(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 09.25.2025).- The second chapter of the Vatican’s most ambitious financial trial opened under the frescoed ceilings of the Apostolic Palace with more drama than expected. What was meant to be the ordinary launch of the appeals phase quickly transformed into a test of credibility for the very man who had steered the prosecution in the first round, Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi.
Four defendants—including Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once one of the highest-ranking figures in the Curia—filed motions demanding that Diddi be recused. Their claim was not a technicality but an accusation that he had been entangled in behind-the-scenes exchanges, particularly through WhatsApp messages, that blurred the line between impartial investigator and partisan actor. At stake is not only his reputation but also the integrity of the process through which the Vatican hopes to prove its ability to deliver justice in the face of scandal.
The judges of the Court of Appeal, presided over by Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, took the motions seriously enough to suspend proceedings and invite a formal response from Diddi. In an unusual turn, the prosecutor himself acknowledged the weight of the accusations, thanked the defense for the opportunity to clarify matters, and then walked out of the courtroom, leaving his deputy to carry forward the case.
The trial, which centers on the Secretariat of State’s disastrous £350 million investment in a London property, has already yielded convictions for nine figures, including Becciu, who was sentenced to more than five years for embezzlement in December 2023. But if the appeals process is now dominated by procedural challenges and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, the broader question looms larger: can a city-state that operates as an absolute monarchy convincingly demonstrate adherence to the principles of due process?
The release of thousands of pages of WhatsApp messages and audio recordings has only added to the uncertainty. They suggest a web of influence, with lay intermediaries—most notably Francesca Chaouqui, a figure familiar from earlier Vatican leaks scandals—allegedly coaxing Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, once a suspect himself, into turning witness against Becciu. That dramatic pivot in 2020 reshaped the investigation and ultimately ensured convictions. The defense now argues that this testimony was tainted from the start.
By the third hearing on September 25, the Court of Appeal had already handed down a partial decision: several appeals filed by the prosecution were deemed inadmissible, effectively confirming portions of the acquittals pronounced in the original trial. Some charges—ranging from abuse of office to embezzlement—were wiped off the table permanently, while the court made clear it would concentrate only on defense appeals against convictions in the coming sessions. For Becciu, whose name had been tied not only to financial mismanagement but also to questions of ecclesiastical loyalty, the partial victory was enough to declare the outcome a “good sign,” even if the road ahead remains uncertain.
The case now moves toward October with diminished scope but heightened stakes. Diddi’s own future role hangs in the balance, pending the decision of the Vatican’s supreme court of cassation, presided over by Cardinal Kevin Farrell. Whether he continues or is forced to step aside, the appeal will inevitably shape how both Vatican insiders and the global Catholic community perceive the credibility of the Holy See’s justice system.
For a city accustomed to whispers in corridors and judgments behind closed doors, the spectacle of defense lawyers openly ridiculing the prosecution’s filings as “offensive to our intelligence” and “a lack of respect” toward the bench is unprecedented. Whatever the final verdicts, the trial has already exposed the Vatican’s justice to a level of scrutiny it has long sought to avoid—an exposure from which there may be no turning back.
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