“Gabriele could not have done this alone”
Marco Tosatti
Vatican City
The arrest of Paolo Gabriele, Benedict XVI’s butler, meant that for a brief time all those working in the Pope home (the Vatican Loggias which sport the work of the famous master painter Raphael) could breathe a sigh of relief. This is the place where the Secretariat of State, the Pope’s administrative office, is and where all documents read by Benedict XVI end up. Once a document is ready, Mgr. Georg passes it on to the appropriate office to be archived. So when Italian television program Gli Intoccabili (The Untouchables) presented by journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, showed a confidential note that the director of the Vatican Press Office, Fr. Lombardi, had sent to the papal apartments (to Mgr. Georg) summarizing the ‘Orlandi’ case, many in the Vatican thought that it was obviously impossible for the documents to have been leaked from the press office or papal apartments. Therefore the culprit could only be found in the Secretariat of State.
This theory seemed even more convincing when, after the first bouts of investigation, the Vatican Gendarmerie came to a standstill. Sources inside the Vatican surprisingly blamed the slowing down in the investigation on those who should have actually pushed it forward, including the Substitute to the Secretary of State, Giovanni Angelo Becciu. The setback lasted a few weeks, then under pressure from the public opinion and due to further developments, a month ago, a committee of cardinals was formed, led by the energetic cardinal Julian Herranz. The situation then progressed, as we know.
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