The Vatican criminal court on Saturday sentenced a high-ranking Italian cardinal, tried with nine others for fraud, to five and a half years in prison following a trial over financial operations of the Holy See. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a former close adviser to Pope Francis, is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official to appear before the Vatican criminal court, the city-state’s civil justice system.
Buying a luxury building in London
The cardinal was also fined 8,000 euros while the Vatican prosecutor’s office had requested a sentence of 7 years and 3 months in prison for Monsignor Becciu, accompanied by a fine of more than 10,000 euros. “We respect the verdict but we will certainly file an appeal,” declared Mr Fabio Vignone, the cardinal’s lawyer. At the heart of the trial: the purchase for 350 million euros of a luxury building in London between 2014 and 2018 as part of the investment activities of the Holy See, whose real estate assets are considerable.
This sprawling affair has relaunched the debate on the opacity of the finances of the Holy See, while Pope Francis has sought to clean up its operations since his election in 2013. He has also reformed the judicial system so that bishops and cardinals can be judged by lay people and no longer exclusively by their religious peers. The promoter of justice (prosecutor) Alessandro Diddi requested sentences ranging from almost four years to more than 13 years in prison, in addition to financial sanctions, against the ten defendants who appear for fraud, embezzlement, abuse power, money laundering, corruption and extortion.
Former number two in the Secretariat of State, the main body of the central government of the Holy See at the heart of this transaction, Monsignor Becciu retains his title of cardinal but was dismissed from all his functions in September 2020.
Multiple intermediaries
Over the course of 85 hearings in this so-called “London building” trial, the debates revealed the opacity of certain financial operations of the Holy See. Giuseppe Pignatone had underlined on Saturday “the complexity” of this trial before the magistrates retired to the council chambers. Among the highlights, the revelations concerning a telephone conversation between Monsignor Becciu, at his initiative, with the Pope and recorded without his knowledge, shortly before the start of the trial, in which he asked him to confirm having approved confidential financial movements. The instruction had described an “almost inextricable” imbroglio of speculative investment funds with leverage, banks, credit institutions, natural and legal persons.
This acquisition at an inflated price highlighted the reckless use of St. Peter’s Pence, the large annual collection of donations intended for the pope’s charitable actions. It also generated substantial losses in the Vatican’s finances. The Vatican finally resold the 17,000 m2 building located in the very chic Chelsea district, at the cost of a heavy loss, estimated between 140 and 190 million euros. The affair dealt a serious blow to the reputation of the Church and of Pope Francis, who has multiplied reforms to clean up the finances of the Holy See and fight against fraud.
In addition to the creation of a Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, the Argentine sovereign pontiff supervised the investments and activities of the Vatican Bank, in particular through the closure of 5,000 suspicious accounts.