Cardinal Becciu found guilty on auspicious day – for George Pell

The guilty verdict of Cardinal Angelo Becciu in a Vatican City courtroom came on an auspicious day – the 57th anniversary of the ordination of George Pell to the priesthood in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Archbishop Fisher blesses the grave of Cardinal George Pell in the crypt of St Mary's cathedral in Sydney. Picture: Tess Livingstone

The guilty verdicts of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, nine other individuals and four companies in a Vatican City courtroom came on an auspicious day.

Saturday, December 16, was the 57th anniversary of the ordination of George Pell to the priesthood in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It was also the second anniversary of the death of his sister and best friend, Margaret Pell.

A group of about 100 friends gathered at Pell’s grave in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, where Archbishop Anthony Fisher offered mass for both, and blessed the cardinal’s grave.

Its headstone reflects his life – prayerful, colourful and packed with achievements. “Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy 2014-2019’’, the second last line reads.

Cardinal George Pell. Picture: CNS Photo/Robert Duncan

The grave of Cardinal George Pell in the crypt of St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. Picture: Tess Livingstone

It was in that role that he and Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who openly fancied becoming pope, clashed long and hard.

In January, Becciu was among 50 cardinals to attend Pell’s funeral in St Peter’s to “pray the Lord to forgive’’ Pell for “feeding the slanderous suspicion that I was the one who conspired against him’’.

Pell had no need to feed such suspicion. Becciu was open about cancelling Pell’s decision to have the Vatican’s arcane financial records audited and, later, to sack internal auditor Libero Milone, whose lawsuit against the Vatican will be decided soon.

From Pell’s perspective, his battles with Becciu were never personal. As late as a year ago, Pell argued that Becciu deserved due process and a fair trial. He chuckled, though, that “Saints has no clout” when the Pope moved Becciu out of the Secretariat of State, where he had been second in charge, to run the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 2018.

Pell’s drive, said Sydney accountant Danny Casey, who worked beside him for years in Sydney and Rome, was to see Vatican funds managed properly to help the church’s mission to the poor and vulnerable. That demanded modern, transparent accounting practices.

As Casey noted on Sunday, Saturday’s verdict will be a powerful warning to others inclined to work against the reform process.

Early on, to the horror of the Vatican “old guard’’ and corrupt financiers, that process began with Pell’s ordering the closure of about 4000 Vatican Bank accounts held by individuals not entitled to them. Pell realised he could be signing his ticket out of Rome, one way or another, when he reported 200 of the account holders to authorities.

The Vatican Bank, he knew, had been a handy shelter for money laundering and ill gotten gains. “We all remember what happened to Calvi and that other one, Sindona,’’ he said while promoting his Prison Diaries in late 2020. “Today, more often than not, they attack by destroying reputations.’’

Financial corruption had dogged the Vatican for centuries, and it intensified in the 1960s when Pope Paul VI called in US archbishop Paul Marcinkus from Chicago for help. Far from improving efficiency, Marcinkus engaged freemason mafia bankers Roberto Calvi (known as “God’s banker”, who was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982) and Michele Sindona (who died from cyanide in his coffee in an Italian jail in 1986). Both were involved in scandals that cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Italy, Calvi had been part of the P2 lodge whose members had referred to themselves as “black friars’’.

Blessing Pell’s grave on Saturday, Archbishop Fisher quoted Francis’s words last week that Pell had “the zeal, conviction, determination and vision of a man who, more than many others, understood the road that should be followed” regarding the Vatican financial reforms.

The Pope offered “our much-mourned brother” and his motto “be not afraid” as a model to Vatican reformers, Archbishop Fisher said. For the sake of the church and those it serves, however, it was unfortunate that Francis often sided with Becciu and others who opposed Pell’s reforms -– a pattern that puzzled, worried and upset Pell.

What is indisputable, as Archbishop Fisher said, is that “No Australian has done more for the church international’’ than Pell. When Vatican history is written decades from now, Pell will stand tall.

Events in Rome on the day of his anniversary of ordination and the blessing of his grave in Sydney will be acknowledged as a turning point.

Tess Livingstone’s updated biography, George Cardinal Pell, Pax Invictis, will be published in the new year.