- For the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, a cardinal has been sentenced to prison by a court in the Vatican in a trial involving questionable million-dollar transactions.
- The Vatican Court sentenced Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison for his involvement in a real estate scandal.
- Never before had a Curia cardinal been sentenced to prison by a Vatican court.
- Becciu’s lawyers announced that they would appeal the verdict.
The Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi originally demanded a prison sentence of seven years and three months and a high fine for the 75-year-old Cardinal Becciu. Nine other people were charged with him.
Questionable million dollar deal
The criminal trial is one of the largest in the Vatican to date. For the first time, a high-ranking cardinal was put on trial as a defendant. The trial, which has been going on for more than two years, was essentially about the Vatican State Secretariat’s loss-making purchase of a luxury property in the London district of Chelsea. Becciu was an important department head there for several years. The deal went wrong because the Vatican invested more money than planned. In the end there was a loss in the three-digit million range.
Legend:
Opaque financial dealings were Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s downfall.
Keystone / AP Photo, Gregorio Borgia
Meanwhile, the investigations into the questionable million-dollar deal in London uncovered further crooked dealings and machinations within the Vatican. Vatican law enforcement accused the cardinal and nine other defendants of, among other things, extortion, money laundering, fraud, corruption, embezzlement and abuse of office.
Massive damage to image
The process caused massive damage to the Vatican’s image. As a result of the allegations, the Sardinian-born Becciu lost his rights as a cardinal and would therefore not have been allowed to take part in a papal election (conclave). However, Becciu, who was once considered a “papàbile”, i.e. a possible candidate for the papacy, was allowed to continue to call himself “Cardinal”. At that time, Pope Francis also removed him from the position of head of the authority for saints and beatification processes.
The Pope and the Vatican administration drew conclusions from the real estate scandal. The pontiff then reorganized the responsibilities in the Curia. He took away the power to dispose of assets from the Holy See’s powerful Secretariat of State and other authorities. This is now the responsibility of the Vatican Property Administration (Apsa) and the Vatican Bank (IOR).