Ex-Vatican diplomat gets five years for possession of child porn
Capella is first person convicted by the church for such crimes
VATICAN CITY— A former Holy See envoy to Washington was sentenced Saturday to a fiveyear prison term for viewing and sharing child pornography, the first time on record that the Vatican has convicted one of its own former diplomats for such crimes.
The punishment for Monsignor Carlo Capella, which included a fine of 5,000 euros, was just shy of the five-year, ninemonth term that prosecutors requested.
The code of this city-state calls for imprisonment of up to five years for possessing and distributing child pornography but says penalties can increase if a “considerable quantity” of material is involved.
“The mistakes that I have made are clear,” Capella said in a statement just before his sentencing, where he said his interest in child pornography came during a period of emotional “weakness.”
The two-day trial brought quick closure to a case in which Capella was recalled from Washington last year after the Vatican rebuffed a U.S. attempt to drop diplomatic immunity. Capella will serve his sentence in a cell within the Vatican police barracks.
He could also be removed from the priesthood in an upcoming canonical trial.
Capella also faced charges in Canada, which wanted to prosecute him, as did the United States.
In Canada, Capella was accused of uploading child porn on a social networking site while staying in Windsor, Ont., during the 2016 Christmas season.
Saturday, with several pool reporters in the courtroom, a tribunal president read the verdict and said Capella was “guilty of the charge levied against him.”
“It’s certainly a strong punishment,” said Michael Sean Winters, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter.
“I think there was a mistake — (Capella) should have been tried in the U.S. or Canada. Still, they’re going after these guys. “That is how it should be.” Francesco Zanardi, an Italian survivor of clergy sex abuse and president of the Abuse Network, said people who share and view child pornography stimulate the market, which in turn “actually produces plenty more victims.”