VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
A gold nugget and a cheque for 100,000 euros made payable to “His Holiness” were found in his house
GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Vatican City
He may not have been after money, but his home was like a “branch” of the Vatican archive or an extension of the Vatican Museums. What with the gifts taken from the pope and the documents stolen from the Apostolic Palace, Paolo Gabriele’s apartment in the Curia had become a warehouse for precious secret objects. International Catholic institutions and groups of Italian followers had sent presents and money towards papal charitable activities, but on the way, from the sender to the receiver, there was an unexpected obstacle: the butler.
In the Vatican however people do not believe that the actions of the former butler were inspired by “greed”. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said: “No one mentioned money as a motive, not even the magistrates”. Beside the three items found in the butler’s abode (a cheque for 100,000 euros, a gold nugget and a sixteenth century copy of the Aeneid that were all presents for the pope from South America and Italy), there has been no mention, in any of the documents released by the Holy See yesterday, of any profit that might have been gained from the theft. Fr. Lombardi pointed out that one could perhaps glimpse a “moral” purpose, but definitely nothing pointing towards a “financial interest”. In fact, the former aide declared: “ I didn’t even know I had a cheque for 100,000 euros payable to the pope at home”.
And what about Benedict XVI’ s stolen presents? The butler defended himself: “In my degenerating chaos, such instances might have occurred”. He described in detail his everyday life: “ I was in charge of taking some of these presents to storage and some to the office. Some were used for the charity prize -draws of the Gendarmerie, of the Swiss Guard and other charity events”. In another (disarming) declaration to the examining magistrate Gabriele described “ his special passion for books”. As far as the copy of the Aeneid is concerned he said “ I remember that since my son had started studying that poem, I asked Fr. Georg if I could show that book to my son’s teacher, he said yes and the book remained at mine waiting to be returned”. He then admitted that he lost some of his “self restraint” and chose to cause a scandal “to bring the Church back on the right track.”
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