Pope Leo and Libero Milone: Will anything change in the ‘other’ Vatican financial trial?
Francis was, one way or another, always at the center of his former auditor’s lawsuit
In one week, a Vatican City court will reconvene to consider the next phase of appeal in a lawsuit brought by the first and former Vatican auditor general against his controversial dismissal from office eight years ago.
While less well known than the landmark financial crimes trial which resulted in the conviction of several former Vatican officials and advisers, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the Milone case is part of a constellation of scandals around attempted financial reforms in the early years of the Francis pontificate.
And, as with the London property scandal, the extent of Pope Francis’ involvement in events has hung heavy over court proceedings thus far.
The next hearing in the Milone case is currently scheduled for June 30, and will mark the first judicial session since the election of Pope Leo XIV in May.
With both Milone’s team and lawyers for the Vatican Secretary of State having previously cited Francis in their arguments, and with judges widely understood to be eager to keep the pope out of proceedings, the hearing could prove to be the first test to see what, if any, influence Leo could have on the case — either by taking an active interest or passively, simply because Francis is no longer the pope.
—
The lawsuit was brought in 2022 by Libero Milone and his now deceased former deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, over their ousting from office in June of 2017.
The auditors, around whom the office of the Auditor General was first created by Francis in 2015, contended that they were coerced into resigning after being held for hours and interrogated by Vatican City gendarmes on behest of Cardinal Becciu, then sostituto at the Secretariat of State.
At the time, Becciu himself stated publicly that he had forced their resignations under threat of criminal prosecution, saying they had been “spying” on the private finances of senior Vatican officials, including himself.
Milone has said that he was forced from office because he had discovered systematic corruption in the highest levels of the Roman curia and that his office and computer had been put under surveillance for months.
Milone’s suit was initially rejected by a tribunal in the city state in January last year, with lawyers for the Secretariat of State arguing that the auditor’s ouster in 2017 constituted a “papal act, ” unchallengeable in court.
Panicco died in 2023 at the age of 63, after suffering from cancer for a number of years. Before he died he accused the Holy See of seizing and withholding his personal medical records, delaying his treatment and ensuring an eventual terminal diagnosis.
As part of the pre-trial process in the lawsuit, Panicco and Milone filed several hundred pages of documents, which they said prove their allegations of widespread corruption, but they have thus far been blocked from presenting those files in open court.
Lawyers for Milone argue that those files prove systemic corruption at the highest levels of the Vatican and are essential to substantiate their claims that the auditor was forced from office in retribution for doing his job too well.
Earlier this year, appeal court judges ruled that Milone’s appeal could not move forward unless his lawyers excluded from their case evidence of “immoral and indecent” behavior by senior officials, finding that it would harm their right to a “good name” if it was presented in open court..
“In the general and repeated attribution to persons holding top positions in the Roman Curia of practices that are at least immoral and certainly indecent such as those outlined in the appeal document, the Court believes that there is a public interest in intervening,” the judges decided in an order signed Jan. 8.
—
While Milone’s legal team has continued to press for leave to present evidence which they believe is crucial to their case, lawyers for the Vatican Secretariat of State have, in turn, sought to block the appeal from coming to trial at all.
At a hearing on November 13 last year, the secretariat’s lawyers repeated their argument that, since Milone was appointed by Pope Francis, his suit from wrongful termination is really an attempt to appeal a decision of the Roman Pontiff — prohibited by canon law.
Milone’s team disputed that Pope Francis made the decision to have the auditors removed from office under threat of criminal prosecution, pointing instead to Cardinal Becciu’s publicly acknowledged role in the event:
“The person responsible for the expulsion of Dr. Milone and Dr. Panicco would be the then substitute from the Secretariat of State, Cardinal Becciu, who reported to Dr. Milone [in 2017] that he no longer had the pope's trust but he practically prevented him from speaking directly with the pope in the last six months, while previously he was used to meeting the pope every week,” Milone’s lawyers argued.
“But we don’t know, it is a mystery, whether it was actually the pope who wanted Milone's resignation — probably not, because he had appointed him and chosen him carefully,” the auditor’s lawyers have argued.
The secretariat’s legal team has responded that if “it is a mystery who caused the resignation of Milone and Panicco” then the burden of proof is on Milone’s team to prove it was not the pope. Milone’s lawyers, in turn, argue that they can only do so by being allowed to make a full presentation of their evidence regarding Vatican financial corruption.
—
To what extent Pope Leo’s ascension to the papacy could or will impact the trial is not yet clear.
As the supreme judicial authority in Vatican City he could, in theory, intervene at any point, formally or informally, in the formal process of the case.
At the extreme end of such an intervention, he could summon the case to himself and decide to adjudicate it directly. This would be a dramatic decision by the new pope, though not entirely without potential benefits.
By choosing to insert himself directly in the case, Leo could nullify a significant and recurring bone of contention between the parties to the case — the involvement of Francis in Milone’s dismissal.
Leo, perhaps alone, could address this matter head on without directly compromising a fundamental tenet of the Holy See’ governance, that the first see is judged by no other earthly authority.
Less dramatically, Leo could let it be known that he is in favor of the court considering all the available evidence in the case, including that which might harm the “public interest” by laying bare financial corruption at the highest levels of the Vatican.
On the one hand, this would be a striking statement in favor of transparency and signal a real commitment to justice under Pope Leo, even if he paved the way for it informally and not by a formal act.
But, on the other hand, it would likely spawn half a dozen or more mini-scandals around any and all senior clerics or Vatican officials shown to have been involved in corrupt financial practices.
Would the new pope really want to open a pandora’s box of scandal which could engulf the curia and lead to an unknown number of spin-offs, judicial and mediatic, to the financial scandal soap opera? It would seem to many like a judgement few would choose to rush into.
Of course, there are other, less dramatic ways in which Leo could take an interest in the Milone case.
Quite apart from the latitude to intervene in the case judicially — which would arguably create more constitutional problems for the Vatican than it would solve — he already has total charge over one of the parties to the case, his own Secretariat of State.
Thus far, the chief curial department has employed a full court press against Milone, disavowing responsibility for Becciu’s public actions in office while at the same time insisting anything illegal the cardinal did could well have been because the pope told him to do it.
With little fanfare and no formal action at all, Leo could simply instruct what is now his Secretariat of State and his lawyers making its case to change their arguments in such a way that Milone’s appeal might proceed toward some resolution.
One possibility would be for the secretariat to drop the argument that the auditor’s defenestration was necessarily a papal act.
At no point have Milone’s lawyers sought to argue that Francis ordered or even approved of his detention, interrogation, and coerced resignation — on the contrary, Milone has always maintained he believes Becciu used his office to block Francis from knowing what was happening.
For many trial watchers, the Secretariat of State’s legal tactic of invoking supreme papal executive privilege has appeared like a bid to shield the department from responsibility for Becciu’s actions in office at the expense of the previous pope.
By ordering a change of argument, Leo could actually move to protect the reputation of Francis and distance the papal office from the whole legal process, while at the same time leaving the secretariat, including its leader Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to answer for how one of its most important offices was exercised by Becciu.
While that course of action would, in all likelihood, be extremely unpopular among the senior leadership of the secretariat, Leo might, perhaps not unreasonably, assess that the Milone lawsuit is in large part a product of dysfunction within that department in the first place.
But by far the most direct, uncontroversial, and final means by which Leo could choose to intervene in the trial would simply be to end the lawsuit all together by opting for some kind of settlement with Milone and Pannico’s family.
Milone has said publicly that he sought for years to come to terms with his former employers out of court before filing suit, and at various points during the current legal process, sources close to his legal team have indicated he could still be open to some kind of resolution.
In the past, Cardinal Parolin, The Pillar understands, indicated he would convey this openness to a settlement to Pope Francis, but no response ever appeared to be forthcoming — either because the previous pope was uninterested or because the message was never actually conveyed.
Leo, however, might well conclude either that Milone’s grievances have some merit and merit some redress or that, whatever the rights or wrongs of how the matter has been previously handled, offering some kind of negotiated settlement could be the most effective way of making the entire issue go away.
Of course, all of this presumes the new pope has any interest in resolving Milone’s case, or of seeing him compensated in any way. It is possible the new pope will, in line with Francis, be content to see the Vatican courts continue to block the lawsuit and the discussion of the evidence Milone says he has.
That option has, again, both risks and benefits. On the one hand, it would likely see Milone get none of the millions he has asked for in compensation — a not inconsiderable point given the state of the Vatican finances.
But it would also leave the Vatican judicial system open to further international criticism and scrutiny, a not inconsiderable point while the Holy See’s governing credibility is at an ebb. And, as Francis appeared willing to do, Leo would essentially be taking a gamble on Milone’s next course of action.
The auditor has several times suggested he would release evidence of Vatican curial corruption in the event that he cannot secure justice through the city state courts. That is a bluff the Holy See has appeared content to call so far.
"But, on the other hand, it would likely spawn half a dozen or more mini-scandals around any and all senior clerics or Vatican officials shown to have been involved in corrupt financial practices."
I see nothing at all wrong with this outcome if they are really serious about transparency and accountability.
You mean "a fundamental tenet of the Holy See’s governance". Not "tenant".