(Start of the trial of Pope Benedict’s former butler Paolo Gabriele (3rd L, in grey), accused of stealing and leaking the pontiff’s personal papers, at the Vatican September 29, 2012. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano)
Pope Benedict’s former butler stole highly sensitive papers the pontiff had marked “to be destroyed” and compromised Vatican security through his actions, the Holy See’s police told his trial on Wednesday.
On the third day of Paolo Gabriele’s trial, testimony depicted a man fascinated by the occult, Masonic lodges, secret services and past Italian and Vatican scandals.
“You can understand our unease when we saw these documents. This was a total violation of the privacy of the papal family,” said police agent Stefano De Santis, one of the four agents who said they found the papers in Gabriele’s home, using a Vatican term for the pope’s closest aides.
Gabriele’s leak to an Italian journalist of sensitive documents, some of them alleging corruption in the Vatican, caused one of the biggest crises of Pope Benedict’s papacy.
