The Vatican arrested two VatiLeaks suspects on Monday, including a Spanish priest, in connection with the alleged theft of secret documents.
Spanish priest Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, 54, and Italian public relations expert, Francesca Chaouqui, 33, were arrested by the Vatican's police force over the weekend on the suspicion of stealing and leaking confidential documents to Italian media, according to the BBC. Both suspects are former members of a Vatican bureaucracy reform commission set up by Pope Francis.
"They were questioned over the weekend of Oct. 31-Nov. 1 by Vatican police who have been investigating the removal and dissemination of news and confidential documents," the Vatican press office said, according to Catholic News.
The Vatican, however, did not reveal the exact nature and content of the leaked documents, but it is suspected the leaks are linked to two books on Vatican finances. The Catholic institution, in a statement, described Gianluigi Nuzzi's "Merchants in the Temple" and Emiliano Fittipaldi's "Avarice" as a betrayal of the pope's trust.
"As far as the books announced for the coming days go, it is clear that this time too, just as in the past, they are the fruit of a serious betrayal of the pope's trust," the Vatican said, according to Sputnik.
"Publications of this kind do not contribute in any way to establish clarity and truth, but rather to create confusion and partial and tendentious interpretations. We must absolutely avoid the mistake of thinking that this is a way to help the mission of the pope," it added, according to Religion News.
The arrest comes three years after Pope Benedict XVI's butler was arrested in 2012 with confidential Vatican documents, according to DW. The incident became known as the "VatiLeaks" scandal.
