The Church remains its own judge, while the victims have no right to be informed about the proceedings that concern them.
The Church of Leo XIV, in perfect continuity with that of Francis, says many nice words about pedophilia and then does the opposite. In the case of Don Valentino Salvoldi, which we already reported in a first article, the prescription declared by Italian justice was immediately followed by the ecclesiastical one. Pope Francis had reiterated on several occasions that abuses against minors do not prescribe for the Church and that, therefore, an exception to the prescription is always made in these cases. But Salvoldi has gotten away with it. It is worth examining his significant case more closely, determined by the prescription and the cover-up by ecclesiastical authorities, as well as the key figure in the investigation, the Milanese lawyer Arianna Dutto.
As we have seen, following the complaint filed by the Network Against Abuse both with the judiciary and with the diocese of Bergamo, the curia is forced, after some hesitations, to initiate a «preliminary investigation» into the Bergamo priest. The lawyer Dutto takes charge of it, but from the very first moment it is understood that something is not right: the delegate for the investigation, in fact, contacts the victims from an email address belonging to the Diocese of Bergamo’s Child Protection Service. When Stefano Schiavon, one of the victims of the Bergamo priest, points this out to her and asks if the people interested in providing testimony on the case should contact her at that email address, the lawyer candidly refers him to her private address:
«Since this is a legal procedure, in compliance with the principles of impartiality and neutrality, it is preferable to use the written contact (the email address you provided me, from which I am writing to you)»
Dutto provides Salvoldi’s victims with a personal email address to use in her investigation into the reported abuses, and for her, this resolves everything, as she does not seem to see any problem in maintaining her dual role as a member of the Diocese’s Child Protection Service and as the person in charge of assessing the responsibility of a priest denounced precisely for abuses against minors, as if changing the address were enough to guarantee «impartiality and objectivity.» Not to mention that in many email exchanges the lawyer has with the victims, the Diocese’s Child Protection Service remains in copy.
A lawyer from the Milan Bar Association and an expert in crimes against persons (currently also dedicated to the defense of several carabinieri involved in the death of the Egyptian Ramy Elgaml, 19 years old, murdered on November 24, 2025 after a chase), the lawyer is not only part of several child protection commissions but is undoubtedly a trusted lawyer of the Church. In fact, she represents the CEI in the ongoing trial for the alleged use for private purposes of more than two million euros from the eight per thousand and Vatican funds intended for the diocese of Ozieri, in the province of Sassari; trial in which Antonino Becciu, brother of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the bishop of Ozieri Corrado Melis, and seven other people are accused of various crimes of embezzlement, money laundering, false statements to the prosecutor, and cover-up.
Dutto has an evident conflict of interest, and she is not the only one in the Church who deals with abused minors with the right hand and abusers with the left. There is at least one illustrious precedent, another prince of the Milan forum, Mario Zanchetti: lawyer for the Archdiocese of Milan, he was part of the diocesan commission for the protection of minors in the same years that he was the defender of Don Mauro Galli, the priest from Rozzano who had taken a fifteen-year-old boy to his bed, convicted to three years (with a plea deal) by Italian justice and acquitted by the ecclesiastical one, which had judged the accused «not guilty.»
This fact of being at the same time judge and party, that is, judge of itself, this feeling of being above the rules, is in any case typical of the Italian Church: the CEI, by express declaration of its president, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, has not wanted an independent commission on clerical abuses, as has happened in many other countries, but has opted for the comfortable path of internal investigation, which to date has produced «reports» and «data» with scant and totally unreliable figures, the result of questionnaires to which many dioceses have not even responded (for those who want to delve deeper, there is an excellent work by Adista, here and here).
These investigations are based precisely on the activity of the regional Services, the diocesan and interdiocesan Services, and the Listening Centers for the protection of minors and vulnerable persons, of which the lawyer Dutto is a part. Created in 2019 by the CEI Guidelines and the Italian Conference of Major Superiors (the body that oversees religious orders) at the urging of Pope Francis’s motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi, they have functioned intermittently and, once again, without due transparency. 32 of the 130 diocesan victim support offices were examined in a study conducted by the Network Against Abuse, which lasted two years, and which revealed that, essentially, they serve to provide the diocese with information on abusive priests. This was openly stated by lawyer Mario Caligiuri, legal representative of the Network Against Abuse, in a press conference held on February 24, 2026:
«When a criminal complaint is received, the listening centers provided for by the CEI guidelines do not formally lead to an investigation, but rather constitute an informal access point; they listen, sometimes take notes, and transmit everything to the bishop.»
According to what was revealed by the Network Against Abuse’s study (here in detail), when a victim goes to a diocesan support center, they encounter three structures that do not communicate with each other:
«The first is an office that collects the victims’ data and transmits it to the bishop, who will decide whether to proceed with the preliminary investigation and send everything to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Said office, as mentioned, collects the victim’s data and transmits it to the second structure, but at the same time does not have access to the complete files. Therefore, it knows the individual data provided by each victim, but is unaware if the main file contains other victims of that priest.
From there, just like before the creation of the windows, the bishop has the power to initiate a preliminary investigation and send everything to the third structure—the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith—or not to do so. Obviously, neither the victim nor the window that welcomed them will have access to those files nor be able to verify the real process that has been followed. One will have to trust what the bishop says.»
And that is what also happened to Stefano Schiavon, who, after sending his testimony on November 18, 2024 (within the six-day deadline granted), had no further news of the preliminary investigation’s progress until February 11, 2025, when the lawyer Dutto, always through the email of the Diocese of Bergamo’s Child Protection Service, notified him of the conclusion of her work with the usual fraternal empathy:
Dear Sir:
Regarding the canonical preliminary investigation initiated by the Diocese of Bergamo against the Reverend Valentino Salvoldi, I inform you that, once the diocesan phase has been concluded, the file has been duly forwarded to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for it to take the corresponding decisions.
In response to Schiavon’s legitimate request to know the conclusions of the «diocesan phase» and obtain information on the subsequent procedure before the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the lawyer Dutto immediately replies that she cannot give him anything and that she can inform him even less:
The file is confidential and, at the moment, the diocese is not authorized to provide any information either to the persons who have declared themselves offended and have offered their contribution, or to the suspect.
The acts have been delivered to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith because, according to canon law, said Dicastery is competent in the matter and, at this time, the bishop must wait for communications or instructions in this regard from the same.
Once the documents of the preliminary investigation have been received and carefully studied, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has several possibilities for action: to archive the case; to request a deeper investigation of the preliminary investigation; to impose non-penal disciplinary measures, normally through a penal precept; to impose penal remedies or penances, or admonitions or reprimands; to open a penal process; to identify other pastoral request paths. At that time, the decision will be communicated to the bishop, with the appropriate instructions to carry it out.
As for the deadline, there is no time limit; in general, it can be assumed that the decision will be taken within six months, but, as you will understand, each case has its own peculiarities and, therefore, the Dicastery could examine the documents and make a decision in a shorter or longer time than the one indicated above.
There are no specific provisions that regulate the communication of the investigation result to the persons who, like you, have declared themselves offended and have provided their collaboration in the preliminary investigation phase.
According to canon law, the aggrieved person has no right to receive any information about the outcome of the case. Verbally, victims of abuses are encouraged to go to the Diocesan Child Protection Services, but in practice, those who report a pedophile priest are not even recognized the right to be informed about the outcome of the investigation.
Thus, Salvoldi’s file reached the Vatican and there, in fact, its trail was lost. Victims are invited to wait an indefinite time and without even the guarantee of obtaining a response sooner or later.
Months pass and nothing happens. But Schiavon is a tenacious person: he got in touch with his friends from the summer camps, spoke to the press, reported and managed to get the case opened after more than twenty years; he is not one to give up without an answer. So eight months later, on October 7, 2025, he contacts Arianna Dutto again to ask about the procedure. Three days later comes the lawyer’s lapidary response:
Dear Professor Schiavon:
In response to your letter of October 7 past, I inform you that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has considered the facts subject to the complaint prescribed and that no exception can be made to the elapsed prescription.
Schiavon takes note: he wants to know if the other victims have been informed and, once again, requests to see the documents of the entire case. Once again, he is told no, but with a final mockery: if he really wants to, Schiavon can contact the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith directly, of which, however, the lawyer Dutto does not even have an email address:
Dear Professor Schiavon:
Once the diocesan phase was concluded, the file was forwarded to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, so I do not have the documents, which, moreover, cannot be disclosed by virtue of canon law (not even to the cleric on whom the preliminary investigation was conducted).
For confidentiality reasons, I cannot respond to the question you have raised about other persons.
I indicate the address of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, to which, if you wish, you can address yourself (I do not have an email address).
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio, 00120 Vatican City.
Sincerely,
Arianna Dutto, former delegate for investigations.
Schiavon, understandably, resists resigning himself and asks Dutto for more clarifications: so, Salvoldi, after everything that has been proven also in the criminal sphere, will he continue to be a priest, celebrating Mass surrounded by altar boys and confessing to teenagers?
The lawyer, now decidedly exasperated by so much insistence, closes the debate:
Dear Professor Schiavon:
Just like in any other legal system, also in the canonical one, the filing of a procedure due to prescription implies the impossibility of applying a penalty, including, in the canonical system, expulsion from the clerical state.
To the priest in question, also due to the age he has reached, no office or ecclesiastical function is conferred, including, therefore, those that involve contact with minors.
Finally, I inform you that my participation in the procedure in question has already concluded extensively and completely, so I take this last opportunity to wish you all the best.
The case has prescribed and nothing more can be demanded from the Church, and much less the resignation from the priesthood of the priest who, however, according to the diocese’s assurance, is already elderly and has no official positions. Schiavon and all the other teenage victims deceived and abused by a priest, instead of the promised justice, will have to settle for this fragile axiom: their abuser has retired and can no longer do (too much) harm. Bishop’s word.
As Leo XIV said on January 8, 2026, closing the extraordinary consistory, «many times the scandal in the Church is due to the fact that the door has been closed and the victims have not been welcomed, accompanying them with the closeness of authentic shepherds.» The Church that pretends to be scandalized by what the Church does.
This article was originally published in Italian on Federica Tourn’s Substack