One of Pope Francis’s top priorities, after his election in 2013, was cracking down on the Vatican’s financial corruption. In his first months as pope, Francis closed thousands of unauthorized accounts of the Vatican Bank, and in 2014, he created the Office of the Auditor General to monitor Vatican finances and spearhead anticorruption efforts. Perhaps the most high-profile consequence of the Pope’s crackdown was the two-and-a-half year investigation and trial of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu—the Pope’s former chief of staff—and nine others for financial corruption. While this so-called “Vatican trial of the century” included a range of alleged crimes, its locus involved the Holy See’s $380 million investment in a London real estate deal, which Vatican prosecutors alleged defrauded the Vatican to the tune of tens of millions. In December 2023, Cardinal Becciu was convicted of three counts of embezzlement and sentenced to five and a half years in prison. All but one of the other defendants were convicted on charges including embezzlement, corruption, and fraud, and several of them also received prison terms.

Although viewed by some as a triumph for the Pope’s efforts to clean up the Vatican, the investigation and prosecution of Becciu and his codefendants generated a firestorm of criticism. One legal expert affiliated with the defense described certain actions by Vatican authorities as “unacceptable abuses;” a Vatican canon lawyer likened the process to that of a “banana republic.” The most serious complaint—raised by the defense team, some legal commentators, and at least one cardinal—was that Pope Francis improperly used his power to “secretly” change the law four times via papal “rescripts” (roughly equivalent to executive orders) throughout the course of the investigation to give prosecutors “essentially, and a bit surreally, ‘carte blanche.’” These rescripts, which were never formally published (and were not produced to the defendants until the trial was underway), did four things:

• The first rescript, issued in July 2019, had two elements. First, it dispensed with the Vatican Bank’s obligation to report information of a suspected crime to certain Vatican authorities (which, in this case, would have included potential suspects). Second, and more controversially, this rescript permitted prosecutors to “derogat[e]” from existing Vatican law as necessary, including through “precautionary measures” such as detaining potential suspects without a judge-issued warrant.
• The second rescript, issued three days later, permitted investigators to covertly intercept communications without oversight from an independent authority for a period of time. The fourth rescript extended that duration of that authorization.
• The third rescript, issued in October 2019, was promulgated following investigators’ raids on the offices and homes of officials in the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority (AIF) and the Secretariat of State. That rescript authorized the use of the seized materials for judicial purposes and waived “any obligation of secrecy being enforceable” by either the AIF or the Secretariat, notwithstanding allegations that the raids violated Vatican state secrecy law.

The Pope’s defenders argue that these rescripts were necessary steps in Pope Francis’s crackdown on financial corruption. Critics, however, claimed that these rescripts—which effectively changed the law for this specific case, even though they did not permanently change Vatican law—ran roughshod over due process rights and human rights under Vatican law itself.

The defenders have a point, but the critics are right to be concerned. As this case shows, the Vatican is not immune from the balancing act that many jurisdictions face in combatting corruption: empowering competent investigations while maintaining checks on prosecutorial power.

Perhaps in response to backlash, in September 2022, the Vatican amended its Code of Criminal Procedure to authorize and regulate wiretaps. That development notwithstanding, because the other rescripts were limited to this particular case, the question naturally arises whether they should be used as templates for future anticorruption efforts. After all, if the Pope’s defenders are correct that these decrees were necessary to ensure an effective investigation, those same justifications would apply not only to this case but to Vatican anticorruption efforts more generally. On the other hand, the rescripts in their current form raise legitimate concerns regarding, for instance, ad hoc “derogation” from Vatican law and prosecutorial abuse of a relatively unchecked power to detain suspects.

Making the rescripts permanent in their current form would be a mistake—but so would rejecting them wholesale. An appropriate middle path would be to embrace, on a permanent basis, an amended version of certain aspects of the rescripts.

• First, the Vatican could and should permanently modify the Vatican Bank’s obligation to report its suspicions of a crime to certain state authorities when those state authorities include potential suspects. As per the rescript, the Bank should instead report exclusively to investigators. This aspect of the first rescript was not particularly controversial, and the Vatican should make the change permanent.  
• The same cannot be said for giving prosecutors the power to detain potential suspects without a warrant. Even if—as Head Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi argued—this rescript was consistent with international due process norms, the rescript should at minimum be amended to establish some specific guardrails, including, for instance, a requirement that an independent judge review and approve the measure shortly after it is taken.
• With respect to the rescript restricting the scope of Vatican secrecy law, the Vatican faces a difficult balancing act. Permanently and generally weakening bank secrecy law could threaten the confidentiality of banking information. Indeed, following the raid on the AIF, the Egmont Group (an international financial intelligence network) suspended the AIF out of concern that it could not keep confidential information secure. Although the Egmont Group has since reinstated the AIF, the Group might respond with more severe sanctions if the Pope formally narrowed Vatican secrecy law. Here it would be better for the Pope to issue specific rescripts exempting materials from secrecy law on a case-by-case basis, if and when the circumstances warrant.

The issuance of the rescripts (and ensuing backlash) in the “Vatican trial of the century” may mark an inflection point for future Vatican anticorruption efforts. The Vatican is right to recognize the need for modification of existing law to facilitate the sorts of complex investigations that fighting high-level corruption and other forms of financial crime require. But the Vatican ought to take into account procedural fairness and the rights of defendants (and others) as well—both for their own sake and to ensure the long-term legitimacy and effectiveness the Pope’s anticorruption efforts.