Five go on trial at the Vatican



"They are calling me a witch, here, where trials for witchcraft were invented"

ROME: -- The trial has opened in the Vatican into the alleged theft of confidential documents from the Holy See.

Journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi are among five defendants, including a senior Spanish priest.

The hearing was adjourned from last week when one of the accused, Francesca Chaouqui, changed her lawyer and requested more time for her defence.

“I didn’t give any papers to anyone,” she told reporters outside the court. “They are calling me a witch, here, where trials for witchcraft were invented.”

Emiliano Fittipaldi and another journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, are both publishing books this month.

They claim to have details of greed and graft at the Vatican and the resistance faced by Pope Francis as he tries to clean it up.

Vatican officials say the documents were handed to them by Chaouqui, Spanish Monsignor Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda and his assistant, Nicola Maio.

They have been indicted with three other people, including a high-ranking monsignor in the Vatican, in a scandal involving leaked documents that formed the basis of two books alleging financial wrongdoing in the Roman Catholic church bureaucracy.

Leaking Vatican documents carries a possible sentence of six months to two years in prison and a 2,000 euro fine. The penalty was brought in after an earlier scandal during the papacy of Benedict XVI.

If it is decided the leaks harmed the Vatican’s fundamental interests, the sentence can be raised to eight years in prison.

The Jubilee of Mercy

The trial opens as the Holy See is gearing up for one of its busiest weeks in recent times.

100,000 pilgrims are expected in St Peter’s Square for the opening of the Holy Door, marking the beginning of the Catholic Church’s year-long Jubilee of Mercy.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-08

Oh, that five.

I thought it was a new story about Julian, Anne, George, Dick and Timmy.

It's time whistle-blowers around the world were given protection. There needs to be a safe-haven and support.

It sounds like they are being tried under section 44.

If there ever was a real Evil Empire, Vatican City must be it.

I was really excited to see the thread title and thought 'at last, 5 peado priests are being tried for their crimes'! How unsurprisingly disappointing to see that yet again it is just the Church trying to protect its own. The Vatican should be careful! The 'Holy See' is not that Holy to the rest of the world anymore, and we all fight for freedom of speech!