The Vatican announced Monday that two members of a commission set up by Pope Francis to study financial overhauls at the Holy See had been arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential documents to journalists.
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Second, the Vatican police force arrested two people who were on the commission, a Spanish priest and a woman who served as a public relations expert for COSEA.
Both Msgr. Vallejo Balda and Ms. Chaouqui belonged to the Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organization of the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See (COSEA), a committee created by Pope Francis in July 2013 for the goal of advising the Pontiff on economic and bureaucratic reforms.
The arrests come as two books are slated to be released this week, supposedly detailing scandals related to Vatican finances.
Last weekend’s arrests follow a similar incident in 2012, known as the “Vatileaks” scandal, in which a personal assistant to Pope Benedict XVI leaked internal documents purporting to show behind-the-scenes power struggles in the church. The Vatican suggested that the leaked information in the two books out this week were linked to the two suspects.
In wiretaps transcribed in “Merchants in the Temple” by journalist Nuzzi, Francis can be heard asking, “if we don’t know how to look after money, which we can see, how can we look after the souls of the faithful, which we cannot?”
The commission was constituted by Pope Francis after he was elected in 2013.
Unlike previous similar instances, the Vatican does not see the current leaks as something well-intentioned, Officials believe the leakers are not benefiting the church more broadly by opening up corrupt practices to the world, reports Candida Moss, a University of Notre Dame professor and CBS News contributor.
The Vatican described the soon-to-be published books as “fruit of a grave betrayal of the trust given by the pope, and, as far as the authors go, of an operation to take advantage of a gravely illicit act of handing over confidential documentation”, the Vatican said. “We must absolutely avoid the mistake of thinking that this is a way to help the mission of the pope”, it added, according to Religion News.
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Her appointment, though made personally by Francis, was apparently prescribed by Monsiguor Balda, the man with whom she now shares the hot seat and who is a prominent figure in Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative Catholic order that has never quite seen eye to eye with the Jesuits like Francis. The papal aide was subsequently jailed over the 2012 revelations, dubbed the “Vatileaks” scandal, although he was subsequently pardoned by Pope Benedict. The book says that if market rates were applied, homes given to employees would generate income of 19.4 million euros rather than the 6.2 million euros now recorded, while other “institutional” buildings which today generate no income would generate income of 30.4 million euros. Opus Dei expressed “surprise and pain” at his arrest.
