Vatican Puts Journalists on Trial over Leaked Documents

By Nick Squires
The Telegraph
November 23, 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/12011998/Vatican-puts-journalists-on-trial-over-leaked-documents.html

Journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi, left, and Gianluigi Nuzzi Photo: AP

Two journalists who will be put on trial by the Vatican for allegedly receiving leaked documents revealing corruption and waste in the Holy See have claimed they are being unfairly persecuted.

Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who both recently published books based on the leaked documents, have accused the Vatican of attacking press freedom.

The reporters, the first journalists to appear before a papal tribunal, will go on trial on Tuesday along with three other people after they were charged with what the Holy See called “the unauthorised and illicit sharing of sensitive and privileged documents and information.”

If convicted, they could be jailed for up to eight years.

The pair said they were astounded that they were being put on trial when the Vatican appeared to have done little to punish those behind the alleged wrongdoing within the stone walls of the city state.

The trial, which has the blessing of Pope Francis, risks backfiring on the Catholic Church, days before the Vatican initiates a special “Year of Mercy”, a calendar of special religious events declared by the Pope.

The five people charged are Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, both investigative journalists, Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, a Spanish priest, his secretary, Nicola Maio, and Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, a public relations expert who sat on a commission which advised the Pope on economic reform.

Msgr Vallejo, who is being held in a Vatican cell after his arrest earlier this month; Ms Chaouqui, who was arrested but later released, and Mr Maio are charged with criminal conspiracy “to divulge information and documents concerning the fundamental interests of the Holy See and the [Vatican City] State”.

Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi Photo: AP

All five defendants are charged with criminal misappropriation and misuse of leaked documents in what the Vatican called “a brotherhood of crime.”

The books written by the journalists – Avarice by Mr Fittipaldi and Merchants in the Temple by Mr Nuzzi – lift the lid on alleged financial mismanagement within the Holy See, including the alleged use of charitable donations for refurbishing lavish apartments for cardinals and a former Vatican secretary of state.

“I never imagined that I would end up under investigation and put on trial by pontifical judges after the publication of my book,” Mr Fittipaldi wrote in a long letter published by La Repubblica, an Italian daily, on Monday.

He said he knew the revelations in his book would be a “grave embarrassment” to the Holy See, an institution “that prefers to air its dirty laundry within the walls of the Vatican".

Italian journalist and writer Gianluigi Nuzzi Photo: AP

He had hoped that it would inform the debate about the resistance that Pope Francis is encountering in his campaign to create “a poor Church for the poor” and to introduce greater accountability and transparency.”

Instead, Mr Fittipaldi said, it was not the wrongdoers within the Church who were being held to account but the journalists who revealed the alleged malfeasance.

“Not one line” of his book had been challenged as untrue by the Church, he said.

He said he would appear in front of the Vatican tribunal in order to proclaim his innocence.

“This is not just a trial against me. It’s a trial against the freedom of the press,” he wrote.

He said he believed the Vatican was taking a hard line in order to make examples of him and his colleague, in the hope of preventing future leaks.

Gianluigi Nuzzi's books Photo: REX Shutterstock

Mr Nuzzi said he too would turn up for the start of the trial, but accused the Vatican of trying to “gag” journalists.

“I’ll be sitting on the defendants’ bench holding a copy of my book,” he wrote on Twitter. “Freedom of information will be on trial.”

Placing the journalists under investigation made the Vatican look “medieval” and would backfire, Iacopo Scaramuzzi, an expert on the Vatican and the author of “Vatican Tango – the Church in the Age of Francis”, told The Telegraph.

“The investigation will just give more publicity to the books and boost sales. It will have a boomerang effect," he said.

Pope Francis, 78, has consistently called for more transparency within the Church, but he recently condemned the leaking of the documents as a “crime” and a “deplorable act”.

The case has evoked memories of the “Vatileaks” scandal of 2012, in which Pope Benedict XVI’s butler was accused and convicted of stealing confidential documents and leaking them to journalists.

In a trial that lasted just a few days, Paolo Gabriele was sentenced to 18 months in prison. But after just a few weeks he was pardoned by Pope Benedict and released from the Vatican’s holding cells.

The sense of betrayal felt by the ageing German pontiff reportedly contributed to his historic decision to resign.

After the scandal the Vatican introduced a new law which criminalised the leaking and receiving of information – the charges now faced by the five suspects.