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In June 2018, a court in the Vatican City convicted and sentenced Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella, a former diplomat, after he admitted to possessing and distributing child pornography while commissioned in the United States. In response, YourNewsWire.com — which has a long history of publishing misleading and inaccurate stories as well as conspiracy theories and fake news — pointed the finger at Pope Francis himself, claiming that the pontiff had granted [Capella] diplomatic immunity in the case. Pope Francis did not grant Capella diplomatic immunity, since Capella was an accredited Vatican diplomat in the United States when he committed his offenses and therefore had immunity by default. However, according to reports, the Vatican did refuse a request from U.S. prosecutors to waive that diplomatic immunity, which would have left Capella open to criminal prosecution in the United States. When Vatican authorities recalled Capella from his post in Washington in the fall of 2017, they announced that Vatican prosecutors had already opened a criminal investigation against him, suggesting that diplomatic immunity was waived in this case for the purpose of bringing Capella back to the Vatican to face justice there, which he subsequently did. Background On 21 August 2017, the State Department notified the Vatican that an investigation had uncovered evidence that one of its diplomatic staff — later named as Carlo Alberto Capella — had distributed and possessed child pornography, according to a later Vatican statement. At some point between then and mid-September, the Vatican recalled him from his diplomatic post, and he returned to the Vatican. According to an unnamed State Department official cited by the Washington Post, the U.S. had asked the Vatican to waive Capella's diplomatic immunity, but the Vatican refused to do so. This was corroborated by the Associated Press. It is highly likely that U.S. authorities would have expelled Capella from the country, a relatively infrequent and serious move in international diplomacy, if the Vatican had not recalled him first. According to State Department guidelines, expulsion is sought in cases where there is strong evidence of a serious crime (that is, a felony or violent crime), and the other nation's officials refuse to waive immunity. Under U.S. Code Section 2252, receiving, possessing or distributing child pornography is punishable by a fine and between five and 20 years in prison (for repeat offenders, the term can be between 15 and 40 years). This makes the offenses Capella was suspected of felonies, meaning the State Department's own policy of expulsion would likely have been implemented in his case. In September 2017, after Capella's return to the Vatican, authorities in Canada announced that they too had been investigating his actions, and found evidence that he had possessed and shared child abuse images using a church computer during a visit to Windsor, Ontario at Christmas time in 2016. In a statement, Windsor Police wrote: Although the Vatican had already announced Capella's return to Italy, Windsor Police issued a nationwide warrant for Capella's arrest on charges of accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography. The Vatican investigation into Capella's crimes led to his arrest and imprisonment in April 2018. On 30 May 2018, he was indicted on charges of possessing and distributing a large quantity of child pornography; his trial began on 22 June 2018. The Vatican City State Tribunal, composed of three judges, convicted Capella the following day, and Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre sentenced him to five years in prison, the maximum sentence available under a child pornography law introduced in the Vatican City in 2013. Capella did not contest the charges against him, and blamed his actions on a personal crisis, dismissing them as merely a bump in the road and vowing to forge ahead in his ministry, the New York Times reported. Conclusion Monsignor Capella had diplomatic immunity by default, something bestowed upon him by the terms of the United Nations' 1961 Vienna Convention. That immunity wasn't granted to him by Pope Francis. However, it is true that the Vatican, led by its head of state Pope Francis, could have agreed to waive Capella's diplomatic immunity, but chose not to do so. If they had, Capella would almost certainly have faced trial in the United States, the jurisdiction where his crimes took place. If convicted, he would likely have been given a prison sentence of longer than the five years he got upon his return to the Vatican. Under U.S. law, five years is the minimum sentence for possession and distribution of child pornography, whereas in the Vatican it is the maximum.
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