VATICAN CITY
Reuters
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY , Nov 24 Five people, including two Italian reporters, went on trial in the Vatican on Tuesday, to outrage from rights’ groups, on charges arising from publication of books in which the Holy See was portrayed as mired in mismanagement and corruption.
As they walked into the Vatican, the two reporters, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, said they had done nothing wrong and were merely doing their professional duty.
The trial, being heard by three judges, stems from publication of two books which depict a Vatican plagued by mismanagement, greed and corruption and where Pope Francis faces stiff resistance from the old guard to his reform agenda.
Two of the officials indicted, Spanish Monsignor Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda, who was number two at the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, and Italian laywoman Francesca Chaouqui, a public relations expert, were arrested earlier this month.
Balda and Chaouqui were both members of a non-defunct commission Francis set up in 2013 to study economic and administrative reforms. Vatican employee Nicola Maio, Balda’s assistant, also went on trial.
The Holy See was embarrassed and angered by the books, which it said used information that should never have been allowed to leave the walls of the city state.
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