Five persons including two investigative journalists may be sued to court by the Vatican, after they were accused them of leaking confidential information.
Journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi have been linked to the recent VatiLeaks 2 scandal, the Holy See confirmed on Saturday.
If found guilty, the accused persons face between four to eight years in prison.
The duo are said to have published books about scandals in the Catholic church based on information from leaked documents and have even accused the church of wasting money contributed by its worshippers.
The other three – Lucio Balda, Francesca Chaouqui and Nicola Maio – have also been charged for being informants, and have links to the Vatican economic commission Cosea, which was set up by Pope Francis to help reform the Holy See’s economic and administrative structures.
If they fail to appear before the court, the Vatican being a sovereign state with its own judicial system, they will be tried in absentia, the state confirmed.