'Deputy pope' called to testify in Vatican leaks trial

The 'deputy pope' will be summoned to testify before a Vatican court hearing a trial over the theft of confidential papal documents, the first time such a high-ranking official will appear at a public trial inside the city-state.

The lawyer for Francesca Chaouqui, a former public relations consultant for a Vatican reform commission, asked that Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and two other high-ranking Vatican prelates appear before the court.

Parolin, who is sometimes known as the deputy pope, is second only to Pope Francis in the hierarchy of the Vatican, which governs the worldwide Roman Catholic Church.

Five people are on trial in the case, which centres on the publication last month of books based on leaked documents that depict a Vatican plagued by greed and graft and where the pope faces stiff resistance to his reform agenda.

The Vatican made it a crime to disclose official documents in 2013 after a separate leaks scandal, which the media dubbed "Vatileaks" and which preceded the resignation of Pope Benedict that year.

The prosecution in the current trial had objected to the request for Parolin to testify, but the panel of three non-clerical judges ruled for the...