November 13 | 
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Pope condemns leaks at Vatican but vows reform plan goes on
Pope Francis has condemned the leak of sensitive Vatican documents as ‘despicable’ but said it would not stop his reforms.
Making his first public comment on Sunday about the leaks since the arrest last week of two people suspected of giving the documents to Italian journalists, the Holy Father asked the Faithful to continue praying for the good of the Church. “I want to tell you that this sad fact will certainly not distract me from the work of reform that is moving ahead with the help of my aides and the support of all of you,” the Pope said after his Sunday Angelus.
Last week, the Vatican arrested two people—a high-ranking Holy See official and an Italian woman who works in public relations—for allegedly leaking the documents to the authors of two new books. Mgr Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui were taken into custody after being questioned by the Vatican Gendarmerie.
Both were members of a commission Pope Francis set up several months after his election in March 2013 to advise him on financial and administrative reforms in the Holy See.
After spending a night in one of the Vatican’s four prison cells, Ms Chaouqui was released in exchange for her cooperation with the investigations. The position of Mgr Balda is still being examined.
The arrests came ahead of the publication of two books reportedly containing leaked information from the Vatican, one having been written by the same journalist—Gianluigi Nuzzi—connected with the Vatileaks scandal under Benedict XVI’s pontificate.
“Stealing those documents is a crime, it is a deplorable act that does not help,” the Pope said, adding there was no need to leak them because change was happening.
“I commissioned that study myself and I and my aides know all those documents well already and measures were taken that have already started to bear fruit,” he added.
—This story ran in full in the November 13 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.
PIC: Pope Francis arriving outside the Duomo, the Cathedral of St Maria del Fiore, left, on Tuesday. He attended a meeting of Italy’s bishops and cardinals in the Duomo during a one-day visit to Florence. The Pope also met young people and was to celebrate Mass at a football stadium
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