Vatican probe into Benedict’s resignation still live: Cionci faces second hearing

(LifeSiteNews) — 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.

The Promoter of Justice is reported to have reiterated his intention to close the investigations in the relatively near future and to treat the matter with the utmost seriousness—language consistent with earlier statements he had made to the Italian site UCCR.

Cionci’s original 100-page criminal petition was lodged on June 6, 2024, under protocol 116/24. It has since been supplemented several times.

At its core lies the claim that Benedict’s Declaratio of February 11, 2013, did not constitute a valid abdication of the Petrine munus—the office itself—but only a renunciation of the ministerium, the active exercise of that office. Cionci and his collaborators argue this left the See in a state of sede impedita, or impeded see, rendering subsequent conclaves invalid.

One of the documents that has drawn particular attention in recent months—and which Cionci has referenced in connection with the broader investigation—is a detailed canonical study prepared by former Italian magistrate Angelo Giorgianni, once Italy’s Undersecretary of the Interior with responsibility for religious affairs in the first Prodi government.

EXCLUSIVE: Vatican court confirms ongoing investigation into validity of Pope Benedict’s resignation

The former government minister, a highly esteemed public prosecutor, sent a formal parere pro veritate—an opinion offered for the sake of truth—to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, on March 11, 2026. A copy was also directed to the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura—the Vatican’s highest court.

The study focuses on the 2025 conclave that elected Robert Francis Prevost as Leo XIV. Giorgianni examines irregularities against the norms of the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis (UDG)—the rule book for the election of popes put out by Pope St. John Paul II.

The first irregularity he noted was the number of cardinal electors. This point is firmly established in the public record. Wikipedia’s entries on the “Cardinal electors in the 2025 conclave” and the “2025 papal conclave” both state that of the 252 cardinals at the time of Pope Francis’s death, 135 were eligible electors under the age of 80. Two did not attend for health reasons, leaving 133 participants. ABC News, in its May 8, 2025 report “Pope Leo XIV conclave by the numbers,” explicitly called 133 “the number of cardinal electors — the most ever.”

It should be noted that on April 30, 2025, the General Congregation of Cardinals issued a statement—reported by Vatican News and other outlets—acknowledging that Pope Francis had created more than 120 electors and had thereby dispensed from the numerical limit in the exercise of his supreme legislative power. All eligible electors therefore retained the right to vote under Universi Dominici Gregis n. 36.

Giorgianni, however, argues that the excess still raises questions of validity. And he bases his claims on John Paul II’s constitution itself.

UDG n. 33 states: “The maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty.”

More importantly, UDG n. 4 says:

During the vacancy of the Apostolic See, laws issued by the Roman Pontiffs can in no way be corrected or modified, nor can anything be added or subtracted, nor a dispensation be given even from a part of them, especially with regard to the procedures governing the election of the Supreme Pontiff.
Indeed, should anything be done or even attempted against this prescription, by my supreme authority I declare it null and void.

The second irregularity Giorgianni points to is the reported discovery of a mobile telephone on a cardinal after the extra omnes (the order for all non-essential personnel to leave the conclave). This incident is not an officially confirmed fact, but it has been publicly reported in detail. It first appeared in the March 2026 book The Election of Pope Leo XIV by veteran Vatican correspondents Gerard O’Connell and Elisabetta Piqué. The authors describe a security alert detecting an active mobile signal inside the Sistine Chapel as the cardinals prepared for the first vote. An older cardinal then discovered a phone in his pocket and handed it over; the book says he appeared “disoriented and distressed.” The book does not name the cardinal. Reuters carried the account on March 1, 2026, under the headline “Cardinal found with phone during secret conclave to elect Pope Leo, book says,” noting that the Vatican press office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Citing Article 76 of Universi Dominici Gregis, the former magistrate argues:

76. Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.

For the moment the Promoter of Justice’s investigation continues. Once the preliminary phase ends, two paths remain open under Vatican procedure: dismissal of the case, or the opening of a formal trial. Cionci maintains that the mere fact the probe has lasted more than a year-and-a-half, with two separate hearings and the acceptance of substantial new documentation, demonstrates that the matter is being treated with genuine seriousness. Critics continue to dismiss the underlying thesis as without merit under established canon law. The Vatican has not issued a public comment on the latest hearing or on Giorgianni’s study.

This is the current state of a case that, more than 13 years after Benedict’s Declaratio, still refuses to close.

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