In fiction or real life, when something goes awry or a crime occurs, it was the butler that did it. In a past article I mentioned one of Earl Bigger's books involving a butler and the Chinese detective Charlie Chan. At the crime scene a woman's dead body with a garote mark around her neck lies on the floor. Charlie leans over the corpse and states, "Killer is both clever and cunning. No one leave room, please." The butler was standing there holding a cord. This was a tough case, but Chan was on it.

Another "tough" case involving an alleged crime and a butler arose in 2012, this time in Vatican City, Rome. Paolo Gabriele, Pope Benedict XVI's former butler was arrested, tried and convicted on charges of stealing and leaking to the press the Pope's confidential papers. Smoke from the Vatican suggests something fishy about this case. Was the butler framed? You decide.

Gabriele at the time was 46 years old, the father of three and occupied an apartment with his family inside the Vatican walls adjacent to the Pope's quarters. He had worked in the Vatican for 20 years and as a butler for about six. So what does a butler do?

Gabriele, aside from riding shotgun in the Pope-mobile and carrying the Pope's umbrella, served the Pope his meals and helped him dress, laying out his vestments and red shoes. Dressing the Pope is not an easy job. When a wardrobe exists that includes pallium woven by nuns from the first shearing's of newborn lambs, it's not far removed from the Renaissance.

As a member of the papal family, Gabriele had complete access to the Pope's apartments and his small office where communications and letters arrived. Floating noiselessly around the Pope's quarters, like a fly going from wall to wall, Gabriele was in position to eavesdrop on church officials and cardinals who visited with the Pope on church matters and affairs.

Before I go further with this article, I should mention that I happen to be Roman Catholic. I'll spare you any reference to moral decline, annulments and priest sexual abuse, for none of that had a bearing on Gabriele's case.

Rather, Gabriele was troubled by what he saw to be corruption, hypocrisy and mismanagement within the church, along with internal turf wars. He wanted to get that story out. Unfortunately, he lacked the brazenness of Socrates to forcefully speak out. He also naively did not go about it cleverly like "Deep Throat."

He admitted he photocopied the Pope's private documents. He felt the 85-year-old Pope who was in his care was ill-informed, kept in the dark and manipulated by powerful aides running around the Holy See.

Frankly, unless you are in Italy, "I was exposing corruption" is not a bad defense. In fact, if you read the "Vatican Diaries" by John Thavis who reported on the Vatican for more than years, Gabriele's story probably is true. Thavis saw the Vatican as marked by "human flair and fallibility" and Benedict XVI as a tragic figure with gaffes and missteps.

In Gabriele's defense, he wasn't a kleptomaniac or one of the pesky thieves or pickpockets who lurk in the Vatican museums. He didn't "remove" the documents. He copied them. The tribunal that tried him diverted attention from the substance of the documents and treated what he did solely as shoplifting.

Here in the U.S. if Gabriele exposed money laundering or kickbacks in a corporate office or a government agency as an employee, he would be patted on the back by the federal government and called a whistle-blower. He could even collect money.

In his address to the tribunal at his trial in Rome he stated, "The thing that I feel strongly is the conviction that I acted only out of visceral love for the Church of Christ and for its visible head. I do not feel like I'm a thief."

The tribunal of three judges in this Vatican City State, found him guilty of theft and sentenced him to a reduced sentence of 18 months in an Italian prison. Well, at least he wasn't given a cup of hemlock.

Without having to change into orange pajamas he was placed under house arrest. In a surprise pre-Christmas visit, the Pope visited Gabriele and pardoned him, probably in exchange for a nondisclosure contract.

Following his release the Vatican arranged for him to have a job outside the Vatican walls. If you are looking for a good honest butler, you can reach him at the Vatican's Children's Hospital attached to the basilica of St. Paul's in Rome, where according to the Washington Post he now is employed.

<em>Joe Yurgine is a practicing attorney in Kankakee County. He can be reached at joeyurgine@yahoo.com.</em>