Vatican: Five-and-a-half years in prison for cardinal on trial for financial fraud

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: HANDOUT / VATICAN MEDIA / AFP 17:27 p.m., December 16, 2023

The Vatican's criminal court on Saturday sentenced a high-ranking Italian cardinal, who is on trial with nine others for fraud, to five and a half years in prison at the end of a trial over the Holy See's financial transactions. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a former close adviser to Pope Francis, is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official to have appeared before the Vatican's 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 and a fine of more than 10,000 euros. "We respect the verdict but we will certainly file an appeal," said 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, which has considerable real estate assets.

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The sprawling affair has reignited the debate over the opacity of the Holy See's finances, as Pope Francis has sought to clean up its operations since his election in 2013. He also reformed the judicial system so that bishops and cardinals could be judged by lay people and no longer exclusively by their religious peers. Justice promoter (prosecutor) Alessandro Diddi has requested sentences ranging from nearly four years to more than 13 years in prison, in addition to financial penalties, against the ten defendants who are on trial for fraud, embezzlement, abuse of power, money laundering, corruption and extortion.

Former number two in the Secretariat of State, the main organ of the central government of the Holy See at the heart of this transaction, Monsignor Becciu retains his title of cardinal but was removed from all his functions in September 2020.

Multiple Intermediaries

Over the course of the 85 hearings of this so-called "London Building" trial, the debates have revealed the opacity of certain financial operations of the Holy See. Giuseppe Pignatone had stressed on Saturday "the complexity" of this trial before the magistrates retired to the council chambers. Among the highlights were the revelations about a telephone conversation between Monsignor Becciu, on his own initiative, with the pope and recorded without his knowledge, shortly before the start of the trial, in which he asked him to confirm that he had approved confidential financial movements. The investigation had described an "almost inextricable" imbroglio of leveraged hedge funds, banks, credit institutions, natural and legal persons.

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This acquisition at an inflated price highlighted the reckless use of St. Peter's Denarius, the large annual collection of donations for the pope's charitable actions. It also generated substantial losses in the Vatican's finances. The Vatican finally sold the 17,000 m2 building located in the very chic district of Chelsea, at the price of a heavy loss, estimated at between 140 and 190 million euros. The affair has dealt a severe blow to the reputation of the Church and to Pope Francis, who has multiplied reforms to clean up the Holy See's finances and fight fraud.

In addition to the creation of a Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, the Argentine pontiff has overseen the investments and activities of the Vatican Bank, in particular through the closure of 5,000 suspicious accounts.