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

The Tribunal found Monsignor Carlo Capella guilty of the "possession and distribution of child pornography with the aggravating circumstance of its large quantity".

Capella's was the first trial of its kind inside the Vatican. Read more

Last week, the Vatican announced a new tribunal within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "to judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors".

Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors member Marie Collins sought and received confirmation from the Vatican that the tribunal could deal with retrospective cases of neglect by bishops.

The head of the Australian Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, said he wouldn't speculate on whether a hearing would take place involving a local bishop.

Mr Sullivan said "the way the Vatican works . . . it won't work on speculation or on unsubstantiated claims".

"It will work on final determinations of courts or commissions of inquiry like the royal commission [on institutional responses to child sexual abuse]," he said.

The commission is expected to conclude its public hearings in early 2017, with a final report due on December 15 of that year.

Mr Sullivan doubted that the Vatican's tribunal had already started investigating bishops.

But he believed the work would be accelerated under Pope Francis.

Mr Sullivan said Church leaders have been placed on notice that they have a role to do in responding to and preventing child sexual abuse.

If they fail, they will be judged and possibly lose their jobs, he added.

Complaints against bishops would initially be investigated by one of three Vatican departments, depending on the jurisdiction under which the bishops fall, before being judged by the doctrinal tribunal.

The new tribunal will reportedly have lay members, men and women.

Ms Collins, an abuse survivor, believes a similar tribunal would be set up to deal with religious superiors.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• Irish Times
• Image: Media Blog

Gabriele began serving his prison sentence by order of a Vatican court, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.

"The order will be carried out before the end of the day," he said on Thursday.

He will be detained in one of the recently refurbished prison cells inside the Vatican police barracks.

Lombardi said Gabriele will not be able to seek any employment in the Vatican in the future. He added that Gabriele's violation of the trust of the pope and the privacy of so many people underlines his "incompatibility" with employment at the Vatican.

The Vatican will proceed "with humanity and attention," Lombardi told the Catholic News Service. The spokesman said the Vatican will take into consideration the fact that the 46-year-old Italian was supporting a family with three children in an apartment on Vatican property.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, said Gabriele's crime caused great damage to the pope and to the universal church.

By stealing private correspondence to and from the pope, and other sensitive documents, and by leaking them to an Italian journalist, Gabriele committed "a personal offence against the Holy Father," the cardinal was quoted in a CNS report.

His actions also "violated the right to privacy of many people; created prejudice against the Holy See and its different institutions; created an obstacle between the communications of the world's bishops and the Holy See; and caused scandal to the community of the faithful," Bertone said.

After a Vatican-led investigation, which started in May, and four days of courtroom proceedings attended by a pool of Vatican journalists, Gabriele was found guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced on Oct. 6.

Cardinal Bertone said the whole process was carried out with "transparency, equanimity, and in full respect of the rights" of the accused.

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Agence France Presse
• BBC
• Image: Reuters/BBC

Several European newspapers published an op-ed piece by Gianluigi Nuzzi, the book's author, defending the actions of Gabriele, the Associated Press reported.

Gabriele has been convicted on Saturday of aggravated theft for stealing the pope's private correspondence and passing it onto Nuzzi.

Gabriele confessed to photocopying some of the pope's private letters and giving them to Nuzzi, saying he wanted to shed light on the "evil and corruption" he saw around him in the Vatican that he believed was being kept from the pope.

Nuzzi said he wanted to further explain Gabriele's motives, which he said he ascertained over the course of several encounters that formed the basis of the book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers," which was published in May.

He said Gabriele was at the receiving end of disgruntled Vatican cardinals, bishops and managers who came to him "day after day" with their secrets and concerns "hoping he would bring them to the pope."

"Surely enjoying a privileged point of view — for six years he was one of the people closest to the Holy Father in the pontifical apartment — Gabriele strongly doubted that Benedict XVI was always aware or received truthful information," Nuzzi wrote.

"He spoke to me about this profound perplexity, his discomfort as evidenced by a filial love for the pope, a veneration for his simplicity, recounting stories of a man in the middle of the wolves."

Many of the issues Gabriele brought to light haven't yet been explained, "but certainly they explain the frustration of a man who, when confronting these intrigues, perceived the fragility of his pastor in a battle between good and evil," Nuzzi wrote.

The three-judge Vatican tribunal reduced Gabriele's three-year sentence in half, in part because he admitted he had betrayed the pope and thought "albeit erroneously" that he was doing the right thing.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said a papal pardon is "likely" although there's no knowing when it might come.

Nuzzi appealed for a pardon, noting that Gabriele's leaks didn't reveal state or military secrets but merely shed light on events that were damaging the church.

Nuzzi was neither charged in the case nor called to testify. The Vatican didn't investigate him for receiving stolen goods because the handoff of documents occurred on Italian soil, out of the Vatican's jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the swift conviction of Gabriele leaves lingering suspicions that he was a pawn in a much larger Vatican intrigue, Reuters reported.

The report said that despite the Vatican's desire to quickly turn the page on one of the worst scandals in its recent history, the trial of Gabriele has left many questions unanswered, leading some to call it a whitewash.

Sources

• AP/The Washington Post
• Reuters
• Yahoo
• Image: Reuters

Gabriele claimed that his cell was so small he could not extend his arms, and the light was kept on permanently.

The judges have ordered an inquiry into his allegations.

The Vatican police said conditions inside the police security room respected international standards and Gabriele's rights were never violated.

Authorities accused Gabriele of stealing highly sensitive papers the pontiff had marked "to be destroyed" and compromised Vatican security through his actions.

On Tuesday, Gabriele pleaded not guilty to theft, but admitted abusing the pope's trust and photocopying documents.

He said he leaked the papers, which revealed alleged corruption at the Vatican, because he thought the pope was being manipulated.

The Vatican police on Wednesday, however, told the tribunal they found thousands of documents hidden inside the home of Gabriele.

Prosecutors have said Gabriele confessed to leaking copies of the documents to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he wanted to expose the "evil and corruption" in the church to help put it back on the right path.

The final four witnesses in the trial were heard Wednesday and closing arguments are set for Saturday, when a verdict by the three-judge Vatican panel is expected.

During the hearing, Gabriele recounted his daily life in the shadow of the pope on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace, the BBC reported.

The report said the Vatican tribunal wants to wrap up the trial by the weekend, before the arrival in Rome next week of 200 Catholic bishops from around the world due to discuss the New Evangelisation at a three-week Synod.
This month also marks the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

The BBC said the butler's trial has eclipsed all other Vatican news this week in the world's media.

Sources

• BBC
• Reuters/The Globe and Mail
• AP/Huffington Post
• Image: Getty Images/BBC

During Saturday's start of the trial, the Vatican tribunal said Gabriele's trial will be separate from that of Claudio Sciarpelletti who was charged for allegedly aiding and abetting Gabriele in the so-called Vatileaks scandal.

Giuseppe Dalla Torre, the presiding judge, said four more sessions "next week should be sufficient" for completing Gabriele's trial.

Although under Vatican law a defendant is not obliged to appear in person, Gabriele was present in the courtroom on Saturday.

Sciarpelletti, a computer technician in the Vatican Secretariat of State, was represented by his lawyer.

The trial's first session lasted two and a half hours, which included an 80-minute break during which the judges went behind closed doors to consider the motions and objections made by the defense lawyers.

Eight witnesses will be called to testify in Gabriele's trial and five are set to be called for Sciarpelletti's case.

The Gabriele witness list includes six Vatican police officers, as well as Msgr. Ganswein and Cristina Cernetti, one of the consecrated laywomen who work in the papal household. Neither of them was present in the courtroom.

Gabriele has already admitted his guilt, acknowledging that he passed documents to Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of the book His Holiness: the Secret Papers of Benedict XVI. Published last May, the book portrays a Holy See driven by internecine rivalry, political manoeuvres and occasional corruption.

Gabriele has always said he acted for the good of the Catholic Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit and with a mission to expose "evil and corruption". Many observers wonder if he acted alone or on behalf of some senior Holy See figure, however.

Presiding judge Giuseppe della Torre suggested on Saturday that the trial might be concluded this week, after four more hearings. If found guilty, Gabriele faces up to four years in prison. Many believe, however, that he will eventually be pardoned by the pope.

Source

• Irish Times
• The Christian Science Monitor
• Catholic News Service
• Image: Losservatore Romano via Irish Times