ROME, Italy (AP) -- A fake priest was caught trying to hear confessions in St. Peter's Basilica and was tried by a Vatican tribunal, a Vatican judge said in an interview published Saturday.
A judge says a man dressed as a priest tried to take confessions at St. Peter's Basilica.
Judge Gianluigi Marrone, who is a member of the court system of the independent Vatican city-state, said the man was wearing clerical garb and carried documents alleging that he was a priest.
"Some time ago I had to deal with an unusual case -- a fake priest," Marrone told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
"He was caught by surprise in the basilica while he was trying to take his place in a confessional. He was wearing clerical garb, but the expert eye of our [basilica] personnel didn't need much to sense something strange in his behavior," Marrone said without elaborating.
The man was stopped and his documents checked, and even though he had what appeared to be legitimate documents, including a Vatican pass, personnel were still suspicious, the judge recalled.
Checking with Italian authorities about the documents "unmasked him," Marrone said, adding that the man had passed himself off as a priest in Italy.
"It was a case of usurping an ecclesiastical title, and thus he was tried by our tribunal," the judge added.
Marrone didn't say when the incident happened, what the tribunal's verdict was or if the man received punishment.
Vatican judicial offices were closed Saturday afternoon, and no one answered the phone at the judge's home in Rome.
Marrone said much of the tribunal's workload involves cases of people having their wallets stolen in the basilica or in the Vatican museums, with most of those crimes going unsolved. If the culprits are found, they are turned over to Italian police, he said.
Last year, Italian news reports said that for the first time the Vatican court system issued a drug conviction, giving a former employee of the Holy See a four-month suspended sentence for possession of cocaine.
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"The People" in the First Amendment means The People; "the People" in the Fourth Amendment means The People; but "the People" in the Second Amendment (ratified in 1791) means the National Guard (created by an Act of Congress in 1903)?
Last year, Italian news reports said that for the first time the Vatican court system issued a drug conviction, giving a former employee of the Holy See a four-month suspended sentence for possession of cocaine.
so let me see if i get this straight. possession of cocaine justifies a 4 month suspension...
...molesting a child gets you a relocated to a different parish where the unsuspecting congregation know nothing about it, so they trust their family in the church. dont forget that these rapists get moving allowances when this happens
when the crime hurts the church its out you go, when it hurts the people its alright to stick around a bit longer
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How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Mentally ill? or ... fuck I dunno? Even if i was trying to gain something I wouldn't want to sit around and listen to people babble about their wrong doings
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Quote: Originally Posted by talking about 05flamerfail
JPG: hes not talkin to me for like hour and a half now
jdbeier38: relationship troubles ftL lol
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Fake priest infiltrates St. Peter's
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