The Pope's Butler Is No Hero

Leaked documents, most of them confidential letters between various clergymen in the Catholic Church, and many to and from the Pope himself, have found their way into the media since last January. The biggest bombshells came by way of a book written by investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi called Sua Santità. This is just one of six books Nuzzi has written since 2009 concerning the inner workings of the Vatican. Nuzzi refuses to name his sources. Nor do we know what, if anything, he paid for the leaked documents.

We learned a couple of weeks ago that the Pope's butler/personal assistant, Paolo Gabriele, admitted to leaking the documents. And we learned in the past couple of days that he had help by way of another Vatican employee—computer analyst Claudio Sciarpelletti. Gabriele claims that he leaked these documents as "an agent of the Holy Spirit" for the good of the Church and to "help" the Pope. He denies having been paid for the leaked documents.

However, after raiding Gabriele's apartment in May, not only were more stolen letters and other documents found, but also a stolen a check for 100,000 Euros ($124,000), a gold nugget and a valuable 16th century book all belonging to the Church.

Does this sound like a do-gooder? I'm sure there's plenty of corruption in the Catholic Church. After all, they've never denied the content of any of these letters. But I don't think this butler is any kind of a hero for a minute. He's now been indicted on aggravated theft and his co-conspirator, Sciarpelletti, will face charges for complicity. I believe that if Nuzzi and other media persons involved with the leaks are pressed by the Italian police to reveal their sources we'll find that, not only did they come from the Pope's butler, but that a good deal of money was paid for them.

The American media needs to quit portraying this thieving butler as a great servant of the people.