Monsignor Carlo Capella who served as a councilor at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, US, was sentenced to 5 years in prison and fined €5,000 by the Vatican tribunal on June 23, 2018, reported Vatican News.
He was convicted of the tribunal for the “possession and distribution of child pornography with the aggravating circumstance of its large quantity,” in what is the first trial of its kind inside the Vatican.
Italian Monsignor Capella admitted to viewing the images during what he called a period of “fragility” and interior crisis.
Msgr. Capella, 50, was ordained a priest of Milan Archdiocese in 1993. He will serve the sentence in the Vatican barracks, where he has been held since his arrest on April 7 after his recall from Washington. Capella’s trial was the first known enforcement of a 2013 Vatican City law that specifically criminalized possession and distribution of child pornography, punishing it with up to a maximum of five years in prison and a €50,000 fine.
