Former top Vatican diplomat busted for downloading child porn in Canada

By Larry Mcshane
New York Daily News
April 07, 2018

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/top-vatican-diplomat-busted-child-porn-canada-article-1.3920381

Monsignor Carlo Capella, 51, will likely stand trial at the Vatican city-state criminal tribunal. Photo by Gareth Cattermole

A former top Vatican diplomat was jailed Saturday for his alleged Christmas season downloads of child pornography while visiting a Canadian church, officials said.

Msgr. Carlo Capella’s arrest came eight months after his recall to the Vatican from a diplomatic post in Washington.

He was put inside a cell at the barracks of the Vatican police force, according to a Vatican press release.

Police in Windsor, Ontario, accused Capella of accessing the repugnant images from a social networking site during his holiday visit to an unidentified local church.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported the incidents occurred between Dec. 24 and 27, 2016. Capella was also cited for distributing the downloaded pornography, officials said.

The State Department informed the Vatican last August of the allegations, citing a “possible violation of laws related to child pornography” by one of its Washington-based diplomats.

Capella was immediately ordered back to the Vatican, and the Canadian police issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest the next month.

The Saturday arrest “comes at the end of an investigation on the part of the Vatican’s promoter of justice,” read the Vatican statement.

Capella, 51, was a high-ranking member of the Vatican diplomatic corps, serving on the Italy desk at the Secratariat of State before his post at the Vatican Embassy in Washington last year.

At the time of his removal from Washington, he was the No. 4 man at the embassy. He was ordained as a priest in 1993 in Milan.

While some in Canada had urged his return to face criminal charges there, Capella will more likely stand trial at the Vatican city-state criminal tribunal.