Maybe the butler did it!

[struggle4progress]

25 May 2012
Last updated at 16:53 ET
Profile: Pope's butler Paolo Gabriele
By David Willey BBC News, Rome

You may have seen pictures of Paolo Gabriele, the 46-year-old, impeccably dressed black-suited Italian arrested on suspicion of stealing secret Vatican correspondence, without recognising who he is ...

He lives with his wife and three children in a "grace and favour" apartment just inside the walls of the Vatican.

According to Fr David Scito, professor of canon law at Rome's Papal Holy Cross University, Mr Gabriele will appear before the Apostolic Tribunal, the Vatican's Criminal Court, if he is charged with a crime that has been committed inside Vatican territory.

It is very rare for an arrest and trial to be held inside the Vatican ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18209957

[dimbear]

1. Selling scandal to tell-all book authors.........

A particularly butlerish crime.

[LongTomH]

2. Shades of the Roberto Calvi affair

Calvi, sometimes known as "God's Banker was found hanging from Blackfriar's Bridge in London, with his pockets stuffed with bricks, on 18 June, 1982.

Roberto Calvi was the chairman of Italy's second largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano when it went bankrupt in 1982. In 1978, the Bank of Italy had produced a report on the Banco Ambrosiano, which found that several billion lire had been exported illegally,which led to criminal investigations. In 1981, Calvi was tried, given a four-year suspended sentence and fined $19.8 million for tranferring $27 million out of the country in violation of Italian currency laws. He was released on bail pending appeal and kept his position at the bank. During his short spell in jail he attempted suicide. Calvi's family maintains that he had been manipulated by others and was innocent of crimes attributed to him

There were other mysterious 'suicides' associated with this affair: Michele Sindona, owner of the Franklin National Bank, died in prison after drinking coffee laced with cyanide; Calvi's private secretary, Graziella Corrocher, jumped to her death from a 5th floor window.

This case has been a favorite of conspiracy theorists due to the suspicion of foul play around the 'suicides' and because of the involvement of a shadowy Masonic lodge known as Propaganda Due or P2.

[meow2u3]

3. The butler was just a scapegoat

Opus Dei did it. They have a lot of double agents in that shadowy entity.

[dimbear]

5. There is evidently a great deal to be said in favor of your opinion.

Skeptics are now expressing doubts that the only guilty party would be the only conceivably guilty person who is not in holy orders. That makes him the most acceptable scapegoat, to the extent that anyone is acceptable in this situation.

Skeptics point out further that our butler, Jeeves was his name I believe, enjoys (with his family) great privileges and would hardly risk them for what appear to be paltry sums. And the scandalmongering press isn't owning up to him as a source, but of course they wouldn't.

The alternate theory that the leaks are simply internecine warfare waged by competing powers within the church's labyrinthine power structure shines out like a light on a hill. Maybe on seven hills.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150076/Vatican-leaks-scandal-Pope-Benedicts-butler-Paolo-Gabriele-arrested-leaked-documents.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

down toward the bottom of the article find the exculpatory testimony

[dimbear]

6. At this point the Pope's valet/butler has lawyered up, remains silent, ditto his family.

Another very skeptical observer:

http://www.businessinsider.com/something-is-really-fishy-about-the-arrest-of-the-popes-butler-2012-5

BTW, I am not as familiar as I could wish with the Italian (and in the case actually the Vatican) legal system. It seems to resemble the French system to some extent. Always something more to learn.

[cbayer]

4. In the library (where they keep all that porn)! With a chalice!

[dimbear]

7. Latest chapter:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0528/1224316805973.html

[dimbear]

8. "The Pope was betrayed just like Jesus" say sources close to the Vatican.

A new interpretation of the Judas legend, which evidently now portrays him as an informed whistleblower, exposing corruption in the early Christian movement.

Not so very far away from the text of the Gospel of Judas. Perhaps that rather gnostic text is coming into the canon next?

[dimbear]

9. This story becomes more wonderful by the hour.

Like so many important religious issues, it hangs from a pun. The Euros refer to the mole as 'the crow,' and now European headlines are suggesting 'there is a cardinal among the crows.' Simply put, the power motivating the butler is at the level of the cardinals, i.e., this is all in fact an attempt to carry out or perhaps to prevent a coup d'etat, replace or preserve a pope seen as weak and ineffective.

Reports that the pope is raging, and contrariwise is in tears, are not encouraging.

[dimbear]

10. The Italian press is distracted by the recent earthquake. No updates.

Mysterious ways, my friends.

[dimbear]

11. Nothing likely to happen now until Monday or probably Tuesday,

however it may entertain DUers to know the makeup of the panel which will be questioning Jeeves. The investigative panel will be three superannuated cardinals, specifically chosen so old because necessarily they cannot vote in the upcoming papal election. Their powers are more or less unlimited, they have it within their mandate to question even other bishops or cardinals, so they ought to be well up to taking on a butler. Evidently the Pope knows exactly in whom he may trust.

[Dorian Gray]

12. This story is fascinating

and reads like a novel filled with intrigue and betrayal. It's funny that reading these stories makes me realize how filled with corruption the whole hierarchy is. It's why I focus most of my attention on the grassroots work that our local parish does. If I think about vatican or diocesan matters, I get really frustrated.

[dimbear]

13. From the Telegraph: first serious claims that Paolo conspired with cardinals:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9313684/Vatileaks-Pope-Benedict-XVIs-butler-implicates-two-cardinals-over-Vatican-leaks.html

[cbayer]

14. I hope you are writing the screenplay, dim bear!

This could be a blockbuster.

[dimbear]

15. I hope to play one of the superannuated cardinals in the movie. I'm ripe for the part.