ROME – Two private citizens who filed a criminal complaint against a Vatican official investigating a scandal-plagued Peruvian lay group announced this week that the case has entered a new phase, one in which legal experts say will be probably rejected on diplomatic grounds. immunity.

In a video posted on YouTube on October 28 and titled “They want to silence us”, Peruvian laywoman Giuliana Caccia Arana and Peruvian layman Sebastian Blanco said they were “surprised” to hear from their lawyer on Thursday, October 24th that there is was a development in the criminal complaint filed against the Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican, to whom Pope Francis frequently entrusts the investigation of abuse cases.

Caccia and Blanco filed the complaint alleging Bertomeu disclosed confidential details of testimony they gave as part of an investigation of him in Peru. Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV).

The new development, the two said, was an Oct. 16 decision by a provincial prosecutor overseeing the case, Sandro Ruiz Herrera, who initially opened an investigation into their complaint, said he recused himself and referred the case to the Peruvian prosecutor. The general’s office on the grounds that Bertomeu, as a Vatican official and papal envoy, has diplomatic privileges.

Bertomeu and Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, deputy secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, were selected by Pope Francis last year to lead a special mission to investigate the population of Peru. Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV).

The two, widely regarded as the Vatican’s top investigators, have held diplomatic passports for the Holy See since 2018, when Pope Francis sent them on a similar special mission to investigate clerical abuse scandals in Chile.

Talking to CruxPeruvian lawyer Jose Ugaz asserted Bertomeu’s diplomatic status as an official representative of the Pope, saying, “Bertomeu has a diplomatic passport from the Vatican government…he is a representative of the state.”

“He also has a document authorizing him as a member of the diplomatic mission,” Ugaz said, saying he is “fully covered by the diplomatic immunity that the Vienna Treaty and other international instruments grant to foreign officials,” which includes the 1980 concordat that governs relations between Peru and the Holy See.

Ugaz said that in this case, Ruiz Herrera “did well to file the complaint because he believes that actually having diplomatic immunity does not make it appropriate to open an investigation.”

It is now up to the attorney general to decide whether, “because he is a foreign official who has immunity, to make arrangements with the Vatican to open a top-level investigation or, failing that, to simply close the case because it does not maybe. to be prosecuted in Peru”.

“I think it’s a closed case,” Ugaz said, saying it might take a few days to complete some formalities, but the case for filing it “is compelling.”

Founded by Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari in 1971, the SCV has been mired in scandal over the past decade over allegations of various forms of financial abuse and corruption, with victims claiming that various reform efforts have failed. Scicluna and Bertomeu traveled to Lima in July 2023 to conduct various interviews within the Special Mission, which reports directly to the pope.

Both Caccia and Blanco requested to be interviewed by Scicluna and Bertomeu and were granted an appointment. Since Scicluna had missed the flight, they were interviewed by Bertomeu. When the details of their conversation became public, they filed a criminal complaint against Bertomeu “and those who are responsible”, assuming he must have leaked the information.

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However, participants in the trial said that the identities of Caccia and Blanco were discovered by photographers outside the nuncio and that the content of their statements, but not their names, was given to other witnesses in the investigation of Scicluna and Bertomeu to assess their truthfulness. As a result, these participants say, the information in question should not have come from Bertomeu.

In their video, Caccia and Blanco said Ruiz Herrera, in explaining his decision to refer the case to the attorney general, cited a 1982 decree that recognizes categories of diplomatic immunity including chiefs of mission with the rank of nuncio and diplomatic agents with the rank of nuncio . the rank of minister.

Caccia and Blanco contested the decision, arguing that Bertomeu had never held the rank of minister and therefore had never been to Peru as a diplomatic agent.

The two, who were threatened by the pope with excommunication if they did not withdraw their complaint, also published an article on October 28 in Peru’s El Comercio newspaper describing their version of events and accusing members of the media critical of their position in the defamation case.

Ugaz expressed his belief that, based on the comments from their videoin which they also claim to be victims of a smear campaign, Caccia and Blanco “confuse an internal norm with what clearly corresponds to Bertomeu’s diplomatic status and, therefore, the immunity guaranteed to him by the Peruvian state”.

According to article one of the concordat, “The Catholic Church of Peru enjoys full independence and autonomy,” meaning, according to Ugaz, it is guaranteed the ability to deal with internal affairs, such as the complaint against Bertomeu, within its own legislative and ecclesiastical framework . courts.

“My impression is that the complainants had no idea about Bertomeu’s diplomatic status,” he said, saying “it is not necessary to have the category of nuncio or minister of state to be able to benefit from diplomatic immunity.”

For example, Ugaz noted that officials working for multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations enjoy immunity “in Peru and in all the countries where they work, and there is no need to have ministers to be legally protected” .

The special mission that Scicluna and Bertomeu led, he said, is considered an internal investigation of the Catholic Church covered by the church-state concordat, which means the two enjoy diplomatic privileges. As such, a complaint against Bertomeu is a matter that only the church can handle with its own legislation and courts, as the concordat points out.

Talking to CruxPeruvian lawyer Carlos Rivera said that the fact that the complaint was made against Bertomeu “seems a bit amazing to me”.

“It is an absolutely unusual circumstance. Absolutely unusual. I mean strange, strange,” he said, expressing his belief that neither Scicluna nor Bertomeu “committed any irregular act, any illegal act, much less a crime.”

“They were carrying out a mission entrusted to them by none other than the pope,” he said, saying the investigation itself “was very reserved, and that’s why I tell you that this complaint seems to me to be an absolutely unusual fact.”

Rivera expressed his belief that, based on the available information, “there is no evidence that they have committed a crime, and therefore what would be appropriate in this case is for the Attorney General of the Nations to archive the complaint.”

Watch Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen