Disgraced cardinal ‘prays for rival’s forgiveness’

George Pell’s arch rival within the Vatican, who has denied sending money to Australia to fund the charges against him, has prayed God will ‘forgive’ the late cardinal.

George Pell held reservations his Vatican rival Giovanni Angelo Becciu sent two payments to Australia to help fund the child sex abuse charges against him.

Cardinal George Pell’s arch rival in the Vatican, a disgraced cardinal now on trial for financial corruption, has denied sending money to Australia to prop up the sex abuse charges against him and said he prayed God would “forgive” the ­Australian cleric.

Disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu said on the death of ­Cardinal Pell: “May the Lord ­forgive him for fuelling slander.” Cardinal Pell had long believed that Cardinal Becciu, who is ­currently on trial for embezzlement and financial fraud of the church moneys, had diverted two mystery payments to Australia to pay people to raise child sex allegations against him.

As the Pope prepares to hold a Requiem Mass for the late ­Australian cardinal on Saturday, the disgraced ­Cardinal Becciu’s comments will revive questions about the role of Cardinal Pell’s enemies in the Vatican in his ­ultimately quashed abuse ­convictions.

Cardinal Becciu’s comments came as Cardinal Pell had openly warned the Pope that his pet project, ­revising ­synodality – the mission of the church – was a toxic ­nightmare couched in Neo-­Marxist jargon and that the process being ­undertaken was ­liable to ­manipulation.

In Australia, grieving friends of Cardinal Pell were shocked when ­Victorian Premier Daniel ­Andrews declared on Thursday that a state ­funeral for the late ­cleric – the highest-ranking Australian Catholic in history – would not happen, and that he could not imagine “anything more distressing” for surviving victims of church abuse.

When asked if there would be a taxpayer-funded memorial for Cardinal Pell, Mr Andrews said: “These things are normally offered rather than asked for, and there will be no offer made.”

Cardinal Angelo Becciu referenced the ‘slanderous suspicion’ he ‘financed accusers in their pedophilia trial’, before saying he was ‘sorry’ Pell had died.

A friend of the cardinal, ­former ­Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven, said he hoped that had there been a state memorial, Mr ­Andrews would not have been ­invited.

In a Vatican trial set to continue late next week, Cardinal Becciu, who denies all charges, testified that $2.3m had been sent to ­Australia to pay a company called Neustar Australia to operate Catholic website ­domains.

Cardinal Pell had authorised one of these payments in 2015, but he queried the two subsequent ones authorised by Cardinal Becciu, one in May 2017 and the second in June 2018 worth $1.6m.

“What was the purpose? Where did the money go after Neustar?”, Cardinal Pell said last May in the Vatican where he had returned after being freed from jail when his child sex conviction was quashed by the High Court.

But on Wednesday, Cardinal Becciu said in Sardinia: “Between me and him there were professional disagreements, but now he is in the Truth: I am sure he has become aware of the real development of the facts. Lord forgive him for fuelling the slanderous suspicion that I was the one who ­conspired against him and even ­financed his accusers in their pedophilia trial in Australia. I am humanly sorry for his death, may he rest in peace.”

In one of Cardinal Pell’s final articles, ­written for the Spectator magazine, he had also set himself on a collision course with Pope Francis, saying the project was “not due process and is liable to manipulation”.

Disgraced Cardinal Becciu’s comments are certain to revive rumours that Cardinal Pell’s historic child sex abuse trial in Australia was fuelled by Vatican rivals.

Cardinal Pell wrote that the recent update of the good news “synodality” included “neo-Marxist jargon” about exclusion, alienation, identity, marginalisation, the voiceless, LGBTQ while Christian notions of forgiveness, sin, sacrifice, healing, redemption were being displaced.

“Why the silence on the afterlife of reward or punishment, on the four last things; death and judgment, heaven and hell?” Cardinal Pell
queried, describing the update as a potpourri outpouring of New Age goodwill.

Cardinal Pell died aged 81 on Tuesday after complications arising after a hip surgery in a Rome hospital.

Pope Francis, who is set to preside over a requiem mass for Cardinal Pell in St Peter’s Basilica, offered condolences.

“I raise prayers for the repose of this faithful servant who unwaveringly followed his Lord with perseverance even in the hour of trial, that he may be received into the joy of heaven and receive eternal peace,” the pontiff said. “I send my blessing to you, to the family of the late cardinal and to all who share in the mourning of his passing.”

Cardinal Becciu said: “Cardinal Pell’s death took me by surprise too; he had been with us to celebrate the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. In the face of death we always bow down and recommend the soul of the Confrere to the mercy of the Lord.”

The Becciu trial centres on the loss of tens of millions of dollars on a secret investment in a central London property, but has also shed light on the Vatican financing an Elton John film, and audacious Cardinal Becciu plans, not carried out, to fund an Angolan oil oligarch.

The trial has also heard how Cardinal Becciu’s niece covertly recorded a conversation between the cardinal and Pope Francis in which the two were discussing state secrets.