NIGERIA
allAfrica
8 June 2012
EDITORIAL
Apparently, even the pious enclave of the head of the Roman Catholic Church is not immune to the vices of base human machinations, high-level intrigues, corruption and power struggles which have long been the bane of the secular world.
Nothing else better illuminates this assertion than the recent arrest of one Paolo Gabriele, the personal butler of Pope Benedict XVI, on charges that he leaked confidential information in papal and Vatican documents to Italian journalists and others, an activity that has both embarrassed and confounded important institutions of the Holy See over the last few months.
Gabriele is a 46-year-old father of three and a layman who had direct and unrestricted access to the Pope’s living quarters in Vatican City. He had been employed as the Pontiff’s personal butler since 2006. It was perhaps this vantage position he occupied in the Pope’s personal life that enabled him to position himself at the centre of what has now come to be known as the “Vatileaks” scandal.
The scandal, which began in January this year, involved the surreptitious leaking of documents from inside sources that have seriously embarrassed the Vatican.
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