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Pope Pardons Ex-Butler

Paolo Gabriele had been serving time for stealing papal documents

By the Associated Press

Posted Dec 22, 2012 6:37 AM CST

(AP) – Pope Benedict XVI has granted a Christmas pardon to his former butler, who stole the pope's private papers and leaked them to a journalist in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times. The Vatican said Benedict visited Paolo Gabriele in the Vatican police barracks this morning, and Gabriele was subsequently freed.

Gabriele was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found heaps of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal in October and had been serving his 18-month sentence in the Vatican police barracks. Gabriele told investigators he gave the documents to a journalist because he thought that exposing the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican would put the church back on the right track.
In this photo released by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the pope visits with former butler Paolo Gabriele at the Vatican Saturday.
In this photo released by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the pope visits with former butler Paolo Gabriele at the Vatican Saturday.   (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 8 comments
iq145
Feb 11, 2013 11:19 PM CST
Pope Benedict Arnold...
Iffida
Dec 22, 2012 10:33 AM CST
Well, so sweet ot the Pope.  LMAO..
jarkoer
Dec 22, 2012 9:05 AM CST
To say that the church has been "off track" since its inception is to say that Christ was "off track" since he began preaching. To talk about the Spanish Inquisition, it was mostly protestant propaganda and was actually quite humane compared to what protestants were doing to Catholics at the time. (Trivia: the Inquisition was the first European institution to declare that "witchcraft" was not a valid legal charge.) However, what it boils down to is that the Pope could sneeze, and all the anti-Christians, false Christians, atheists, libertarians, hedonists and other liberals would sneer and say that the Pope was developing biological weapons. There is no rationalism behind hating the Pope--only an ignorance of the real facts (Ooo! He was a Nazi! Bull $#!*) and a weak search for justification for your own behavior (Who is he to tell us about God? We'll all come up with our own opinions...never mind they're all different because as long as it leads us to hating someone else different from us it's all good.)

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Pope Benedict XVI • Vatican • pardon • butler • Paolo Gabriele

 
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