Disgraced cardinal ‘detached’ over allegations Vatican funds used to harm Pell
A disgraced Catholic cardinal was “detached” when told of allegations that money was sent to Australia to pursue the late George Pell over sexual abuse claims, a Vatican tribunal heard.
A disgraced Catholic cardinal was “detached” and “unperturbed” when told of allegations that money was sent from Rome to Australia to pursue the late George Pell over sexual abuse claims, a Vatican tribunal has heard.
Sacked by the Pope two years ago amid allegations of an array of financial crimes, Angelo Becciu is one of 10 defendants accused of money laundering, embezzlement and fraud in the wake of the acquisition of a $400m building in London’s Sloane Avenue.
This week, the Vatican tribunal into the scandal heard from the head of the Vatican gendarmes, Gianluca Gauzi Broccoletti, who was summoned by Cardinal Becciu over emerging reports of financial scandals in the Holy See including the Chelsea purchase.
The tribunal also heard Cardinal Becciu seemed unfazed when allegations of Vatican money transfers to Australia, aimed at harming Cardinal Pell, were put to him by Mr Broccoletti.
“At the time, there were also press reports that money had been transferred from the Secretariat of State to Australia and witnesses who had accused Cardinal George Pell of sexual abuse and stories that further funds were channelled to a co-operative in [Becciu’s native] Sardinia. He seemed detached and particularly unperturbed on those two issues,” Mr Broccoletti told the Tribunal.
One accusation Cardinal Becciu faces is the unexplained transfer of $2.3m to the Melbourne office of a technology company now implicated in an investigation into Russian interference in the US election. Its timing coincided with Pell’s trial and the money was at first said to have been for his legal defence, which was shown to be untrue.
Cardinal Becciu was seen seated in the pews at St Peter’s Basilica earlier this year at Pell’s Requiem Mass in Rome. The disgraced cardinal said at the time he had prayed for his late rival’s “forgiveness” after the two prelates dramatically clashed over the church’s financial reforms during Pell’s term as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.
Cardinal Becciu, a former deputy head of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State – was the long-term enemy of the team originally led by Pell and Vatican Auditor General Libero Milone and tasked in 2014 with cleaning up the Vatican finances.
The trial is hearing a variety of accusations, including that Cardinal Becciu, as a senior prelate in the Secretariat of State, funnelled church funds to organisations and charities run by his family in Sardinia. The allegations included the siphoning of some €700,000 to a co-operative run by his brother Tonino, which in turn created work for companies run by two other brothers.
At the trial this week, Mr Broccoletti told the tribunal how he was summoned to the apartment of Cardinal Becciu. “He sent a text message first and then invited me to visit him. He was becoming increasingly anxious about a flurry of media reports that had been emerging in the weeks before,” he told the Vatican Tribunal.
Mr Broccoletti agreed to visit Cardinal Becciu in the early evening and asked Commissioner Stefano de Santis, a financial crimes expert and one of his most senior colleagues, to accompany him. The two knew they had to inform the Cardinal that Interpol had red-flagged payments of almost 575,000 euros into a Slovenian-registered company owned by “security consultant” Cecilia Marogna sent supposedly for ransom to free a kidnapped nun and found subsequently to have been spent on luxury handbags and hotels.
“He told me if the Marogna issue emerged, it would cause him and his family grave damage … he then expressed his willingness to repay the funds used by Marogna from his personal account and asked the matter be kept confidential” Mr Broccoletti added.
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