There are new developments in the active Vatican court case looking into allegations that the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was not valid and thus calling into question the pontificates of Francis and Leo XIV.
In April of this year, LifeSiteNews broke an exclusive story confirming that the Office of the Promoter of Justice of the Vatican City State was actively investigating a petition challenging the validity of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2013 resignation. The report, based on an official letter from Promoter of Justice Professor Alessandro Diddi dated March 30, 2026, marked the first time the Vatican’s criminal investigative office had put in writing that the multi-year claims had triggered an active inquiry.
Some observers immediately dismissed the development as either false or as little more than a convenient procedural excuse the Vatican used to refuse access to certain files. They argued that the letter’s language—that investigations were underway and their conclusion could not yet be predicted—was simply a standard formula for denying document requests during a preliminary phase, without any real substance behind it.
That assessment has been challenged once again as the main complainant in the case, Italian journalist and author Andrea Cionci, was summoned for a second formal hearing on August 3, by the same Promoter of Justice. This followed an earlier four-hour session held on April 12, 2025—while Pope Francis was still alive—and was the preliminary investigation into Cionci’s multi-year petition.
Cionci told LifeSiteNews that the latest meeting lasted approximately two hours and took place in a noticeably more relaxed atmosphere than the first. During the session he formally filed an additional petition of roughly 50 pages containing newly gathered material. Everything, he states, was placed on the official record.
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