The Vatican prosecutor offered to remedy the mistakes by essentially starting over, throwing the trial into question before it really got off the ground.

Deputy prosecutor Alessandro Diddi made the surprise announcement at the first hearing since the trial started in July, saying: "I feel the duty to meet (the defence requests) halfway."

Diddi said his office has always acted to ensure that the rights of the accused were respected. He suggested his proposal was a "common sense" way to address the defence objections.

Defence lawyers told the court Diddi's request was unacceptable and accused Diddi's office of withholding key pieces of evidence from them.

They cited a raft of what they claimed were procedural errors and asked court president Giuseppe Pignatone to annul the 500-page indictment. This action would effectively end the current trial.

The defence maintains the errors by the Vatican prosecution badly harmed their right to a fair trial and ability to mount a defence.

In particular, they want to view videos of five interrogations of Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, a former Vatican official who was first a suspect and then a star witness for the prosecution.

Perlasca is the primary witness against the most prominent defendant, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a once-powerful Vatican official.

The prosecution has accused Becciu, other former Vatican officials or employees and outside middlemen involved in the deal of embezzlement, abuse of office, and fraud. They all have denied wrongdoing.

The trial revolves mainly around the purchase by the Vatican's Secretariat of State of a 350 million-euro investment in a London property.

The venture lost the Vatican tens of millions of euros. Much of the funds were donations from the faithful that were spent on fees to Italian brokers.

Pignatone adjourned the trial after about two hours and said he would announce his decisions on Wednesday morning.

If Pignatone agrees to Diddi's request, he and others on the prosecution team will return to their work with thousands of pages of evidence and documents. In addition, they will question some of the defendants again and other witnesses for the first time.

Sources

AP News

Reuters

This is a further message from the pope to Vatican-based cardinals and bishops about his intent to hold them accountable for criminal misconduct.

It is a message he has been sending for eight years.

Pope Francis has removed the procedural obstacles that had spared them from being prosecuted by the Vatican's criminal tribunal.

The new law makes it clear that Vatican city-state prosecutors have jurisdiction over Holy See cardinals and bishops. Prosecutors now need only the pope's consent to proceed with investigations against them.

The Vatican court system consists of the Tribunal, the Court of Appeals and the Cassation Court, the equivalent of the Supreme Court, which comprises two cardinals and a "promoter of justice."

The Tribunal, created in 1929, is composed of three magistrates nominated by the pontiff and currently headed by the prominent anti-mafia prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone, appointed by Francis in October 2019.

Previously, cardinals and bishops could only be judged by a jury of their peers in the Court of Cassation.

Its president, French Cardinal Dominique Lamberti, is also the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature. This is the highest court concerning spiritual and religious matters and overseeing justice in the Vatican.

The reform is the latest sign that Francis is taking concrete steps to make it easier to hold his own cardinals and bishops accountable. It also emboldens Vatican prosecutors to go after them.

On April 29, Francis passed another law forcing Vatican superiors to declare their finances are clean. It also set a 40-euro (NZ$67) cap on work-related personal gifts received by any Vatican employee.

The gift cap was seen as a way to cut down on the rampant practice of financial gift-giving to Holy See clerics and the chance that such money could grease favours.

In an introduction to the law, Francis said it was necessary to hold everyone equal under the law.

"The understanding of such values and principles, which have progressively matured in the ecclesial community, today require the Vatican code to more adequately conform" to international standards, he wrote.

Pope Francis has also signed a new anti-corruption law for the Vatican, which prohibits employees from using tax havens investing in companies that go against Church teaching.

"Faithfulness in things of little account is related, according to Scripture, to faithfulness in the important ones," begins the motu proprio on anti-corruption for members of Vatican management signed by Francis April 26.

"Just as being dishonest in things of little importance is related to being dishonest in important matters."

Libero Milone, who served as the first auditor general of the Vatican Curia from 2015-2017, said that APSA had made investments that did not correspond to the social doctrine of the church. This included a pharmaceutical company that produced the morning-after pill.

According to Milone, the Vatican held these shares for almost 20 years until he flagged the investment to his ecclesiastical superiors, who quickly sold them.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Religion News

Crux News

Giuseppe Pignatone's appointment came two days after Vatican police raided the Apostolic Palace and seized documents and computers from the secretariat of state.

The raid included searches of the Vatican's Financial Information Authority (AIF), which is tasked with flagging possible money laundering and other suspicious financial transactions.

The Vatican press office had little to say about the raids.

It only said they were based on a report from the Vatican bank and auditor general's office about past financial operations.

Pignatone's appointment was announced just as a new scandal erupted over alleged financial wrongdoing in the heart of the Holy See.

The 70-year old prosecutor has spent 45 years of his life in the Italian judiciary fighting the mafia.

As Sicily's deputy prosecutor, Pignatone coordinated the investigation which, in 2006, led to the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano, who was "head of all the leaders" of the Sicilian mafia.

In 2008 as the prosecutor of the Republic of Reggio Calabria. Pignatone he attacked the Calabria-based crime group Ndrangheta.

Threats against him at that time included a rocket launcher being found pointing directly at the window of his office.

In 2012, the High Council of the Judiciary unanimously appointed him Prosecutor of the Republic of Rome.

In this capacity, he coordinated the Capital Mafia investigation, which uncovered the links between senior leaders of the Municipality of Rome and the Mafia.

He also led investigations into political corruption and organized crime as well as Italy's probe into the suspicious death in Egypt of an Italian graduate student.

Pignatone retired in May as chief prosecutor in Rome.

In his new role at the Vatican's criminal tribunal, he will lead all investigations into all crimes that occur on Vatican territory or involving Vatican diplomats.

The penal code is based on the Italian criminal code with elements of canon law.

One of the tribunal's most high-profile cases in recent years have involved the two "Vatileaks" scandals of leaked Holy See documents.

Another involved prosecuting the former president of the Vatican's children's hospital over financing for a cardinal's apartment renovations.

Yet another involved convicting a Vatican diplomat on child pornography possession charges.

More recently, Vatican prosecutors have recommended that two priests from the Vatican's youth seminary be prosecuted in a sexual abuse case involving young seminarians.

Pignatone's appointment, although planned for some time, was reportedly swiftly accelerated by the Pope.

The current investigations into the Secretariat of State and the Financial Information Authority of the Holy See will be one of the first cases Pignatone will have to deal with.

Source

• La Croix
• AP News
• Image: La Croix International