The monsignor at the centre of the “Vatileaks” trial has testified that he was being threatened and felt he had little choice but to give confidential documents to two Italian reporters.
Under questioning by his co-defendants’ lawyers, Spanish Mgr Lucio Vallejo Balda cited a Whatsapp conversation in which Francesca Chaouqui told him: “I will destroy you in all the newspapers and you know that I can do it.”
This was “a concrete threat”, Mgr Vallejo Balda told the court yesterday on his second day of testimony. The day before, he had admitted leaking confidential Vatican documents.
Mgr Vallejo Balda, formerly secretary of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See is on trial with Chaouqui, a former member of Pope Francis’s commission on financial reform; Nicola Maio, the monsignor’s former assistant; and the journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who both authored books which alleged overspending and financial mismanagement in Vatican departments.
The monsignor, Chaouqui and Maio were accused of “committing several illegal acts of divulging news and documents concerning fundamental interests of the Holy See and [Vatican City] State.” Nuzzi and Fittipaldi were accused of “soliciting and exercising pressure, especially on [Mgr] Vallejo Balda, in order to obtain confidential documents and news.”
In his testimony, Mgr Vallejo Balda said he knew that Chaouqui and Nuzzi knew each other well and so he gave documents to Nuzzi in order to win his trust and stave off any threat Chaouqui posed to him. “For me, giving those documents was a way to pay for my freedom,” he said.
The monsignor also told the court that Maio, his personal assistant, resigned in December 2014, six months before he passed along the documents; the assistant, he said, was unaware of the leak.
The day’s court session ended with Fittipaldi being called to the stand. The Italian journalist testified that by the time Mgr Vallejo Balda gave him the documents, he had nearly completed writing his book and that he used only two of the leaked documents: a semi-official budget of the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican bank, and a letter signed by Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.
The other documents, he said, “were of little journalistic value.”
The monsignor had told the court he grew increasingly suspicious of Chaouqui, saying she told him she was “the number two in the Italian secret service” and testified that he suspected she had ties with the Mafia.
During a break in the trial yesterday, Fittipaldi told journalists that Mgr Vallejo Balda contradicted his own testimony the previous day that he was pressured to leak the documents.
Although the Vatican prosecution’s case asserts the confidential documents were illegally obtained, both journalists defended their right to freedom of the press. Fittipaldi told journalists they were being tried “for simply asking questions.”
“In America, the journalists of the Boston Globe asked questions and were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering important information on paedophilia in the Spotlight case and their story becomes an Oscar-winning movie,” he said. “In Italy, journalists who ask questions, who investigate very important questions on an economic structure riddled with corruption end up being tried and risk four to eight years in prison. For the simple fact of asking questions.”
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.