VATICAN CITY, MAY 25, 2012 (Zenit.org).- In a press conference this morning, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, announced that an investigation undertaken by the Gendarmerie, has made it possible to single out a person in possession of private papal documents.
According to sources the person in question is a personal assistant to the Holy Father. The man is now in the custody of the Vatican magistrate for further investigation. On Saturday, May 19, the Holy See announced its readiness to start legal proceedings, following the publication of a series of private documents and letters of the Vatican.
The theft was described by the Vatican not simply as “debatable and objectively defamatory” but as a real and proper “criminal act,” in as much as the Holy Father and many of his collaborators saw “violated their personal rights of reservation and of the freedom of correspondence.”
Given the damages derived from the violation of the privacy and dignity of the Holy Father, as a person and as Supreme Authority of the Church of Rome, the Holy See has manifested the intention to carry out the “appropriate steps” to assure justice for those responsible “for the theft, receiving of stolen goods and the divulging of private news,” requesting if necessary “international collaboration” to this end.
