Vatileaks: Pope defends right hand man Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone

VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (United Kingdom)

The Pope has come out in full support for his deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the chief targeted of the Vatileaks documents.

3:34PM BST 04 Jul 2012

The pontiff’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested at the end of May and charged with stealing the pope’s private papers. He remains locked up in a Vatican police “safe room”.

The leaked documents allege graft over the awarding of infrastructure projects and a power struggle between rival groups of cardinals – the princes of the Church.

On Wednesday, the Vatican released a letter from Benedict XVI to Cardinal Bertone, his secretary of state or prime minister, in which he said: “I wish to express my profound appreciation for your discreet support and your enlightened counsel which I have found of particular help in recent months.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.