ROME
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 5, 2016
ROME — Sooner or later, it seems, every good cause in Catholicism gets its martyr.
St. Thomas More, for instance, is celebrated for his loyalty to the pope when England split from Rome in the 16th century, and more recently, Blessed Oscar Romero of El Salvador has become the patron saint of defending the poor.
Today, 34-year-old Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, the woman at the heart of a controversial Vatican criminal trial over leaks of secret documents, is volunteering for the role — in fact, she’s basically clamoring for it — of martyr for Pope Francis’ much-vaunted project of financial reform.
In her case, “martyrdom” doesn’t mean death, but accepting a prison sentence — theoretically as many as eight years, but more realistically probably closer to two or three — for allegedly leaking those documents, despite vehemently claiming she didn’t do it.
She says that perhaps only the spectacle of sending an innocent woman to jail, forcing her to give birth to the child she’s expecting behind bars, may jar the consciences of the Vatican’s old guard. She fully expects to be convicted, and says that under no circumstances will she ask for, or accept, a papal pardon.
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