The Vatican is once again under the world’s microscope as the appeal trial for its so-called “trial of the century” opened Monday, September 22, 2025, in Vatican City. The courtroom drama, already infamous for its twists, high-profile defendants, and revelations about the Holy See’s secretive financial dealings, now enters a new chapter—one that could prove just as explosive as the original.
At the heart of the case lies a failed 350 million euro investment in a luxury property in London’s Sloane Avenue. According to The Associated Press and Vatican News, the Vatican’s purchase, intended to diversify its portfolio, instead resulted in a loss of at least 139 million euros. The fallout from the deal exposed a tangled web of financial mismanagement, personal vendettas, and unprecedented papal intervention—culminating in the December 2023 convictions of ten defendants, including a cardinal, for crimes ranging from embezzlement and abuse of office to fraud and corruption.
Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once a rising star in the Vatican hierarchy and even considered a papal contender, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison for embezzlement. Eight other defendants, including financiers, lawyers, and Vatican officials, were convicted on various charges, while the court acquitted them of many others. All maintain their innocence and have appealed, setting the stage for this week’s hearings, which will be presided over by Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo and two lay judges.
The original trial, which began in July 2022, was a spectacle in itself—spanning 86 hearings, the longest in Vatican history, and drawing comparisons to Dan Brown thrillers and John Grisham legal dramas. The proceedings revealed not only the Vatican’s financial vulnerabilities but also the personal rivalries and backroom deals that have long characterized its inner workings.
Yet, as the appeals process gets underway, the focus has shifted to thousands of pages of WhatsApp messages exchanged between key players from 2020 to 2024. These private chats, published by the Italian newspaper Domani and reported widely, suggest questionable conduct by Vatican police, prosecutors, and even the late pope. They also reveal a behind-the-scenes effort to target Becciu, raising fresh doubts about the fairness of the trial and the Vatican’s legal system.
One particularly damning message reads, “If it gets out that we all agreed, it’s the end. Because if we all knew, the trial is null and void and it’s a conspiracy.” Defense lawyers for Becciu and others have seized on these chats, devoting dozens of pages in their appeals motions to argue that their clients didn’t get a fair trial in what they describe as an absolute monarchy where Pope Francis repeatedly intervened in the investigation.
Pope Francis’s role in the affair has become a central flashpoint. During the investigation, Francis issued four secret decrees—known as Rescripta—in 2019 and 2020, granting prosecutors wide-ranging powers, including unchecked wiretapping and the ability to deviate from existing Vatican laws. According to The Associated Press, defense lawyers argue that such secret intervention by the pope, who holds supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority, undermined the possibility of a fair trial. The Vatican tribunal, however, dismissed the significance of these decrees, and prosecutor Alessandro Diddi defended them as necessary safeguards.
The WhatsApp messages, however, indicate that Francis’s involvement went even further. They reference prosecutors speaking directly with the pope about the investigation, claims by public relations specialist Francesca Chaouqui that she was working for him, and detailed accounts of interactions between Francis and Monsignor Alberto Perlasca—the Vatican official whose testimony became pivotal. Notably, the correspondence shows Francis lending Perlasca money after his accounts were frozen and encouraging him before crucial questioning in August 2020. In one message, Francis wrote to Perlasca: “Dear brother, thanks so much for your letter of yesterday. I am close to you and I pray for you. Please do the same for me. You can count on me.”
The cast of characters in this saga reads like a who’s who of Vatican intrigue. Cardinal Becciu, dismissed by Francis in 2020 after suspicions of financial misconduct, was at the center of both the property deal and side scandals—including sending Vatican funds to a charity run by his brother and paying a self-styled security analyst. Monsignor Perlasca, once Becciu’s deputy and initially a prime suspect, changed his story after his first round of questioning in April 2020 and began cooperating with prosecutors, escaping indictment and even being listed as an injured party entitled to damages.
But it was the involvement of Francesca Chaouqui, a figure already notorious for her role in the 2015-16 Vatileaks scandal, that brought new drama. According to trial records and the WhatsApp chats, Chaouqui and Genoveffa Ciferri, a family friend of Perlasca, devised a plan to persuade Perlasca to turn on Becciu. Chaouqui allegedly posed as a retired magistrate, passing legal advice through Ciferri. Ciferri, who later grew suspicious of Chaouqui’s motives, eventually turned over their correspondence to Vatican prosecutors. She later stated, “Continuing to exaggerate the importance of the chat messages makes no sense and is only a useless pretext, while the appeal will be based on the actual crimes and the individual responsibilities of each person for each count.”
The defense, however, argues that these chats bolster their claims of a contaminated investigation marred by personal vendettas and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. They contend that the Vatican’s trial, willed by Francis as a sign of his commitment to financial reform, was compromised from the start. Some lawyers are even prepared to take their grievances to the European Court of Human Rights should the Vatican appeals process fail to deliver what they consider justice.
Despite the uproar, the Vatican maintains that the trial was fair and that the defense was given every opportunity to present its case. The court’s judgment emphasized that Perlasca’s testimony was not decisive in the convictions, stating: “…without the probative contribution offered by Monsignor Perlasca having in any way influenced the assessment of criminal liability, since instead the Tribunal relied exclusively on multiple factual elements in the record that remained unchallenged, proving responsibility beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Meanwhile, prosecutor Alessandro Diddi has appealed the acquittals of several defendants, doubling down on his original theory that a grand plot to defraud the Holy See took place. The Secretariat of State and APSA, both civil parties in the first trial, have chosen not to appeal.
As the appeals hearings unfold, the world watches to see whether the Vatican’s legal system can withstand scrutiny—not just from its own citizens, but from foreign courts that may soon be asked to enforce prison sentences or financial penalties. With the publication of private messages and ongoing debates about papal power, the outcome could have far-reaching consequences for Vatican transparency and the principle of justice within the world’s smallest state.
The next chapter in this extraordinary legal saga has only just begun, and the revelations from the Vatican’s shadowy corridors are far from over.