Vatican spokesman Father
Federico Lombardi on Wednesday denied media reports that Pope
Francis was "disconsolate" after the arrest of two people at the
weekend, including a senior prelate, over the leaking of
confidential Holy See documents.
He also said that, at the moment, no one else was under
investigation in the probe apart from Spanish Monsignor Lucio
Angel Vallejo Balda and Italian PR expert Francesca Immacolata
Chaouqui, both of whom served on the pope's financial reform
commission.
The two were detained and interrogated at the weekend
following a months-long investigation into the misappropriation
and disclosure of classified information to the writers of two
upcoming books on the Vatican.
Balda remains in a Vatican cell and Chaouqui, who denied
the charges, was released after agreeing to cooperate with
investigators.
On Wednesday, she wrote on her Facebook page that she has
"full faith" in investigators working the case dubbed Vatileaks
2, asking them to "establish the truth" and saying she is at
their "complete and total disposal".
On her Facebook page Tuesday evening, Chaouqui warned
journalists covering the story.
"I'm not in the mood to tolerate slander. From anyone. I've
already sustained enough," she wrote.
Chaouqui also wrote that she was never denied access to the
Vatican and that she used "normal procedures" to enter it for
meetings or to visit commercial areas for which she was
authorised.
Advance previews of two books on the Vatican due out later
this week and based on confidential documents emerged in the
media on Tuesday, drawing further attention to the scandal.
Extracts of Avarice: Documents Revealing Wealth, Scandals
and Secrets of Francis Church, by Italian journalist Emiliano
Fittipaldi, said that officials in the Vatican's Secretariat for
the Economy spent hundreds of thousands of euros on business
class flights, clothes made to measure, and expensive furniture.
Fittipaldi wrote that a list of the secretariat's spending
included "crazy expenses that reached more than half a million
euros after just six months of operations", according to
Fittipaldi.
The other book, Merchants in the Temple by Italian
journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, paints a picture of financial
mismanagement, greed, secrecy and waste in the Vatican's
bureaucracy, according to extracts released to the media on
Tuesday.
The Vatican has said it may take legal action against the
books.
The papacy of Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI, was hit
by the first so-called Vatileaks scandal over the leaking of
embarrassing confidential Church papers.
Benedict's butler was convicted over the leaks but was
subsequently released from a Vatican cell thanks to a papal
pardon.
Also on Wednesday, Monsignor Angelo Becciu, substitute for
general affairs at the Vatican, said Vatileaks 2 would not stop
Pope Francis in his drive to overhaul Vatican finances.
"This incident, albeit unpleasant, will certainly not block
him," Monsignor Becciu told ANSA.
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