VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Italian news media published previously unseen WhatsApp messages on Monday (April 14) that hint at judicial meddling by Vatican prosecutors in the blockbuster trial of 10 defendants, including one cardinal, on charges of money laundering and embezzlement of the Catholic institution’s funds.
Besides suggesting that the prosecutors colluded with two women to manipulate a key witness, the messages point to larger issues troubling the Vatican judicial system, as they show lawyers and defendants discussing a lack of legal protections, the rule of law and due process in the small city-state ruled by the absolute monarch: the pope.
One of the women in WhatsApp exchanges, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, a member of a commission set up by Pope Francis to clean up the Vatican finances, was convicted in the 2017 Vatileaks II trial for leaking confidential information to journalists. Chaouqui, sometimes referred to as “the papess,” or female pope, by Italian journalists, has been a recurring character in Vatican financial scandals.
The second woman is Genoveffa Ciferri, a close confidant of Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, the trusted adviser of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former chief of staff to the Vatican’s secretary of state.
In December 2023, Becciu was found guilty in the Vatican trial that resulted from an opaque real estate investment by church officials using funds destined for charity that lost the institut …