A bogus priest has been caught as he tried to hear confessions within the Vatican basilica of St Peter's, it has emerged. The unidentified 30-year-old man, dressed in full robes with a fake identity card, was caught by a suspicious guard as he entered a confessional box.
He was brought before a special Vatican court and sentenced but the details of his punishment were not revealed by judge Gianluigi Marrone who heard the case.
Judge Marrone, is one of a handful of judges who sits on the Vatican Tribunal and revealed the incident in an interview with the Holy See's official newspaper Osservatore Romano.
He said: "The man was caught in the Basilica as he tried to get into a confessional box. He had priest's robes on but to the expert eye of our security staff he raised suspicions.
"He was acting strangely and so he was stopped and checked. He had an identity card which said he was a priest but a quick check established it was bogus.
"Investigations revealed that he had done the same in churches on Italian territory and so he was charged with usurping an ecclesiastical title and he was tried in a Vatican court."
Under the 1929 Lateran Treaty agreed between Italy and the Vatican which established the tiny Catholic State, the Vatican has its own judicial system.
The majority of trials are for theft and pick-pocketing within St Peter's but last year they also dealt with a trial that grabbed headlines of an employee caught in possession of cocaine.He was given a four month suspended jail.
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