican expert, Ignazio Ingrao, called the Vatican's clandestine efforts "a sort of Vatican Big Brother" operation.

"Everyone was spied on in the Vatican," he said.

Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi S.J., said that magistrates of the Vatican "might have authorized some wiretaps or some checks," but nothing on a significant scale.

The Vatican has also denied Panorama's claim that the wiretapping was ordered by the former pope's right hand man, Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Lombardi said if wiretapping was authorized, it was ordered by magistrates and not by Bertone.

Panorama also alleged the wiretapping is ongoing.

Lombardi said the idea of "an investigation that creates an atmosphere of fear of mistrust that will now affect the conclave has no foundation in reality".

Sources

• NY Times
• LA Times
• Huffington Post
• Image ucanews.com

As part of his 'motu proprio' (at his own initiative) released on February 25, Pope Benedict outlined the penalty for such and infraction is automatic excommunication.

With his 'motu proprio' the Holy Father wanted to make things immediate clear and not leave the matter to his successor, Archbishop Celata of the Holy See press office said.

Under the prior rules, any such person who violated the pact of secrecy was subject to punishment at the discretion of the new pope.

Two lay technicians will also be at the Papal Conclave.

The lay technicians' task is to assist the officers of the College of Cardinals, assuring that no audio-visual equipment for recording or transmitting has been installed by anyone in the restricted areas, and particularly in the Sistine Chapel itself, where the acts of election are carried out.

Excommunication is a grave punishment for Catholics and represents the "principal and severest censure that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the Church.

It is the most serious penalty the Church can inflict.

Sources

• CNA
• IB Times

In reality it's one of the most serious security breaches in modern Vatican history.

But the real scandal is not the crime of the Butler.

The real scandal is what the leaked documents reveal: administrative chaos, lack of communication, financial mismanagement, intrigue, ambition and factional fighting at the highest level of the Roman Curia.

The culture which enabled the "Vatileaks" scandal to happen has been exposed. It's a ball of wool that's almost impossible to untangle - even by a pope. Something is very wrong inside the Vatican and its system. Plainly, we're talking of systemic dysfunctioning.

A bad system makes good people do bad things.

Cardinals outside the Vatican Curia have expressed their concerns. In June 2012 the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris called for "a reform of the Curia which is unsuitable for the present-day Church." A year earlier the Cardinal Archbishop of Austria said, "It is no secret that the Roman Curia is in urgent need of reform."

The Pope's last speeches have been loaded with words of warning against the very attitudes that have been exposed in the "Vatileaks" scandal.

Vatican observers have been quick to notice that Benedict's last morning in office will be spent with the three senior Cardinals who investigated the affair, and who have prepared a tell-all report on the issue. Many people may want to turn the page on this moment; but it seems that one of Benedict's last gestures will be to ensure that the book remains open until the inner workings of the Vatican can be reformed, root and branches.

Source

Fr Craig Larkin is a New Zealand priest who lives in Rome

"If in the past, the so-called powers, i.e., States, exerted pressures on the election of the Pope, today there is an attempt to do this through public opinion," read a statement from the Vatican Secretariat of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

"It is deplorable that as we draw closer to the time of the beginning of the Conclave and the Cardinal electors will be held in conscience and before God, to freely indicate their choice, that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories, that cause serious damage to persons and institutions," the statement said.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi dismissed the newspaper articles as "gossip, disinformation and sometimes calumny" the reports, which are linked to an investigation by a committee of cardinals last year over a series of damaging leaks of confidential papal documents.

The stories in question have focused on individual cardinals linked to sex-abuse scandals, but the major headache comes from claims that Benedict's resignation is linked to a special dossier prepared by a trio of cardinals appointed by the pope last year to investigate the papal letter-leaking scandal known as Vatileaks.

The left-leaning daily la Repubblica asserted that the cardinals' report revealed how laymen had blackmailed Vatican officials to whom they had links of a "worldly nature."

According to Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, the decision to give Archbishop-elect Gänswein control of the papal household should be seen in the context of the Vatileaks scandal, in which confidential documents from the Pope's desk were leaked and published.

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According to Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, a chip in the cards will make it possible to locate the card's owner at any time.

The cards are just one of the tougher Vatican security measures being adopted. They also include the obligation to declare every document that is photocopied.

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The technician, Claudio Sciarpelletti, was found guilty of aiding and abetting Pope Benedict XVI's personal assistant, Paolo Gabriele, in the theft of confidential papal documents which were then leaked to a journalist.

The Vatican court originally gave Sciarpelletti a four-month sentence, but the term was reduced due to extenuating circumstances.

Sciarpelletti, 48, was arrested after an anonymous tip led to a search of his desk. An envelope was found addressed to Gabriele containing copies of documents that had been leaked to the Italian media

Sciarpelletti's lawyer argued that his client was in an "emotional state" when he gave confused and contradictory testimony to investigators, leading to the charges levelled against him.

However Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre said the court concluded Sciarpelletti helped Gabriele "elude the investigations of the authorities" at the Vatican.

In a separate trial in October, Gabriele was given an 18-month prison sentence, which he is serving in a Vatican police cell.

Meanwhile, sources close to Gabriele's family have indicated that the committee of cardinals the Pope charged with investigating the Vatileaks case have recommended a papal pardon for him.

Earlier, after Gabriele wrote a letter of apology to Benedict XVI, the Pope sent him an autographed book of psalms.

Sources:

ANSA

Catholic News Agency

Image: Ultimahora.com

Gabriele began serving his prison sentence by order of a Vatican court, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.

"The order will be carried out before the end of the day," he said on Thursday.

He will be detained in one of the recently refurbished prison cells inside the Vatican police barracks.

Lombardi said Gabriele will not be able to seek any employment in the Vatican in the future. He added that Gabriele's violation of the trust of the pope and the privacy of so many people underlines his "incompatibility" with employment at the Vatican.

The Vatican will proceed "with humanity and attention," Lombardi told the Catholic News Service. The spokesman said the Vatican will take into consideration the fact that the 46-year-old Italian was supporting a family with three children in an apartment on Vatican property.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, said Gabriele's crime caused great damage to the pope and to the universal church.

By stealing private correspondence to and from the pope, and other sensitive documents, and by leaking them to an Italian journalist, Gabriele committed "a personal offence against the Holy Father," the cardinal was quoted in a CNS report.

His actions also "violated the right to privacy of many people; created prejudice against the Holy See and its different institutions; created an obstacle between the communications of the world's bishops and the Holy See; and caused scandal to the community of the faithful," Bertone said.

After a Vatican-led investigation, which started in May, and four days of courtroom proceedings attended by a pool of Vatican journalists, Gabriele was found guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced on Oct. 6.

Cardinal Bertone said the whole process was carried out with "transparency, equanimity, and in full respect of the rights" of the accused.

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Agence France Presse
• BBC
• Image: Reuters/BBC

Several European newspapers published an op-ed piece by Gianluigi Nuzzi, the book's author, defending the actions of Gabriele, the Associated Press reported.

Gabriele has been convicted on Saturday of aggravated theft for stealing the pope's private correspondence and passing it onto Nuzzi.

Gabriele confessed to photocopying some of the pope's private letters and giving them to Nuzzi, saying he wanted to shed light on the "evil and corruption" he saw around him in the Vatican that he believed was being kept from the pope.

Nuzzi said he wanted to further explain Gabriele's motives, which he said he ascertained over the course of several encounters that formed the basis of the book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers," which was published in May.

He said Gabriele was at the receiving end of disgruntled Vatican cardinals, bishops and managers who came to him "day after day" with their secrets and concerns "hoping he would bring them to the pope."

"Surely enjoying a privileged point of view — for six years he was one of the people closest to the Holy Father in the pontifical apartment — Gabriele strongly doubted that Benedict XVI was always aware or received truthful information," Nuzzi wrote.

"He spoke to me about this profound perplexity, his discomfort as evidenced by a filial love for the pope, a veneration for his simplicity, recounting stories of a man in the middle of the wolves."

Many of the issues Gabriele brought to light haven't yet been explained, "but certainly they explain the frustration of a man who, when confronting these intrigues, perceived the fragility of his pastor in a battle between good and evil," Nuzzi wrote.

The three-judge Vatican tribunal reduced Gabriele's three-year sentence in half, in part because he admitted he had betrayed the pope and thought "albeit erroneously" that he was doing the right thing.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said a papal pardon is "likely" although there's no knowing when it might come.

Nuzzi appealed for a pardon, noting that Gabriele's leaks didn't reveal state or military secrets but merely shed light on events that were damaging the church.

Nuzzi was neither charged in the case nor called to testify. The Vatican didn't investigate him for receiving stolen goods because the handoff of documents occurred on Italian soil, out of the Vatican's jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the swift conviction of Gabriele leaves lingering suspicions that he was a pawn in a much larger Vatican intrigue, Reuters reported.

The report said that despite the Vatican's desire to quickly turn the page on one of the worst scandals in its recent history, the trial of Gabriele has left many questions unanswered, leading some to call it a whitewash.

Sources

• AP/The Washington Post
• Reuters
• Yahoo
• Image: Reuters

Gabriele claimed that his cell was so small he could not extend his arms, and the light was kept on permanently.

The judges have ordered an inquiry into his allegations.

The Vatican police said conditions inside the police security room respected international standards and Gabriele's rights were never violated.

Authorities accused Gabriele of stealing highly sensitive papers the pontiff had marked "to be destroyed" and compromised Vatican security through his actions.

On Tuesday, Gabriele pleaded not guilty to theft, but admitted abusing the pope's trust and photocopying documents.

He said he leaked the papers, which revealed alleged corruption at the Vatican, because he thought the pope was being manipulated.

The Vatican police on Wednesday, however, told the tribunal they found thousands of documents hidden inside the home of Gabriele.

Prosecutors have said Gabriele confessed to leaking copies of the documents to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he wanted to expose the "evil and corruption" in the church to help put it back on the right path.

The final four witnesses in the trial were heard Wednesday and closing arguments are set for Saturday, when a verdict by the three-judge Vatican panel is expected.

During the hearing, Gabriele recounted his daily life in the shadow of the pope on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace, the BBC reported.

The report said the Vatican tribunal wants to wrap up the trial by the weekend, before the arrival in Rome next week of 200 Catholic bishops from around the world due to discuss the New Evangelisation at a three-week Synod.
This month also marks the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

The BBC said the butler's trial has eclipsed all other Vatican news this week in the world's media.

Sources

• BBC
• Reuters/The Globe and Mail
• AP/Huffington Post
• Image: Getty Images/BBC