This Saturday, the trial against Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who must spend five years in prison after being convicted by the Vatican City State Court for misuse of money, ended.

The sentence indicates that he has also been perpetually disqualified from holding public office and must pay a fine of 8,000 euros.

In this way, the Cardinal, who held the third most important position in the Holy See for more than seven years, is the first Cardinal to be sentenced by a court in the Vatican since its creation as a State in 1929.

Angelo Becciu was nuncio to Angola and Cuba

Angelo Becciu is 75 years old. He was born on June 2, 1948, in the province of Sassari on the Italian island of Sardinia. At 24, he was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Ozieri, to which he would again be linked in the trial for the financial scandal.

Graduating in Canon Law, Becciu entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on May 1, 1984, and served in the pontifical representations of the Central African Republic, Sudan, New Zealand, Liberia, Great Britain, France, and the United States.

On October 15, 2001, Pope Saint John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Angola. He was also appointed to the diplomatic headquarters in Sao Tome and Principe a month later. On December 1 December 1 of that year, he was consecrated bishop.

During the pontificate of Benedict XVI, he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio in Cuba, a position he held until early 2011.

Becciu was the third most powerful person in the Vatican

On May 10, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as a substitute for General Affairs of the Vatican Secretariat of State. This department collaborates with the Holy Father in the government of the universal Church.

Upon assuming that position, Becciu became the third most powerful person in the Vatican, after the Pope and the Vatican Secretary of State, who then was Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

According to the Vatican website, the Section for General Affairs is “responsible for handling matters regarding the everyday service of the Supreme Pontiff, both in caring for the universal Church and dealing with the dicasteries of the Roman Curia.”

Furthermore, it “attends to the preparation of whatever documents the Holy Father entrusts to it. It enacts the provisions for appointments within the Roman Curia” and “attends to all that concerns the Embassies accredited to the Holy See. It supervises the Holy See’s official communication agencies,” among other functions.

Angelo Becciu held this position until Pope Francis made him a cardinal in 2018 when he appointed him the Congregation for the Causes of Saint’s Prefect.

In an unprecedented event, a year and a month after Becciu assumed the new position, on October 1, 2019, the Vatican prosecutor’s office raided the offices of the Secretariat of State, and five of its officials were suspended.

The purchase of the London building and the Vatican financial scandal

During Becciu’s management in the Secretariat of State, the Vatican acquired a building located in an exclusive area of London, a purchase full of irregularities that caused the trial to which he was subjected between July 2021 and December 2023 for embezzlement of funds.

After the raid on the Secretariat of State, the British newspaper Financial Times revealed that the Vatican was investigating possible irregularities in an investment authorized by Becciu, consisting of purchasing the building on Sloane Avenue for $364 million. In 2022, the Vatican had to sell the property for less money: 223.6 million dollars.

Cardinal Becciu is put on trial

In September 2020, Pope Francis summoned Cardinal Becciu to a meeting, after which the Cardinal renounced his rights as a cardinal and the position of prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

A few months later, the Holy Father signed a motu proprio to modify the norm according to which cardinals could only be tried by the Vatican Court of Cassation, which was made up of three cardinals.

The Pope decided that ordinary courts could also judge cardinals with prior authorization from the Pontiff, and he authorized the Vatican court to proceed against Cardinal Becciu.

The trial of the century in the Vatican

The first court hearing took place on July 27, 2021. The trial focused not only on the property purchase but also on the financial contribution of 125,000 euros that the Secretary of State directed to Caritas of Ozieri during his administration.

The process also investigated the delivery of 570,000 euros that the Vatican department made to Cecilia Marogna, an expert in international geopolitics, to supposedly use in hostage rescue operations, such as the case of Sister Cecilia Narváez, a Colombian nun kidnapped in Mali.

Although the Cardinal affirmed that the Pope was aware of this operation, Alessandro Diddi, Vatican promoter of justice, pointed out that Francis had not authorized the delivery of the money to the woman “but to the British Inkerman Group,” in charge of mediating the release of the Colombian nun.

During the entire process, the Cardinal defended his innocence, and part of the strategy of his lawyers was to discredit the testimony of Bishop Alberto Perlasca, head of the Administrative Office of the Secretariat of State during Cardinal Becciu’s administration, due to the contradictions in which he had fallen.

The sentence of Cardinal Angelo Becciu

Finally, on December 16, at the 86th judicial hearing, the Vatican Tribunal indicated that Cardinal Angelo Becciu was found responsible for the irregular purchase of the building on Sloane Avenue in London since it was carried out “at the behest of the cardinal.”

It also found him guilty of embezzlement in transferring 125,000 euros from the Secretariat of State to Caritas of Ozieri through a cooperative his brother Antonio Becciu presided over.

Finally, it also condemned him for the delivery of 570,000 euros from the Vatican department to Cecilia Marogna, which was not used for the rescue of hostages, as they had argued.

This story was originally posted on Aciprensa.