The one-time butler to Benedict XVI, Paolo Gabriele, died on 22 November after a long illness. Prompting tabloid cries of “the butler did it”, he was the man at the heart of the Vatileaks scandal in 2012.
Over the course of a year, Gabriele leaked hundreds of pontifical documents detailing corruption and mismanagement of Vatican affairs to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.
Gabriele, who lived minutes from the papal residence and frequently prayed with the Holy Father at morning mass, had risen a long way from the working- class district of Rome he was born into.
