BREAKING: Two Arrested Over Leak of Vatican Documents
A monsignor and a woman who served on a financial reform commission set up by Pope Francis were arrested over the weekend suspected of leaking confidential information and documents.
A Vatican statement issued Monday said that Vatican prosecutors upheld the arrests of Francesca Chaouqui and Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda. Chaouqui has since been freed because of her cooperation with the investigation, a Vatican spokesman said.
Both served on a now defunct commission, and Msgr. Vallejo Balda continues to work as a Vatican employee and secretary of COSEA, a body Francis set up in 2013 to advise the Pope on reform of Vatican finances.
The Vatican said: "In the context of judicial police investigations carried out by the Vatican gendarmerie, or police force, and begun several months ago because of the removal and lead of confidential information and documents, on Saturday and Sunday (the) two persons were summoned to be interrogated on the basis of elements and evidence that had been gathered.”
More Register coverage to follow.
Edward Pentin Edward Pentin is the Register’s Senior Contributor and EWTN News Vatican Analyst. He began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for EWTN's National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. Edward is the author of The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates (Sophia Institute Press, 2020) and The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (Ignatius Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter at @edwardpentin.
