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| FILE - in this Tuesday, May 30, 2012 file photo, Gianluigi Nuzzi, the investigative journalist who published a book of leaked papal documents, is portraited during an interview with the Associate Press, in Rome. A new book about the Vatican by Nuzzi is due out on the Italian bookstores Nov. 5. |
VATICAN CITY
(AP) -- The Vatican said Monday it had arrested a high-ranking
priest and another member of a papal reform commission in an
investigation into leaked confidential documents - a stunning move that
comes just days before the publication of two books promising damaging
revelations about the obstacles Pope Francis faces in cleaning up the
Holy See's murky finances.
The developments
threatened to become a new "Vatileaks" - the 2012 scandal that began
with the publication of a blockbuster book by Italian journalist
Gianluigi Nuzzi detailing corruption and mismanagement in the Holy See.
The scandal ended with the conviction of Pope Benedict XVI's butler -
and Benedict's resignation a year later.
The
latest arrests of two advisers hand-picked by Francis to help in his
effort to overhaul Vatican finances threatened to further expose
infighting and rifts surrounding the pope's efforts at reform and a
church that uses its money to help the poor.
Monsignor
Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, a Spaniard, and Francesca Chaouqui, an
Italian public relations executive, had served on a now-defunct
financial reform commission set up by Francis in 2013 as part of his
drive to clean house at the Vatican, especially in its scandal-tainted
economic affairs.
A Vatican statement said the
arrests followed a monthslong investigation and that the two had been
interrogated over the weekend. It said Vallejo Balda was being held in a
jail cell in Vatican City, while Chaouqui was released Monday because
she was cooperating with the investigation.
The
Vatican's statement stopped short of linking the latest leaks probe to
the two potentially bombshell books that go on sale Thursday.
But
a clearly irritated Vatican noted that leaking confidential documents
was now a crime in the Vatican and contended publication of such expose
works risk hurting Pope Francis' clean-up drive.
The
Vatican described the books as "fruit of a grave betrayal of the trust
given by the pope, and, as far as the authors go, of an operation to
take advantage of a gravely illicit act of handing over confidential
documentation."
"Publications of this nature
do not help in any way to establish clarity and truth, but rather
generate confusion and partial and tendentious conclusions," the Vatican
said.
Nuzzi's 2012 best-seller, "His
Holiness," based on leaked papal correspondence detailing corruption,
infighting and intrigue in the Vatican has been cited by some as
inspiring Benedict XVI's stunning resignation from the papacy in 2013.
According
to the publishers, Nuzzi's new book, "Merchants in the Temple: Inside
Pope Francis's Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican,"
promises to reveal "heretofore untold, unbelievable stories of scandal
and corruption at the highest levels."
"A
veritable war is waging in the Catholic Church," a news release quotes
Nuzzi as saying. "On one side, there is Pope Francis' strong message for
one church of the poor" and on the other, "there is the opaque and
aggressive power systems within the Vatican's hierarchy."
The
other book, "Avarice: Documents Revealing Wealth, Scandals and Secrets
of Francis' Church," is by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi. He
writes for L'Espresso newsweekly, which has published some of the most
damaging leaks of Francis' papacy, including most recently a letter by
13 cardinals warning Francis about his family synod.
According
to the publisher, Fittipaldi's book maps out the church's financial
empire, from the luxurious lives of the cardinals to the big businesses
of Catholic-run hospitals in Italy.
Speaking
Monday to Italy's Repubblica TV, Fittipaldi said his book "doesn't talk
about Francis, but about a church that seems very distant from the
mottoes of the pope."
He said it was his
understanding that the arrested pair had been accused of leaking "news
for my book and that of my colleague," Nuzzi.'
While
Francis is intent on modernizing the Vatican and making its finances
more transparent, the arrests were the latest confirmation that scandal
and intrigue still swirl, as they have for centuries, through the
largely closed world of the Vatican's administrative bureaucracy.
Elected
on a mandate from his fellow cardinals to reform the Vatican's
bureaucracy and bring order to its haphazard finances, Francis in 2013
created the commission Vallego Balda and Chaouqui served on to gather
information from all Vatican offices to try to shed light on the Holy
See's overall financial situation and end an entrenched culture of
mismanagement, opaqueness and waste.
Francis
named the Maltese financier Joseph Zahra to head the commission and
Vallejo Balda as his No. 2. Chaouqui was named one of the six other
commission members.
The commission was given
broad powers to solicit information from traditionally independent
Vatican offices that were none too pleased to divulge their assets to a
group of outsiders, regardless of their papal mandate. But the
commission did its job, coming into possession of thousands of pages of
information, such as the existence of "secret" accounts held by the
Secretariat of State that had never figured into the Vatican's
consolidated balance sheets.
That two of the
commission members now have been arrested in an investigation over
leaked documents is a remarkable new chapter in the Vatileaks saga, but
it's unclear if the investigation will stop with them.
The
33-year-old Chaouqui, who favors slim-fitting jeans and long, bouncy
hairdos, cut a figure in sharp contrast to the more somber dress of the
relatively few laywomen with roles at the Vatican. She is being defended
by Giulia Bongiorno, one of Italy's top criminal lawyers who won
acquittal for Amanda Knox's co-defendant in their internationally
watched murder trial.
Opus Dei, the
conservative Catholic religious movement, expressed "surprise and pain"
over Vallejo Balda's arrest, who it described as belonging to a priestly
society linked to Opus Dei.
If the allegation
turns out to be proven, it will be particularly painful because of the
damage done to the church," it said in a statement.
