Vatican Arrests Two over Alleged Leaks

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner
The Guardian
November 2, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/02/vatican-arrests-two-over-alleged-leaks

The Vatican said both officials had been held in detention following interviews at the weekend but Francesca Chaouqui had since been released. Photograph: Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis

An Italian PR expert who made headlines posting racy pictures of herself online and a high-ranking Spanish clergyman associated with Opus Dei were at the centre of a new scandal at the Vatican on Monday, following accusations the pair leaked damaging documents about Pope Francis’s attempts to reform the church.

The arrest of two former members of a commission set up by the pope to explore reform of the church’s finances – one of Francis’s top priorities – is being compared to the infamous Vatileaks scandal that many believe led to the surprise retirement of the pope’s predecessor, Pope Benedict, in 2013.

The Vatican announced on Monday that it arrested Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui, an Italian laywoman and public relations expert, after a months-long investigation into the dissemination of “news and confidential documents” to two writers of forthcoming books. No further information about the nature of the documents was released. The Vatican described the leaks as a “serious betrayal of the trust bestowed by the pope”.

Inside the Vatican, media leaks are nearly always seen as the preferred method for critics of the pontiff to discredit him and Francis has been a frequent victim. Last month, a secret letter allegedly signed by 13 cardinals that was seen as a vote of no-confidence in the pope’s handling of a high-stakes meeting of bishops was leaked to a journalist and in June, a copy of his encyclical on the environment was published before its intended release.

Vallejo Balda is believed to be the highest-ranking member of the Vatican’s central bureaucracy, known as the Curia, ever to have been arrested. He is also associated with a group of priests that receive spiritual guidance from Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group.

He and Chaouqui were members of a special commission – since disbanded – on possible economic reforms of the Vatican. Chaouqui is no stranger to controversy. Eyebrows were raised within the Vatican following the discovery of tweets sent from her account before she was appointed to the commission that criticised Holy See officials and claimed the former Vatican secretary of state, Tarcisio Bertone, was corrupt.

After being nominated to the post in 2013 she published “artistic nudes” of herself online, according to the Italian magazine Panorama, which were subsequently removed. Chaouqui’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, declined to comment, saying she had not yet visited her client. Bongiorno herself is something of a celebrity in Italy, having successfully defended Raffaele Sollecito, who was acquitted earlier this year of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher after initially being convicted alongside his former American girlfriend, Amanda Knox.

The Vatican said both officials had been detained following interviews at the weekend but that Chaouqui had since been released, reflecting in part her cooperation with the investigation. While the arrests will fuel speculation that Francis is fighting an ideological battle within the church and has enemies that want to see him embarrassed and fail, others point out that there could be other factors behind the allegations, including that neither Chaouqui nor Vallejo Balda were offered prominent posts after their committee disbanded.

The Vatican on Monday was eager to distance itself from any speculation that it might have purposely sought out the publication of details of inner strife within the church bureaucracy as a way to strengthen his hand. “Publications of this kind do not contribute in any way to establish clarity and truth, but rather to create confusion, and partial and tendentious interpretations,” the Vatican said. “We must absolutely avoid the mistake of thinking that this is a way to help the mission of the pope.”

The arrests came days before two Italian authors are due to release books that their publishers say will reveal new evidence of scandals in the Vatican and alleged conspiracies by the old guard to undermine Francis’s reform efforts. They were the first such arrests since Paolo Gabriele, Benedict’s butler, was detained in 2012 for stealing documents from the pope’s desk and leaking them. Those leaks included letters from Vatican officials complaining to the former pope about alleged corruption in the Holy See.

One of the two books due to be released on Wednesday is Merchants in the Temple, by the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose 2012 book, His Holiness, was based on leaked documents he received from Gabriele. Gabriele was convicted and served several months in the Vatican jail before Benedict pardoned him and he was released. He is now working in a Vatican-run hospital. The other book, Avarice, is by another journalist, Emiliano Fittipaldi.

The Vatican said its police had been investigating the disappearance of documents for the past few months. The statement accused the two Italian authors of trying to reap advantages from receiving stolen documents, saying this was “a gravely illegal act”.