Anaylsis: Did the butler really do it, and is he whistleblower or scapegoat?

PAOLO Gabriele was always a reserved, almost shy man, as his position required. He had access to the most private rooms in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace – Pope Benedict’s apartment.

But what could have prompted the Pope’s butler to betray the man who trusted him? Was it money? Probably not. Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who revealed some of the leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican and internal conflict over the role of the Vatican bank, declines to reveal his sources but insists he gave no money to them.

Nuzzi, a respected journalist, whose book Sua Santita (His Holiness) contains some of the allegations, says those who gave him the documents were devout people “genuinely concerned about the Church” who wanted to expose corruption. As in any good mystery, the question on many people’s minds is: What was the motive for the leaks?

Some commentators have said that the Machiavellian machinations that have come to light recently are part of a campaign of reciprocal mud-slinging by allies and enemies of the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

“This is not just a leak of documents that can be defined as a betrayal,” Church historian Alberto Melloni wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, saying it was part of a power struggle among cardinals in the curia, the Vatican’s central administration.

“This is a strategy of tension, an orgy of vendettas and pre-emptive vendettas that has now spun out of the control of those who thought they could orchestrate it,” Mr Melloni said.

Another Church historian, Vittorio Messori, told La Stampa: “The curia has always been a nest of vipers.”

It remains to be seen if the papal butler, if he is guilty, was a lone idealistic whistleblower, or a victim of that nest.