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.