Cardinal Angelo Becciu (left) at the consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica, Aug. 27, 2022. / Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
Vatican City, Jul 26, 2023 / 09:33 am (CNA).
The top public prosecutor for the Vatican on Wednesday asked the judge in Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s financial malfeasance trial to serve the embattled prelate with seven years and three months in prison and to confiscate more than $15 million in connection with his alleged mismanagement of Holy See funds.
Becciu has been charged with embezzlement, abuse of office, and several other allegations regarding a series of financial investments that prosecutors claim were meant to benefit his family at the expense of the Vatican.
The trial is the culmination of more than two years of investigation by the Vatican into what happened in and around the Secretariat of State’s 350-million-euro purchase of an investment property in London between 2014 and 2018.
The Vatican maintains that the deal was problematic and designed to defraud the Secretariat of State of millions of euros.
The defendants in the trial have been adamant their actions were above board and that Vatican authorities were in the know.
Becciu has claimed the purchase of the London property was an “accepted practice.” He has also been accused of funneling tens of thousands of dollars to a charity run by his brother.
Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi on Wednesday asked Judge Giuseppe Pignatone to serve Becciu with seven years and three months in prison, to fine him more than $11,000, and to confiscate upwards of $15 million.
The stiff sentencing, Diddi argued, was necessary to recompense for the “many crimes against the patrimony of the Holy See,” the Associated Press reported.
Becciu’s lawyers in the wake of Diddi’s request argued that the cardinal has always been a “loyal servant of the Church,” the AP reported.
“Not even one day would be a fair sentence,” the lawyers said.
Diddi also requested prison sentences for other defendants in the trial, including 13 years for Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former official in the administrative section of the Secretariat of State.
In addition to recommending prison sentences, the prosecutor requested the confiscation of a total of $462 million from the case’s 10 defendants.
Earlier this year during trial proceedings it was revealed that Pope Francis had rebuffed Becciu’s attempts to have the Holy Father offer his approval of the disputed transactions, with Francis telling the cardinal bluntly: “I cannot comply with your request.”
The proposal to purchase the London property “immediately seemed strange to me,” Francis told Becciu in the letters.
While Pope Francis intervened in 2020 to force Becciu’s resignation as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and barred him from the rights and privileges of cardinals, he has since unofficially reinstated the disgraced prelate, allowing him to participate in public Vatican Masses and other events.
In a 2021 interview with Spanish broadcaster COPE, Francis said he hoped “with all my heart” that the cardinal is proven to be innocent.
This week marks two years of hearings in the Vatican’s largest trial for financial crimes in the modern era, with 10 defendants and a laundry list of charges, including embezzlement, money laundering, abuse of office, misappropriation, and fraud.
Hearings will resume in September and a decision is expected before Christmas.
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(T)his final document have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.
If whole world says so, I am sure, it is not!
“There is a kind of papalotry going around. It acts as if no matter what comes out of Rome, it must have been inspired by the Holy Ghost. This line of thinking holds, for example, that if Vatican II was called, it means that the Holy Ghost wanted to call it. But this is not necessarily the case. Convoking Vatican II was a personal decision of John XXIII. He may have thought god was telling him to call it, but who knows? He has no special charism that guarantees he would recognize such a decision as coming from the Holy Ghost with theological certitude.
We can say that the Pope has the power to call a council. We can say that the authorities in the Church can call upon the Holy Ghost to guarantee, in a very narrow set of cases, that what comes from this council is de fide (And nothing in Vatican II was pronounced de fide, Ed.)
The glory of the Church is that it has supernatural help to define Truth. It has supernatural help to guarantee that its sacraments are efficacious and so on. But who said that the decision to call the council (or synod) was protected by the Holy Ghost?” – http://salbert.tripod.com/Papalotry.htm
At best, this whole extravaganza was a complete and utter waste of time, money and energy. May the final document and everything else about this ridiculous papacy be forgotten soon.
And who are you, the above commentators, to know whether the Holy Spirit was at work or not?