VATICAN CITY
WBOC
Posted: Jul 04, 2016
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press
VATICAN CITY (AP) – Prosecutors asked a Vatican tribunal on Monday to absolve one journalist and give a suspended, one-year sentence to another for publishing books based on confidential Vatican documents exposing greed, mismanagement and corruption in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.
In their closing arguments, prosecutors also asked the Vatican tribunal to convict a flamboyant PR executive, a Vatican monsignor and his secretary for having formed a “criminal association” with the aim of divulging confidential information.
Defense attorneys were to give closing statements Tuesday with a final ruling due Wednesday.
Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi wrote blockbuster books last year based on Vatican documentation exposing the greed of bishops and cardinals lusting after big apartments, the extraordinarily high costs of getting a saint made and the loss to the Holy See of millions of euros in rental income because of undervalued real estate.
The two journalists were put on trial, amid outcry by media watchdog groups, on charges they published confidential documentation acquired by a papal reform commission. Prosecutors on Monday said they were guilty of a “moral conspiracy” to divulge the news.
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