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A VATICAN COURT has convicted a computer programmer employed by the world’s tiniest state for helping Pope Benedict XVI’s butler engineer a series of leaks that embarrassed the Vatican.
The court handed 48-year-old Claudio Sciarpelletti a suspended sentence of two months in prison with a probationary term of five years, meaning that if he respects the terms of his probation he is likely not to have to go to prison.
Sciarpelletti was convicted on a charge of aiding and abetting, the panel of three judges said in its verdict published by the Vatican press office. His lawyer, Gianluca Benedetti, said his client will appeal the sentence.
His trial comes just weeks after the disgraced former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison for engineering the leaks of secret letters and memos from the papal residence.
Sciarpelletti has worked for the past 20 years in the Secretariat of State – effectively the government of the Roman Catholic Church – and was responsible for maintenance on all the computers used by Vatican employees.
Leaks
The leaks, which were published in a book by an Italian journalist, revealed fierce infighting in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church and allegations of serious fraud in the running of the Vatican city state.
Gabriele said he had acted out of loyalty to the Church and to root out “evil and corruption” from the Vatican, telling judges at his own trial last month that he believed the pope was poorly informed on important issues.
Investigators said they found a mysterious envelope bearing with an official Vatican stamp in a drawer in Sciarpelletti’s desk. It reportedly contained copies of some of the confidential documents which appeared in the book.
Sciarpelletti said he never opened the envelope but was unclear about who had given it to him, initially telling investigators it was Gabriele and later saying he had received it from a prelate named only as “W” in court documents. The defendant said this was due to his emotional state during questioning.
Witness
The court heard that the prelate named by Sciarpelletti was Carlo Maria Polvani, a trial witness and head of the documentation service of the Secretariat of State.
Monsignor Polvani is the nephew of Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican envoy to Washington and a former governor of the Vatican city state who complained in leaked letters to the pope that he was being handed out for stamping out fraud.
Polvani said it was “unthinkable” he could give Sciarpelletti any confidential documents, adding that he was “shocked” by the rumours against him and that he had even been accused of being “a fan of Che Guevara”.
Gabriele, who is imprisoned in the Vatican awaiting a possible pardon from the pope, told the trial that he gave Sciarpelletti some documents from the pope’s office but said he could not remember giving him any envelope.
Its contents criticised the powerful head of Vatican police Domenico Giani and alleged that two of his officers also held stakes in private security firms in Italy in a possible conflict of interest, according to media reports.
The trials into the “Vatileaks” case have been the biggest in the modern history of the Vatican, whose court normally only tries cases of petty theft targeting the millions of tourists who visit the famous city state every year.
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Isn’t it funny that they can act so quickly and decisively on this. Its takes them years to even admit that they covered up child sex abuse for decades much less jail the perpetrators.
Eleventh Commandment
Thou shalt not embarrass thine infallible pontificator.
I was always taught the eleventh commandment is Don’t get caught!
Not at all. Sure getting caught, provided its serious, like child-rape, carries no penalty.
How long since YOU were up mount Sinai?
We’ve updated the program. Dis pappa razzi…down come the shutters, bro.
Omniscient Rupert watcheth from his heaven in the Skylab, and all’s ultra-Right with the world.
Or else.
Typical of the Catholic heirarchy. Whistleblowers get castigated while the guilty roam free.
Pity they aren’t as quick to sort out the paedo bastards that they protect.
Whatever happened to forgiveness then?
They have plenty of that for Child Rapists.
It is difficult to even attempt to describe the contempt that the double standards of the Vatican deserves.
Changes needed at the top in that place. Can’t see it happening though. Vast majority of priests and clergy doing fine job but let down by the leadership.
Indeed Max..
..whatever you do, do not mention the bottom.
The spiritually corrupt believe that its ok to defraud children of their purity and will protect itself by any means. If they can defraud the innocent and the gullible, financial fraud is a breeze.
Damien your comment leads me to suspect that you know as much about Hitler’s Germany as you do about flying the Space Shuttle,living in Germany pre war must have been a real hoot.Not all Germans were Nazis maybe his parents were trying to keep him alive,refusing to join the Hitler Youth was not a healthy occupation .
Ghandi that may be true. I know a,lot of Germans & have worked there but Damiens point is not just about the pope but the collusion of the holy see with facism & he accurate in his writing.
Yeah Ghandi..bit like protesting the torture flights and resource war supply lines through Eirebase Shannon today. You can get shook down.
Or reporting child rapists or crony capitalists…your job prospects can go belly-up. Tight wee circles eh?
Keep your head down. Who knows, you might get that promotion.
I’ve only flown a light Cessna, but I know a little about inter-war Germany(it was not pre-war, the war is as old as the first caveman that wanted the whole cliff-face so he could rent it back and avoid the labour of hunting), and its western as well as its soviet re-armers.
Try again.
This man is an evil rat and should have received a much longer sentence.
So its ok for you that the people in the Vatican are fraudulent and corrupt?
@ Damien – people like yourself who float the Hitler Youth argument; I presume you know he was conscripted into it as required by German law at the time. I also presume you know that he refused to attend meetings.
I also presume you know he deserted from the from the German anti aircraft corps he was drafted into as a child soldier.
You will also know one of his cousins was murdered by the Nazis as part of their eugenics experiments.
So any argument put forward about Nazi connections are ill informed nonsense.
I suggest you research a bit more of the church’s collusion with Nazism and fascisms generally(from Franco to Latin America to its reflexive rejection of the attempts at reform initiated by John XXIII) before accusing anyone of being ill-informed.
Its predations and cover-ups of childrens rape and sales in this country and globally merit a production line of millstones as prescribed by the man they deified into a cult so they could distort his humanitarian ideas into a liturgy of hypnotic powercraft. Had he arrived once they had him wrapped in their miasma of obscurantist incantation he would have had the updated Inquisition and a hot little stake for dinner.
As I implied, a change of uniform.
It is not necessary to demonstrate further research because my comment was about Pope Benedict.
The latter part of your ‘argument’ – what can one say…
Lt
Say what you like. Us adults don’t mind discussion. Heresy welcome. Heterodoxy even.
I was originally replying to Ann.
Do you dispute what I have written. Work away.
And he’s Joe Ratzinger to me..I don’t accept your titles. More self promotion to intimidate the easily cowed.
Nice of you to tell Lt that you don’t accept titles. Btw-Lt is a title.
It’s been a while since the Pope Kickers have had an outlet for their ………..
..righteous disgust, tom?
How anyone can take that organization seriously is beyond me.
Does the Vatican actually have a prison?
Man stole from the Vatican. He leaked state secrets. He was tried, convicted and would be rightfully be imprisoned though he may well be pardoned. Church is corrupt. Could do with cleaning it’s organisation with the same sort of vigour and speed demonstrated with the above case. There is no question that the church is corrupt and needs reforming, though that is no need to shoot down every man who comments on the rightful arrest and conviction of the thief. Don’t mistake this for agreement with the Church and what it is please, I’m just pointing this out.
have your say