VATICAN CITY
ANSA
(ANSA) – Rome, January 13 – Monsignor Angelo Becciu, substitute for general affairs at the Vatican, said that portraying the Holy See Vatican as a “den of theives” in the wake of the Vatileaks 2 scandal is “an absolute falsehood”.
“I find it supremely unjust that our employees, proud of working in service to the pope and for the church, for a while now have come to the point of feeling ashamed to tell people they work here,” Becciu said in a excerpts released Wednesday of an interview in weekly newsmagazine Panorama set to hit newsstands Thursday.
Two recently-published books written by investigative journalists documenting alleged Vatican waste and mismanagement and lavish spending by clergymen are at the heart of the document-leaking scandal and current trial, and the authors are two of five defendants.
The other three defendants – Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, who is currently in a Vatican jail; PR expert Francesca Chaouqui, and Balda’s former assistant Nicola Maio – are charged with allegedly passing confidential Vatican financial documents to the journalists.
“The right of journalists to publish news in their possession is not under discussion,” Becciu said.
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