VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal
By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
Updated July 7, 2016
VATICAN CITY—A Vatican court ruled Thursday that it didn’t have jurisdiction over two journalists accused of improperly obtaining confidential documents on corruption and mismanagement in the Vatican. But the same court convicted two former Vatican officials of providing those documents to the journalists for publication.
The judgment on the journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, addressed widespread complaints that the Vatican had been using their trial to muzzle press freedom. In reading the verdict, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, leader of the four-member panel of judges, said the court had taken into account the rights to freedom of thought and the press as recognized under Vatican law. The journalists’ alleged crimes didn’t take place on Vatican territory, and they weren’t Vatican officials, Mr. Dalla Torre said, explaining the lack of jurisdiction.
The verdicts concluded an eight-month trial that featured colorful testimony and the birth of a child to one of the defendants, while also highlighting the challenges that Pope Francis faces in reforming the Vatican’s bureaucracy and controlling its coverage by the press.
The judges found Msgr. Ángel Vallejo Balda, a Spanish priest, and Francesca Chaouqui, an Italian public relations consultant, guilty of leaking confidential documents they had obtained while serving on a temporary panel established by the pope to advise him on administrative and financial reforms.
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