The new Pontiff will have to work to eliminate the flaws in the judicial system and ease the tensions inherited from a period marked by controversial trials.
FSSPX.News has already mentioned Libero Milone. An Italian with a distinguished career, he worked for more than 30 years at the audit firm Deloitte, where he ended up as Managing Director for the Peninsula. He was chosen in 2014 by Pope Francis to fill the newly created position of Auditor General of the Holy See.
Three years later, he was forced to resign after a brutal search of his offices by the Vatican police, followed by a 12-hour interrogation and expulsion from the territory of the Holy See, with a ban on returning.
Along with his main collaborator, Ferruccio Panicco – who died in 2023 – the former Auditor General then challenged his dismissal and sought compensation. However, the courts of first and second instance rejected his claims, although the appeal verdict reveals troubling aspects, as highlighted in the Italian press.
Indeed, the judgment acknowledges that the behavior of the Vatican Gendarmerie was inappropriate, but was not sanctioned. Vatican expert Andrea Gagliarducci explains that the Gendarmerie of the Holy See is not considered an organ of the Vatican City State, thus, any possible abuse by a gendarme would be a personal matter.
This is an anomaly, for if all power is centralized around the Pope in Vatican City, how can the gendarmerie be separated from the microstate? For the Italian Vatican expert, this fact illustrates the vagueness of the Vatican's current legal system, and the "Milone case" is just one example of a series of trials that have marked Francis's pontificate, dubbed "trial season."
These cases highlight structural flaws. The trial of the former Deputy Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Maria Becciu, revealed tensions, particularly when the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) demanded that the Secretariat of State reimburse funds intended for the Pope. This is an incongruous request, since according to the law of the smallest state in the world, the Secretariat of State is inseparable from the person of the Pope.
Furthermore, the revelation of wiretapping suggested testimony manipulation in the Becciu trial, while a London court ordered the Holy See to reimburse 50% of the legal costs of financier Raffaele Mincione (accused and convicted in the "Becciu" trial).
Furthermore, a case in Malta involving the IOR and the seizure of the pensions of two former officials, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, raised the question of the preservation of the rights of the defense in the press: all cases illustrating a judicial system in crisis. Pope Francis was supposed to reform this system, notably through the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium.
But his efforts remained largely incomplete. A striking example is the merging of the roles of the Promoter of Justice, responsible for both the first instance and appeals, creating a paradox in the "Becciu" case, where the Promoter, Alessandro Diddi, acts as both plaintiff and appellate prosecutor. This confusion is likely to compromise the impartiality of the process.
According to Andrea Gagliarducci, these technical flaws reflect a "Vaticanization of the Holy See," in which the Vatican City State seems to predominate over the spiritual authority of the Holy See itself. It is not impossible to believe that Pope Leo XIV will have to restore a balance by clarifying the legal responsibilities of each party.
More broadly, the first American Pope in history inherits a weakened judicial system, whose credibility has been eroded by years of controversy. This also poses another challenge already discussed on our website: that of generational renewal. For several key figures in the current system have reached—or will soon reach—retirement age, and will need to be replaced by a new generation capable of restoring trust.
However, this transition promises to be complex, because the tensions inherited from Francis's pontificate are likely to persist, and the coming years will show whether or not Leo XIV will succeed in overcoming these obstacles. The pontificate, which began on May 8, is already shaping up to be a decisive period of transition for the future of the Church.