The Vatican's own police force has arrested a monsignor and a laywoman in its latest probe into the leak of confidential documents.
The Vatican said both people were members of the commission established on Pope Francis' order to investigate the Church's finances. They were being held on suspicion of leaking confidential documents to the media.
Pope Francis speaks to inmates during his visit to the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 2015. AP
A statement released by the Vatican identified the suspects as Spanish priest Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui. Chaouqui was released Monday, the statement said, and was "cooperating with the investigation. Balda remained in custody.
The arrests took place over the weekend but only became common public knowledge on Monday, two days before the slated release of a pair of new books touting new revelations of past misdeeds at the Vatican.
Pope's former butler to testify in leaks trial
One of the two books is written by Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose 2012 book "His Holiness" contained private documents stolen from Pope Benedict's desk by his butler.
"Regarding the two books in the next days, we clearly state that this time, as in the past, they are the result of 'a grave betrayal of the Pope's trust,'" said the statement released Monday by the Vatican.
It said the books' authors had taken advantage "of a grave illegal act of the delivery of reserved documents" and the possibly criminal consequences would be "studied by the Vatican prosecutor as regards possible further measures."
Both Balda and Chaouqui were members of COSEA (Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organization of the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See), the commission established by Pope Francis with reviewing the Vatican's administrative procedures.
The leaked documents allegedly come from COSEA archives.
CBS News' Anna Matranga reports the Vatican is taking the situation very seriously. Holy See officials have contacted Italian authorities to see if there might be punishments of the two authors of these books.
Nuzzi's book is expected to contain transcripts of private conversations between the pope and Vatican officials, designed to reveal the reasons Pope Emeritus Benedict resigned.
Unlike previous similar instances, the Vatican does not see the current leaks as something well-intentioned, Officials believe the leakers are not benefiting the church more broadly by opening up corrupt practices to the world, reports Candida Moss, a University of Notre Dame professor and CBS News contributor.
There is also a danger in prosecuting these two so harshly.
"It's going to look like they're silencing whistleblowers...rather than going after people who were themselves corrupt," Moss says. "It's gonna look like more of the same."
