ROME
Index on Censorship

Mapping Media Freedom correspondent Rossella Ricchiuti explores the Vatican’s case against two journalists standing trial for publishing leaked financial documents

By Rossella Ricchiuti / 14 January 2016

Two Italian journalists are being prosecuted by The Vatican for revealing confidential information and could face up to eight years in prison.

Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi are being tried in the so-called “Vatileaks II” case for publishing leaked documents in their books detailing financial misdeeds involving The Holy See. Fittipaldi is the author of Avarice and Nuzzi’s is entitled Merchants in the Temple.

The criminal trial by the Vatican justice against the reporters is a serious one. The journalists are accused of violating “Crimes against the Fatherland” in the Vatican penal code, specifically a 2013 amendment that added section 116, which says “whoever procures illegally or reveals information or documents whose disclosure is forbidden, shall be punished…