This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old



The Vatican has charged five people over the leak of damaging documents about Pope Francis’s attempts to reform the Catholic church, including two journalists and a high-ranking cleric.



Two members of the pope’s reforms commission and a newly identified assistant were charged with disclosing confidential Vatican information and documents, while two journalists were charged with soliciting and exerting pressure to obtain the information, according to the indictments released by the Vatican on Saturday.

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Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui were arrested by the Vatican earlier this month. Chaouqui was released shortly after her arrest, pledging to cooperate with the authorities, but Vallejo Balda is still in a Vatican jail.

The indictment also identifies for first time an assistant to Balda, Nicola Maio, as under suspicion.

The three Vatican insiders also face an additional charge of forming a criminal organisation.

Journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi both published books this month recounting instances of greed and financial abuse at the Vatican, citing Vatican documents.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi (left) and Gianluigi Nuzzi. Photograph: AP

Nuzzi, who refused a Vatican summons for questioning, was defiant in a message on Twitter. “You can do what you want, but as long as the world exists there will be journalists who report uncomfortable news,” he wrote.

Fittipaldi appeared for questioning but refused to give any answers, citing Italian law on protecting sources.

Fittipaldi told Italy’s ANSA news agency that he was stunned by the Vatican’s move. “Maybe I’m naive, but I believed they would investigate those I denounced for criminal activity, not the person that revealed the crimes,” he said.

The journalist said that under a law introduced in 2013 on the pope’s bidding, he and the others risk up to eight years in jail.

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The trial is set to begin on Tuesday. If the Vatican tribunal ultimately convicts the two authors, it will come down to a political question as to whether the Holy See will request their extradition from Italy and whether Italy will oblige.

The scandal, which has revealed uncontrolled spending by the Vatican as well as accusations of corruption and theft, has awoken painful memories of the last time employees aired the centuries-old institution’s dirty laundry in public.

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI’s butler engineered a series of leaks that revealed fierce infighting in the highest echelons of the church and allegations of serious fraud in the running of the city state.

He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, before being pardoned by the pope but banished from the Vatican.