A former member of a commission
on the Holy See's economic-administrative structure has said she
has given up and expects to go to jail for leaking Vatican
documents.
"I will be sentenced," public relations specialist
Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui wrote on Facebook. "I am innocent
but I will be found guilty."
The Commission for Reference on the Organization of the
Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See (COSEA) was
set up by Pope Francis in July 2013 to help put the Holy See's
finances in order.
Chaouqui as well as Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda
and his administrative cleric have been charged with leaking
documents to journalists that showed corruption and questionable
financial practices in the Vatican.
"There is no chance that the Vatican court, after arresting
me and setting in motion a trial that was to have been over in a
few days and is instead lasting for months, and after this
matter has made headlines across the world, will simply say 'we
were wrong' and 'we put an innocent person behind bars'," she
added.
"Thus, I will be sentenced. Without any proof or reason. I
will pay for having obeyed the pope and not listening to those
who said that 'the pope leaves while the Curia stays'. I will go
to jail. I have renounced any appeal and I have not asked for a
pardon. The court that sentences me will have to take on the
responsibility for implementing the punishment. And I know it
will do so. Otherwise it will lose its already compromised
credibility. I will go to jail and I think it will be in April,
immediately after Easter. I will spend a year and a half in jail
and I will give birth there. There is no other way".
She said that she would use the time in jail to write a
book "on my story".
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