VATICAN CITY
New York Times
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARCH 15, 2016
VATICAN CITY — A Vatican monsignor said Tuesday he never felt threatened by two journalists to whom he passed confidential documents — but did fear the colleague who introduced them.
Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda, a former high-ranking official in the Vatican’s finance office, made the concession during cross-examination Tuesday in the Vatican’s leaks case.
Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi wrote blockbuster books last year about Vatican waste, mismanagement and greed. Key documents came from a papal reform commission that Vallejo directed.
Vatican prosecutors have accused the journalists of illegally “soliciting and exerting pressure” on Vallejo to obtain the documents and of publishing them, itself a crime under Vatican City State law. Prosecutors have cited threats Vallejo said he received from the journalists.
Vallejo admitted he gave documents to the journalists. But he said he did so because he felt pressured by the woman who introduced them: Francesca Chaouqui, a flamboyant communications expert and a member of the reform commission.
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