Cardinal Gambetti part of Vatican sting operation that led to ex-employee’s arrest
June 07, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the Conventual Franciscan friar who is archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, was actively involved in the Vatican sting operation that led to the arrest of Alfio Maria Daniele Pergolizzi, a former employee.
Cardinal Gambetti believed that Pergolizzi, who led the communications office at St. Peter’s Basilica from 1995 to 2011, had stolen a 17th-century manuscript from the basilica’s archives. Working with the Vatican gendarmes, Gambetti met with Pergolizzi to purchase the manuscript for $130,000. Following the purchase, Pergolizzi was arrested.
Pergolizzi claims that the manuscript was never part of the basilica’s archives and that the late Msgr. Vittorino Canciani, a canon at the basilica, obtained it from a private collection and gave it to him. Maria Grazia D’Amelio, an architecture professor who worked with Pergolizzi on a 2021 book, said that she had never seen a reference to the manuscript in her research in the archives.
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