The Vatican whistle-blower prisoner of conscience Gabriele, facing up to 30 years in Vatican Jail

[Reverend DSouza]

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Paolo Gabriele was always a reserved, almost
shy man, as his position required. He had access to the most private
rooms in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace - Pope Benedict's apartment.
But what could have prompted the pope's butler, who was formally
charged by Vatican magistrates on Saturday with illegal possession of
secret documents, to betray the man who trusted him?
Was it money? Probably not.
Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who revealed some of the
leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican and internal
conflict over the role of the Vatican bank, declines to reveal his
sources but insists he gave no money to them.
Nuzzi, a respected journalist with a good track record whose book "His
Holiness" contains some of the allegations, says those who gave him
the documents were devout people "genuinely concerned about the
Catholic Church" who wanted to expose corruption.
The 46-year-old Gabriele, facing up to 30 years in prison if
convicted, lives in a comfortable apartment in the Vatican with his
wife and three children, and is said by all who knew him to be very
religious.
While Vatican employees do not receive large salaries, they do enjoy
benefits such as low rent, no income tax, and cheap food and petrol at
the commissaries of the 108-acre city-state.
On papal flights, the handsome, clean-cut Gabriele rarely came into
the press section. When he did, he was polite to journalists but
resisted any attempt to squeeze information out of him.
A priest who knows Gabriele told the newspaper La Stampa on Saturday
that he was "a man of simplicity" who would not have been able to
organise a campaign of leaks.
"Why would he risk the good family life he built?" the priest, who was
not identified, told the newspaper's Vatican affairs writer, author
Andrea Tornielli.
MOTIVE A MYSTERY
Indeed, as in any good mystery, the question on many people's minds
is: What was the motive?
If the whistleblower really is the man who helped the pope dress,
served his meals, and rode next to the driver of the 'popemobile' in
St Peter's Square, could he have done it on his own?
Many commentators doubted it, and some speculated that he may have
been a pawn in a larger, internal power struggle, the words
"scapegoat", "plot" and "conspiracy" tripping off their tongues.
Some commentators have said that the Machiavellian machinations that
have come to light recently are part of a campaign of reciprocal mud-
slinging by allies and enemies of the Vatican secretary of state,
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
"This is not just a leak of documents that can be defined as a
betrayal," Church historian Alberto Melloni wrote in the Corriere
della Sera newspaper, saying it was part of a power struggle among
cardinals in the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.
"This is a strategy of tension, an orgy of vendettas and pre-emptive
vendettas that has now spun out of the control of those who thought
they could orchestrate it," Melloni said.
Another Church historian, Vittorio Messori, who wrote books with
Benedict before he was elected pope in 2005, told La Stampa: "The
Curia has always been a nest of vipers."
It remains to be seen if the papal butler, if he is guilty, was a lone
idealistic whistleblower, or a victim of that nest.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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