Pope Francis grants clemency to priest who leaked sensitive documents

Pope Francis granted clemency to a Vatican monsignor who was convicted of leaking confidential documents to journalists.

Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda was granted "conditional freedom" after serving half of his 18-month sentence, Catholic Herald reported. He was fired from his job as a high-ranking Vatican financial official, and he now falls under the authority of his local bishop in Astorga, Spain.

"Considering that the Rev. Vallejo Balda has already served more than half of the sentence, the Holy Father Francis has given him the benefit of conditional release. ... It is a measure of clemency which allows him to regain freedom. The penalty is not resolved, but he can enjoy the benefit of parole," said the Vatican in a statement, according to Religion News Service.

Vallejo was convicted by the Vatican court in July of conspiring to pass documents to two journalists. Media rights groups criticized the case because the two journalists were also put on trial. The court later ruled that it had no jurisdiction to prosecute them.

The two journalists, Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi, have written books based on the documents that they accessed. The said documents exposed the alleged greed of bishops and cardinals who were angling for big apartments. Other parts revealed the high costs of saint-making and the loss of millions of euros in rental income due to undervalued property.

The documentation was compiled by a pontifical commission that was asked by Francis to gather information about the Vatican's finances in an effort to make them more transparent and efficient.

Vallejo admitted in court that he handed Nuzzi 85 passwords in order to access password-protected documents.

He denied that he was threatened by the journalist, but he accused a woman named Francesca Chaouqui of intimidating and manipulating him. Chaouqui, a communications expert and a member of the commission, was convicted of conspiracy alongside Vallejo and was given a 10-month suspended sentence.

Under Vatican law, publishing confidential information can be punishable by up to eight years' imprisonment.

A similar case involved Paolo Gabriele, the former butler of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who was found guilty of leaking private documents that exposed heavy infighting and political intrigue in the Vatican. He was personally pardoned by Benedict after serving only three months of his prison sentence.