 "Convicted cardinal wants to join the conclave to pick next Pope. What's going on?")
A convicted Cardinal who wants to be part of the conclave to pick the new pope is causing a stir.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was convicted of financial crimes by the Vatican, is insisting that he can participate in the upcoming conclave – the closed-door meeting of the cardinal electors in the Sistine Chapel to choose the new pope.
This despite him being classified as a “non-elector.”
The development comes in the backdrop of the world mourning the death of Pope Francis and the cardinals set to convene in May to pick a new Pontiff.
But who is the 76-year-old Becciu? What is he saying? What do we know about the row?
Let’s take a closer look:
Who is Becciu?
As per National Catholic Register, Becciu was born on June 2, 1948.
He hails from Sassari on the Italian island of Sardinia.
At age 24, Becciu was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Ozieri.
Becciu entered the Vatican’s diplomatic service in May 1984.
He served the Vatican in the Central African Republic, Sudan, New Zealand, Liberia, Great Britain, France, and the United States.
In 2001, Becciu was appointed him apostolic nuncio to Angola by Pope John Paul II.
He was also appointed nuncio in São Tomé and Príncipe – an African island nation off the coast of Gabon.
In December 2001, Becciu became a bishop.
Becciu held the position of appointed apostolic nuncio in Cuba during the reign of Benedict XVI.
It was during Pope Benedict’s reign that Becciu became the third most powerful and high-ranking member of the Holy See – the central governing body within the Catholic Church – after the Pope and the Vatican’s secretary of state.
As per CNN, Becciu was the “sostituto” (substitute) in the Holy See’s Secretariat of State – essentially the pope’s chief of staff.
Becciu, who could walk in to see the pope at any time, was hugely influential across the Holy See. Becciu later governed the Vatican’s department of saint-making.
In 2018, Pope Francis made Becciu a cardinal.
Becciu, interestingly, was also a onetime contender for the post of Pontiff.
As per The Pinnacle Gazette, Becciu was also the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Pope Francis ordered Becciu in 2020 to resign the “rights and privileges” of a cardinal after he became enmeshed in a financial scandal.
This came after Italian news magazine L’Espresso published news of an investigation into potential financial crimes in the Vatican.
However, as per Pillar Catholic, Becciu did not resign from the formal membership of the Holy See.
He is the first cardinal ever prosecuted by the Vatican’s criminal court.
‘The Vatican’s trial of the century’
Becciu was tried alongside nine other defendants in the most complicated financial trial in the Vatican’s modern history – also known as the Vatican’s ‘trial of the century.’
The two-year trial of dealt with the Holy See’s $380 million investment in a London property but grew to include a host of other financial dealings.
The trial focused on the Vatican secretariat of state’s participation in a fund to develop a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments.
Prosecutors alleged Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for $17 million to cede control of the building.
Becciu was convicted of embezzlement stemming from the original Vatican investment of $227 million into the fund that invested in the London property. The tribunal determined that canon law prohibited using church assets in such a speculative investment.
Becciu was also convicted of aggravated fraud for his role in paying a self-proclaimed intelligence expert from his native Sardinia, Cecilia Marogna, $650,000 in Holy See money.
He had said the payments were authorised by Pope Francis as ransom to free a Colombian nun held hostage by al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali.
Becciu was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison in 2023.
He was the first cardinal to be sentenced since the creation of the city state in 1929.
Becciu though has steadfastly maintained his innocence and his lawyers have appealed the verdict.
As per CNN, Becciu is currently living at an apartment owned by the Vatican.
The trial had raised questions about the rule of law in the city state and Francis ’ power as absolute monarch, given that he wielded supreme legislative, executive and judicial authority and had exercised it in ways the defence claimed jeopardised a fair trial.
What is he saying?
Becciu is saying that Francis had not explicitly ordered him excluded from the conclave .
“The pope has recognised my cardinal prerogatives as intact, since there was no explicit will to exclude me from the Conclave nor a request for my explicit renunciation in writing,” Becciu told L’Unione Sarda newspaper on April 22.
The pope’s “death is a great sorrow,” Becciu added, “in light of a relationship that was always frank, serene, marked by the utmost respect even in the face of natural, human differences of opinion: the pope accepted my opinions and together we shared all the choices, even the most painful ones."
“It was a great pain to see the Pope change his opinion about me so radically,” Becciu was quoted as saying by the Pinnacle Gazette. “This pain I accepted as a test of my faith and my commitment to the Pope and the Church.”
Becciu in 2022 claimed that Pope Francis had personally invited him to attend the consistory and that he would soon be reinstated to full membership of the College of Cardinals.
Though Becciu is claiming that he can legally participate in the next papal election, canon law states otherwise.
As per Pillar Catholic, cardinals who are not electors can attend general congregations of the Church but not the conclave.
The Vatican itself listed Becciu as a “non-elector” in a statistical summary of the College of Cardinals in 2022.
The other cardinals listed as non-electors had all turned age 80 – and were thus no longer eligible to vote.
Under canon law, only cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote in a papal election.
There are currently 135 eligible cardinals.
“The list published by the Press Office has no legal value and should be taken for what it is," Becciu has said.
As per CNN, the decision as to whether or not Becciu will be part of the conclave will be made by College of Cardinals dean Giovanni Battista Re and Cardinal Pietro Parolin who will run the conclave.
The conclave could be even more dramatic this time than it was in year’s past.
With inputs from agencies
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