A small earthquake shook the Holy See this Saturday with the result of what they called “the trial of the century.” The Vatican City State Court has sentenced Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison, to pay a fine of 8,000 euros and has prohibited him from holding public office, after a judicial process of two years and unprecedented means of investigating financial irregularities in the Holy See.
The news has an air of history. This is the first time that a Vatican criminal court has condemned a cardinal, Becciu, a 75-year-old Italian cardinal who not long ago appeared in the pools of possible papables.
Becciu, Sardinian, was one of the most important figures in the Vatican as a substitute in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, de facto number three in the Vatican, but he ended up becoming the first cardinal to sit on the dock of those accused for his role in the scam during the sale and purchase of a luxury building in London, a former Harrods headquarters in Chelsea, when he held this position. At the moment he will not go to jail, because his lawyers have already announced that they will present an appeal to the court of appeal. “The evidence that emerged during the trial and the origin of the accusation against the cardinal are the result of a proven machination against him,” the lawyers considered.
The London case is the key to the investigation focused on how the Secretariat of State managed its assets, many of them financed by the Saint Peter's Pence, the Vatican organization that collects donations from the faithful that in theory should be allocated to the most disadvantaged. The real estate operation ended up leaving a sum of around 140 million euros in the coffers of the Holy See and during the sessions of the long and complicated judicial process – with more than 80 hearings – it has become clear how this sale ended up being used by some stockbrokers and monsignors to extort the Vatican.
Specifically, the Court considers that Becciu is guilty of embezzlement for having made more than $200 million available to an investment fund with a high risk of speculation, a third of the money then available at the Secretary of State. Of the ten accused, only one, Mauro Carlino, the cardinal's secretary, has been acquitted. The others, employees of the Secretariat of State, brokers and mediators of the operation accused of profiting from defrauding the Holy See, have been sentenced to compensation and prison sentences of up to seven and a half years in prison.
The Sardinian Cecilia Marogna, nicknamed in Italy as “the cardinal's lady”, and whom Becciu presented as his niece, has also been sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. This supposed expert in intelligence services is the owner of a company that has its tax headquarters in Slovenia and received more than half a million euros of the funds theoretically reserved to negotiate the release of a Colombian nun kidnapped by jihadist militants in Mali, but the police Italian believes he used some of the money to buy luxury items and visits to spa centers. The judge considers that the version of the nun's release “does not correspond to reality,” and both she and Becciu are considered guilty of embezzlement.
The sentence is the final blow for Becciu, who has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. The prelate was not initially being investigated for the London scam, but he was dragged in after prosecutors during the investigations saw embezzlement after he sent 125,000 euros from the Vatican to a charity in his native Sardinia run by his brother, a crime for which he has also been found guilty. Pope Francis already wanted to publicly punish him by forcing him to resign as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and also by withdrawing the prerogatives of the cardinalate, so he would not be able to enter the Sistine Chapel in the event that a conclave was held. The decision, pending appeals, closes a trial that has revealed, beyond the lack of transparency in Vatican finances, the incompetence with which money was handled in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and damage to your reputation as a consequence.
