Paolo Gabriele, Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler who has been accused of the theft of confidential documents from the papal apartment, will take the witness stand on Tuesday. During Saturday’s start of the trial, the Vatican tribunal said Gabriele’s trial will be separate from that of Claudio Sciarpelletti who was charged for allegedly aiding and Read more
Some institutions may not adapt to 21st-century radical transparency. The papacy’s turn to inflammatory rhetoric while hit by a series of damaging leaks suggests that it’s struggling. Strange things have been happening at the Vatican this year. Beginning in January, documents written by high-level figures in the Catholic Church began finding their way into the Read more
Paolo Gabriele, Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler, will go on trial Saturday for allegedly stealing the pope’s documents and passing them off to a journalist in what has since been dubbed as the Vatileaks scandal. Gabriele has been charged with aggravated theft and faces up to four years in prison if convicted by the three-judge Read more
The Vatileaks report has been on the Pope’s desk for three weeks according to Vatican Insider’s well-informed sources. The three ‘detective-Cardinals’, Julian Herranz, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi presented the Pontiff with a hefty dossier containing mostly transcriptions of hearings in question and answer form. The content, which is being kept top-secret, is said to give Read more
There are at least 20 people involved in stealing and leaking compromising Vatican documents. The claim comes from the Papal Butler, Paolo Gabriele, who recently parted ways with his lawyer, and who has been charged with aggravated thief and is likely to be tried for his part in Vatileaks scandal at the Vatican next month. Despite Read more
The lawyer representing former papal butler Paolo Gabriele has quit just weeks before before Gabriele is due to stand trial for stealing confidential papers. Attorney Carlo Fusco, a childhood friend of Gabriele, told Associated Press’ Nicole Whitfield that his decision to quit is the result of a difference in opinion over the defence strategy. Fusco Read more
The German Bishops’ Conference says the Vatican has quietly dropped its lawsuit against a satirical German magazine over a cover that depicted Pope Benedict XVI with a yellow stain on his robe. A Hamburg court had granted an injunction barring the magazine, Titanic, from distributing the image that fronted its July edition, headlined “Hallelujah at Read more
Only the truth behind the Vatileaks scandal can free the Catholic Church. It has all the makings of a Hollywood adaptation of a Dan Brown novel. Secrets of the Vatican exposed, documents stolen from the Pope’s desk, rows and rivalries between cardinals, vast sums of money, the involvement of the cultish organisation Opus Dei. And Read more
The Pope’s personal assistant passed confidential papers to an Italian journalist after seeing “evil and corruption everywhere in the Church”, according to the examining judge in the Vatileaks investigation. In a 35-page report, Judge Piero Bonnet said Paolo Gabriele — who has been charged with “aggravated theft” — felt sure Pope Benedict was not aware Read more
The Vatican has flatly denied European media reports that three officials close to Pope Benedict are being investigated in connection with the leaking of confidential paper documents. A report in the online edition of the German newspaper Die Welt, republished in the Italian daily La Repubblica, claimed the involvement of the three officials in the Read more