VATICAN CITY
America Magazine
Gerard O’Connell | Nov 5 2015
Last weekend, following investigations, the Vatican Gendarmerie arrested a Spanish monsignor, Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, and an Italian public relations expert, Dr. Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, for their alleged roles in leaking confidential and reserved information regarding Vatican finances and other matters to Italian journalists who have just published two books mainly based on this information.
While Mgr. Vallejo Balda, 54, is still in a Vatican prison, Ms. Chaouqui, 33, is back in her home. She was released after being detained for a day and a half as she had begun to collaborate with the investigators.
The Vatican issued a press communique on November 2 announcing the arrests and said, “Today, the office of the Promoter of Justice, in the persons of Prof. Gian Piero Milano, Promoter of Justice, and Prof. Roberto Zannotti, vice-Promoter of Justice, convalidated the arrest of the above named persons, but provided for the release of Dr. Chaouqui, given that the demands of preventative detention were no longer judged necessary because of her cooperation with the investigations.”
America has now learned that there was another reason – could it be the main one? – for her rapid release. It relates to the fact that she is more than two months pregnant and sources say the Pope did not want her held in prison given this delicate condition. This fact too explains why Chaouqui was actually detained in a convent of women religious inside the Vatican, and not put in a prison cell as happened to Vallejo Balda. He is in the same cell that was occupied by Benedict XVI’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, 3 years ago.
Since her arrest, Chaouqui has engaged one of the most famous lawyers in the country, Giulia Bongiorno, to defend her. After her release, she has protested her total innocence in conversations with journalists, and on Facebook and Twitter she stated: “I am not a mole. I have not betrayed the Pope. I never gave a page to anybody.” She blames Vallejo Balda for dragging her into all this.
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