Leo XIV and the aftermath of the previous pontificate

The appeal ruling on former Auditor General Libero Milone, released last week, is just one of the aftermaths of the season of Vatican trials inherited by Leo XIV. But the ruling is particularly significant because it reveals, in some ways, the situation Leo XIV will have to resolve.

Libero Milone was the Vatican Auditor General forced to resign after Vatican City police raided his offices and subjected him to a twelve-hour interrogation, then fairly frog marched him off Vatican soil with a warning never to return again. Milone, along with his deputy Ferruccio Panicco (also effectively dismissed, who died in 2023 after a long illness not helped by his troubles with the Vatican or the legal battles that ensued), contested the dismissal and sought compensation from the Vatican. Both the first and second instance courts rejected Milone’s claims.

In the appeal ruling, however, there are details to consider, beyond the technical issues and any responsibilities to be ascertained.

The first point is that the Vatican Police’s behavior is, indeed, considered improper, but it isn’t judged because it wasn’t the subject of the complaint. After all, the Vatican Corps of Gendarmes isn’t considered “organic” to the Vatican City State. That is to say, a police officer who commits an abuse may well be acting in a personal capacity, rather than as an official of the State itself. Police conduct is not eo ipso state conduct.

However, a policeman abusing his authority at a traffic stop is official misconduct that is not organic to the state, but the state is still responsible for his misconduct. A police force executing an order from a sovereign or a sovereign agent with authority, well, that is organic.

The refusal of Milone’s requests is justified by the fact that the Vatican City State does not have—and here he quotes verbatim—”a post-revolutionary order,” meaning that everything is centralized around the figure of the Pope. Moreover, this is a contradiction: If everything is centralized, then so are responsibilities; therefore, why consider the Gendarmerie “not organic” to the state system?

These are two details that reveal the understanding of the Vatican legal system and how this understanding was developed throughout the “trial season.” If the Vatican judges themselves do not consider the Holy See within its specific legal system, how can trials be considered fair?

The Milone case is becoming a textbook example, as it’s the one being discussed at present, given the current news. However, in general, the legacy of the season of trials is precisely a misunderstanding of the Vatican’s legal system. Or, in some cases, a relentless attack on the Vatican legal system by those who were supposed to defend it.

The appeal in the so-called “Becciu trial” is due to begin on September 22. The trial, which is a three-part investigation involving the management of Secretariat of State funds, concerns the case more generally.

That trial, too, had demonstrated several flaws in the Vatican’s understanding of the matter. Indeed, it was a trial stemming from a complaint filed by the Institute for the Works of Religion (the so-called Vatican Bank) against the Secretariat of State. During the trial, the Institute itself had even demanded that the Secretariat of State reimburse funds intended for the Pope. This request was absurd because, according to canon law, the Pope is the Holy See, and the Pope and the Secretariat of State are synonymous.

The appeal will begin after another proceeding exposed a series of wiretaps that showed evidence of manipulation in the trial testimony, and after the High Court in London ruled that the Holy See must reimburse financier Raffaele Mincione 50 percent of his legal costs.

And then there is a case involving the IOR in Malta, a case of possible human rights violations for the seizure of pensions from two former IOR officials (Director Paolo Cipriani and Deputy Director Massimo Tulli) convicted of mismanagement and currently appealing the verdict.

Added to this are the incomplete reforms left by Pope Francis. For example, the judicial system will need further revisions, considering that the Promoter of Justice is now the same for both the first-instance and appeal proceedings. In the case of the Becciu trial, we face the paradox that the Promoter of Justice, Alessandro Diddi, who appealed the first-instance ruling, will also act as the prosecution in the appeal proceedings.

These all seem like technical details, and they are. However, they help us understand the state of affairs Pope Leo XIV has inherited from the Francis pontificate, hence the challenges really facing Leo at the outset of his own.
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Leo XIV must restore strength and credibility to a judicial system that has lost both in recent years. The season of trials has, in some ways, signified the Vaticanization of the Holy See. It’s time to restore a proper balance and the priority of the Holy See with respect to the Vatican City State. .

It’s not out of the question that Pope Leo XIV may decide to freeze the appeals that have yet to begin, as a matter of prudence, and perhaps to undertake a major overhaul of Vatican justice. However, the most challenging thing will likely be to effect the necessary generational change.

Bringing about a change of guard will be difficult. The impression is that this season of trials will be a long aftermath of Pope Francis’s reign. Leo won’t be able to fix everything right away. It’s not a given that he will succeed.