The Vatican is reported to be hunting for the masterminds of damaging leaks, with few believing the Pope's arrested butler was behind the scandal, according to an AFP report in the Daily Telegraph. Vatican officials confirmed on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's personal butler Paolo Gabriele was arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential documents from the pontiff's private study after secret papers were found in his home.
His arrest was greeted with disbelief as the 46-year-old Mr Gabriele was well-liked throughout Vatican City and known for his devotion and loyalty to the Pope.
The Italian press has been filled with speculation that the butler, one of a limited number of people who have access to the Pope's private quarters, was a pawn in a game of intrigue and struggle for power inside the Holy See.
"No one thinks the butler was capable of orchestrating the 'Vatileaks' by himself and so the focus is on a higher, ecclesiastical level," wrote the Corriere della Sera under the headline "Vatican braces for new arrests."
The Catholic News Service reports that Vatican spokesman Father Lombardi said Gabriele was arrested the evening of May 23 by Vatican police after they found the illegally obtained documents in his home, which is on Vatican territory.
He was still under arrest on Saturday, the day the Vatican statement was issued.
The dark-haired assistant can often be seen with the pope sitting in the front seat of the popemobile, next to the driver during papal general audiences on Wednesdays.
The spokesman said Vatican judge Nicola Picardi has completed "the first phase" of a preliminary investigation and Vatican judge Piero Antonio Bonnet has begun the next step of the inquiry.
Father Lombardi said on Friday that Gabriele, then unnamed by the Vatican, had been questioned by Vatican judges in order to obtain further information.
Gabriele has named two lawyers to represent him during the Vatican investigation and he has already had a chance to meet with them, Father Lombardi said.
The investigation will continue until enough evidence has been collected and then Judge Bonnet will either call Gabriele to stand trial or be acquitted, he said.
A committee of three cardinals Pope Benedict XVI appointed in April to look into the leaks had asked the gendarmes to investigate.
Dozens of private letters to Pope Benedict and other confidential Vatican correspondence and reports, including encrypted cables from Vatican embassies around the world, were leaked to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi. He published the documents in a book, Your Holiness, released May 17.
In a statement two days later, Father Lombardi called the publication of the letters for commercial gain a "criminal act" and said the Vatican would take legal action.
The publication, he said, violated the right to privacy and the "freedom of correspondence" of Pope Benedict, the letter writers and the pope's closest collaborators.