Christmas pardon for Pope's butler

Pope Benedict XVI has granted his former butler a Christmas pardon for stealing the pontiff's private papers and leaking them to a journalist, one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times. The Pope met for 15 minutes with Paolo Gabriele in the prison where the ex-butler was serving his sentence for the theft. Gabriele was subsequently freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lived with his wife and three children. The Vatican said he would not continue living or working in the Vatican, but that it "intends to offer him the possibility to serenely restart his life together with his family". The Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, said the Pope's meeting with Gabriele was "intense" and "personal," noting that Gabriele and the Pope had worked together closely for six years. The pardon closes a painful and embarrassing chapter for the Vatican, capping a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons in the highest levels of the Catholic Church. Gabriele, a 46-year-old father of three, was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found what they called an "enormous"...