The letter will be sent to the Justice Department, which processes the requests for pardons on behalf of the White House.
He may file a request for clemency under Texas law, which contains specific guidelines for pardons on the ground of innocence.
Vatican sources said the Pope considers the jamboree with the priests in June an appropriate occasion for him to lead the whole church in a "Day of Request for Pardon" of the victims and their families for the wrong done by a small percentage of priests in abusing children and minors in many countries, and the wrong done by bishops in covering up that abuse or protecting the predators.
His administration recently hinted that it saw her case for commutation as stronger than the push for pardon of another high-profile whistleblower, Edward Snowden.
When President Bill Clinton left office eight years ago, he was barraged with criticism for the pardons of 140 people he issued in his final hours including Marc Rich, a fugitive financier whose former wife, Denise Rich, had been a major contributor to Clinton causes.
He has approved just 3percentt of the applications for pardons and 0.3percentt of those for commutations.
Octavian had previously shown little mercy to surrendered enemies and acted in ways that had proven unpopular with the Roman people, yet he was given credit for pardoning many of his opponents after the Battle of Actium.
As to whether he wrote for the kids, or for — pardon — kids of all ages, and for the ages, perhaps that's more definitively answered by the Library of America's recent publication of "Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories 1963-1973," ably edited by Sidney Offit.
Later in his term, Patton was attacked for pardoning four of his political advisers who were indicted for violating Kentucky's campaign finance laws and for allegedly abusing his patronage powers.
Of the thousands of petitions for pardons and shortened sentences Mr. Bush has received during his presidency, he has granted clemency 171 times and commuted eight sentences.
