Pope Benedict XVI’s butler will cooperate in the expanding probe of leaked Vatican documents that threatens to implicate cardinals.
Paolo Gabriele, 46, caught redhanded with stolen papal paperwork last week, will assist investigators fully, one of his lawyers, Carlo Fusco, said yesterday.
But the pope’s spokesman denied widespread reports that senior Vatican officials were suspected of involvement.
Leading Italian newspapers carried interviews yesterday with an anonymous Vatican insider who said Gabriele is a fall guy for a wider group of whistleblowers.
“The real brains behind it are cardinals, then there are monsignors, secretaries, small fry,” the insider was quoted as saying.
The leaks were orchestrated to expose the growing power of Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, the insider told La Reppublica newspaper.
Bertone, the pope’s right-hand man, is so influential, he engineered the firing last week of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi as head of the Vatican bank, the insider said.
Since the “Vatileaks” scandal broke in January — when journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters from the pope’s former No. 2 Vatican administrator — there has been speculation that insiders were involved.
Papal spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters yesterdaythat people inside the Vatican are being questioned, but he rejected the newspaper reports.
“I categorically deny that any cardinal, Italian or otherwise, is a suspect,” Lombardi said.