VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by Cindy Wooden,Catholic News Service | Nov. 12, 2012

Vatican City —
A Vatican court found Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer expert in the Secretariat of State, guilty of aiding and abetting the papal butler, who was convicted of stealing sensitive Vatican correspondence.

The three-judge panel hearing the case Saturday initially sentenced Sciarpelletti to four months in jail but reduced the sentence to two months, saying Sciarpelletti had never been in trouble with the law and previously had served the Vatican well.

The judges suspended even the two-month sentence and said that if over the next five years he commits no other crimes, the penalty would be lifted.

The Vatican court indicted Sciarpelletti in August, accusing him of helping Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, by obstructing the Vatican investigation of the butler’s role in stealing, photocopying and leaking private Vatican correspondence to an Italian…