VATICAN CITY — The primary cardinal to face a felony trial in a Vatican courtroom, as soon as one of many Roman Catholic Church’s strongest officers, informed the court docket within the papal city-state on Thursday that he was able to clear his identify towards prices of embezzlement and abuse of workplace.
The cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu, is dealing with prices alongside 9 others accused of defrauding the Vatican. Particularly, the case primarily focuses on a London real-estate funding that prosecutors say misplaced the Vatican tens of millions whereas enriching middlemen.
It was a scene that solely grew to become potential after Pope Francis modified the regulation of the Vatican city-state to brush away particular privileges that cardinals and bishops had beforehand loved relating to felony offenses.
All these charged have denied wrongdoing, and Cardinal Becciu, 73, once more declared his innocence in emotional phrases on Thursday.
He had been subjected to “a media bloodbath,” he mentioned, studying an announcement, a “violent and vulgar marketing campaign” that questioned his ethical integrity.
“I used to be portrayed as a corrupt man, grasping for cash, disloyal to the pope,” he informed the court docket, including: “I’m right here with my head held excessive, with a clear conscience.”
On the time the deal was struck, Cardinal Becciu was “sostituto,” or chief of workers, within the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, the place he performed a big function in working the Curia, the paperwork that governs the Vatican. Pope Francis dismissed him from his last Vatican submit in September 2020, whereas the deal was below investigation.
The trial started on July 27, 2021, however had been stalled by preliminary arguments as protection attorneys raised numerous objections and motions to dismiss the case, arguing amongst different issues that the prosecution had withheld proof, which hampered their potential to defend their purchasers successfully.
The court docket rejected the protection motions earlier this month, permitting the trial to go forward.
Although the case facilities on the Vatican’s buy of a constructing in Chelsea, certainly one of London’s wealthiest neighborhoods, it additionally entails unrelated prices, together with allegations that Cardinal Becciu gave Vatican funds to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia.
Cardinal Becciu had been set to take the stand Thursday, however the Vatican prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, mentioned he wouldn’t be capable to query the cardinal as a result of circumstances of Covid-19 in his workplace had not allowed him to arrange.
As a substitute, the prelate learn an announcement to the court docket proclaiming his innocence, and answered questions put to him by the chief decide, Giuseppe Pignatone, relating to two funds made by the Secretariat of State to a church account in Sardinia related to a charity that his brother headed on the time. The prosecution claims that the cash benefited his household.
Within the case of the primary — a cost of 25,000 euros, about $27,000 at present trade charges, made in 2015 — Cardinal Becciu mentioned that the secretariat had financed a bread-making machine for a bakery, “a undertaking that gave work to younger socially deprived folks.” He cited an Might 2020 tackle by Francis concerning the dignity of labor.
Within the case of the second — €100,000 in 2018 — the cardinal mentioned the cash had been positioned in a fund {that a} Sardinian bishop had put aside to pay for the development of a social middle that might home numerous charitable actions. The funds have been nonetheless there, he added, and a ceremony had taken place final month to mark the start of the constructing work.
His brother was paid a wage by the charity group between 2016 and 2021, the cardinal mentioned, after which he retired and started working free of charge.
In his assertion to the court docket, Cardinal Becciu mentioned that he was not afraid of the reality. “Quite the opposite, I need the reality to be proclaimed as quickly as potential,” he mentioned. “I’ve all the time acted for the great of the Apostolic See and the whole church.”