But the Vatican has chosen another path for the historic trial involving the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele and computer technician, Claudio Sciarpelletti, both of whom have been sent to trial for their involvement in the Vatican confidential document leak.
The first hearing in the Holy See Tribunal is due to take place Saturday.
But all the public are going to get are written accounts of the event. The Holy See has decided to only allow a small pool of journalists attends and today it outlined the rules and drew names.
All journalists that form part of the pool have the duty to share all information and not keep anything to themselves. They cannot publish anything that was not said during the pool briefing. Television cameras and photographs to record the pool briefing will not be permitted in the Vatican newsroom. The use of these will be prohibited for the entire duration of the hearings (including flashes, Twitter and use of phones to dictate events).
This “embargo” will end a quarter of an hour after the end of the briefing, to allow journalists to organise their work and to prevent them getting scoops or exclusives.
As members of the pool will be in the courtroom representing all media, no single member of the pool will be able to write a “first person story”.
The journalists who will be admitted into the first audiences were chosen today. The lots were drawn by a journalist who was not part of the pool, in the presence of other journalists. The reporters with fixed positions are: AFP’s Thuburn, ANSA’s Gasparroni, AP’s Winfield and Reuters’ Pullella. First audience (chosen by lot): Juan Lara de Marmol, EFE; Marco Ansaldo, La Repubblica; Andrea Bachstein, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Angela Ambrogetti, Korazym. Second audience (chosen by lot): Andres Beltramo, Notimex; Ignazio Ingrao, Panorama; Paddy Agnew, The Irish Times; Robert Mickens, The Tablet.
The first audience will be held on Saturday at 9:30 am. “The President of the Tribunal of Vatican City State, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, cannot set the audience dates yet because it depends on how the trial evolves,” said the Vatican’s spokesman, Federico Lombardi. “Audiences may take place in quick succession, with the trial ending quickly as well. But if new evidence turns up, objections raised or further examinations required, then the trial could be adjourned or postponed.”
Fr. Lombardi said it is “highly unlikely” that the trial will conclude in one day and clarified he was unable “to predict whether the trial would overlap other [Vatican] events taking place in October”, i.e. the opening of the Synod on the New Evangelisation (7 October) and the beginning of the Year of Faith (11 October).