Guilty

So the Pope's butler has been sentenced to an 18 month prison term for his role in the whole Vatican leaks "scandal." Take a look at these comments:

Before the verdict was announced, Gabriele, wearing a dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a blue tie, insisted he was not a thief and that he had acted out of concern for the Catholic church and the pontiff.

“What I feel strongly inside me, is the conviction of having acted out of exclusive and visceral love for Jesus’ church, and for his visible leader. I repeat, I don’t feel like a thief,” he told the tribunal.

Arru (the defense attorney) had argued there was no theft, as Gabriele photocopied the documents and did not remove the originals.

She said he was driven by his faith, high morals and by motives that she hoped one day would be “recognized and rewarded” as he was pushed to do what he did by the “evil” he saw around him.

Reflect on that a bit and on some of the other things that we've reported on this incident and the Curial hijinks brought to light recently. Now, consider this report from the Telegraph:

Officers from the Vatican Gendarmerie found thousands of papers when they raided Paolo Gabriele’s apartment on May 23, acting on suspicions that he was the mole who had leaked highly compromising material to an Italian investigative journalist, who published it in a book.
The massive haul showed that Mr Gabriele had a keen interest in secret services, espionage, the occult, scandals involving the Vatican bank and the P2, a shadowy Masonic lodge whose members included prominent Italian politicians.

The encoded documents were sent from the Vatican Secretariat of State to papal nuncios, or ambassadors, around the world.

There are other claims, including that some of the documents had been marked for destruction. Oh, and allegedly these reference stuff far enough back that even Roberto Calvi is mentioned.

The point is that you've got a guy, who by all accounts seems very loyal to the Holy Father. This man is going to prison, still claiming that what he did was for the Pope and the Church. The contents of the documents he was copying showed where his main interests were. It stands to reason then that there were lots of documents actually referring to these topics. It's also fair to assume, I think, that these are the things that Mr. Gabriele felt were so dangerous to the Pope and the Church.

Recall that, sometimes, there really is a conspiracy, then draw your own conclusions.