Top priest confesses at ‘Vatileaks’ trial, saying friendship with ‘seductive’ PR woman left him compromised and fearful

A Vatican monsignor has admitted in court that he passed confidential Holy See documents on to journalists but said he did so at a time when he feared for his life after a friendship with a woman turned sour.

Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda, a former high-ranking official in the Vatican’s finance office, was the first defendant called to testify on Monday in the Vatican’s controversial trial over the so-called “Vatileaks” leaked documents. In addition to Vallejo, the two journalists, the woman and Vallejo’s secretary are on trial.

Under repeated questioning from the chief prosecutor and the tribunal president, Vallejo confessed that he passed documents to journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi.

“Yes, I passed documents,” he said. “I did it spontaneously, probably not fully lucid.”

“I was convinced I was in a situation without exit,” he said.

Fittipaldi’s book Avarice, and Nuzzi’s book Merchants in the Temple, detailed millions of euros in lost potential rental income from the Vatican’s real estate holdings, millions in missing inventory from the Vatican’s tax-free stores, the exorbitant costs for getting someone declared a saint and the greed of bishops and cardinals lusting after huge apartments.