VATICAN CITY
ABC News
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
VATICAN CITY October 8, 2012 (AP)
The author of the book of Vatican secrets that earned the pope’s former butler an 18-month sentence for stealing private papal correspondence has set out to explain his source’s motives and appeal for clemency.
Several European newspapers published an op-ed piece by Gianluigi Nuzzi on Monday in which the Italian journalist defended the actions of Paolo Gabriele and sought to put them in a context he said hadn’t been fully explained during Gabriele’s trial. Nuzzi provided an advance copy to The Associated Press.
A Vatican tribunal on Saturday convicted Gabriele of aggravated theft for stealing the pope’s private correspondence and passing it onto Nuzzi in the gravest Vatican security breach in recent times. Gabriele was sentenced to an 18-month term, which he is serving under house arrest in his Vatican City apartment awaiting an expected papal pardon.
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