Vatican Appeal Trial: Preliminaries Closed as Court Retires to Deliberate on Disputed Rescripts and Omitted Evidence

The Vatican court defers its decision in the appeal over Holy See funds, as debate over papal rescripts and procedural omissions intensifies.

Newsroom (06/02/2026 Gaudium Press ) The seventh hearing in the Vatican’s high-profile appeal over the management of Holy See funds closed with the Court announcing it would retire to deliberate. Presiding Judge Monsignor Alejandro Arellano Cedillo declared that the eighth session, initially set for the following morning, would be postponed. The session was entirely devoted to replies and counterarguments among the defense, civil parties, and the Promoter of Justice.

At the heart of the five-hour debate were the papal rescripta, private apostolic decrees issued by Pope Francis, which extended the Promoter of Justice’s investigative authority. The defense continues to contest their validity, citing their non-publication as a violation of canonical and procedural norms.

The Question of the Papal Rescripts

Defense attorney Luigi Panella, representing former Vatican financier Enrico Crasso, argued that failing to publish the decrees rendered them legally void. Quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas, he reminded the Court that “promulgation is essential to law, for law must be known to be binding.”

From the opposing side, attorney Elisa Scaroina, representing the Secretariat of State, countered that the papal acts were kept confidential for reasons of “state secrecy” due to the sensitive financial investigations underway. She defended the Pope’s decision as a matter of prudence and “reasonableness,” echoing Aquinas’s assertion that law is, above all, an “ordinance of reason.”

According to Scaroina, making the documents public in July 2019 could have jeopardized the IOR’s complaint regarding the London property loan and destabilized the Vatican’s financial system. The choice, she argued, was dictated by necessity: “It was the first circumstance of its kind in the Vatican’s legal history.”

Defense lawyers rejected that justification. Massimo Bassi, attorney for Fabrizio Tirabassi, decried the secrecy as “an act of astonishing gravity,” accusing officials of “negligence” in withholding legal documents. Panella went further, questioning how “in a state that should be a mirror of justice, people can be detained on the basis of unpublished laws.”

Disputed Roles and Manipulated Messages

Another volatile issue concerns Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, former director of the Secretariat of State’s Administrative Office. Attorney Fabio Viglione, defending Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, insisted that Perlasca’s role “was anything but marginal,” given that his devices, accounts, and testimony formed part of the original investigation.

The defense also invoked chat exchanges involving Perlasca, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, and Genoveffa Ciferri, alleging outside manipulation. They described a “Bermuda triangle” that allegedly shaped Perlasca’s 2020 memorandum against Becciu. Yet prosecutors dismissed the chats as irrelevant and inadmissible, maintaining that the convictions rested on firm evidence.

The Omission Controversy

A further source of contention lies in the partial deposit of documents and extensive redactions. Out of 132 messages sent by Ciferri to the Promoter of Justice in November 2022, only 126 were filed, and 118 were heavily censored. The defense accused the Vatican’s investigative personnel of withholding critical evidence, referencing even the video interrogation of Perlasca, which allegedly lacked 60 frames.

According to a Vatican Gendarmerie statement cited in court, the omissions were justified by “investigative interest” or lack of relevance. “We are denied the acts the Code requires for our defense,” Viglione protested, calling the practice incompatible with due process.

Calls for Nullity—and for Papal Guidance

Defense counsel reiterated their plea for nullification, pointing out that claims of procedural invalidity had been raised since the very first hearing in July 2021. Attorney Cataldo Intrieri went further, suggesting that Pope Francis himself could intervene to clarify points of law, calling him “a refined jurist capable of offering illumination in a moment of procedural stagnation.”

Prosecutors’ Response

For the Office of the Promoter of Justice, Deputy Prosecutor Roberto Zannotti and Assistant Settimio Carmignani Caridi dismissed the defense’s challenges as “unfounded and pointless.” They defended the papal decrees, stressing that “nothing indicates Pope Francis erred or was misled. His subsequent norms confirm the coherence of his decisions.”

As the appellate court withdraws to deliberate, the Vatican’s quest for judicial clarity continues—symbolically under the gaze of Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose doctrine of reason and law quietly presided over the day’s heated exchanges.

• Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News

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