Same issue with fop directly:
$ fop -catalog in.xml in.pdf Exception javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: org.apache.fop.fo.ValidationException: First element must be the fo:root formatting object. Found (Namespace URI: "", Local Name: "article") instead. Please make sure you're producing a valid XSL-FO document. __ This is the maintainer address of Debian's Java team <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pkg-java-maintainers>. Please use debian-j...@lists.debian.org for discussions and questions.