“Never has the sense of disorientation in the Catholic Church reached these levels,” Alberto Melloni, a historian of the Roman Catholic Church, wrote in the newspaper Corriere della Sera. “But now there is something even more, a sense of systemic disorder.”

If convicted, Mr. Gabriele could face a sentence of up to 30 years for illegal possession of documents of a head of state. He would be likely to serve any time in an Italian jail because of an agreement between Italy and the Vatican.

The scandal involves the leaking of a string of documents to the Italian news media in January and February, including personal letters to the pope. Some of the documents claimed corruption, mismanagement and cronyism in the awarding of contracts for work in the Vatican and internal disagreement on the management of the Vatican bank.

Mr. Gabriele worked in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace, serving at the papal tables, handing rosaries to visiting dignitaries and riding in the first seat of the popemobile at papal audiences. He was privy to the goings-on in the most private rooms in the Vatican.

The pope had ordered several investigations, including one led by the Vatican police and another by a commission of cardinals.

The leaked documents included letters by an archbishop who was transferred to Washington after reporting what he saw as a web of corruption and cronyism, a memo that put a number of cardinals in a bad light and documents suggesting that there were internal conflicts about the Vatican Bank.

Private letters to the Vatican secretary of state and the pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former deputy governor of Vatican City and currently the ambassador to Washington, showed that Archbishop Viganò had been transferred after he exposed what he described as the awarding of contracts to Italian contractors at inflated prices.