Disgraced cardinal’s extraordinary claim: ‘Pell wired the mystery $2.3m from Rome to Australia’
Angelo Becciu, convicted of embezzlement, fraud and abuse of office, claims George Pell personally authorised the transfer of $2.3m to Australia during his trial on historical abuse.
Disgraced cardinal Angelo Becciu, convicted of embezzlement, fraud and abuse of office, has made the extraordinary claim that Cardinal George Pell personally authorised the transfer of $2.3m to Australia during his trial on historical sexual abuse charges.
Becciu, who is appealing a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence imposed by the Vatican Tribunal, granted a series of unprecedented, on-camera interviews to the Belgian TV network, VRT, apparently over a period of years.
The documentary, Het Vaticaan: de staat van de kerk (The Vatican: state of the church), aired last week.
Throughout the program, the cardinal offers his opinion on a wide variety of issues, including his belief that Pope Francis should lose his governing authority over the Vatican City state: “It will be necessary to clarify the exercise of papal authority … that is, he should not be a head of state any longer”.
Becciu is even filmed chatting in a car in his native Sardinia while being driven by his brother, Antonio, who was found by prosecutors to have been the recipient of tens of thousands of euros for “charity works” sent directly to his personal account.
Antonio Becciu and his wife, Giovanna, now face local criminal prosecution.
Becciu tells the program that he did indeed have serious disagreements with Cardinal Pell before his death in 2023, and Libero Milone, the auditor-general of the Vatican, who was forced out under mysterious circumstances as illicit financial transactions were revealed, which led to the Vatican’s “trial of the century”.
“We did have a period of disagreement with Cardinal Pell but my contrasts stemmed not from wanting to oppose the reforms, but because Cardinal Pell wanted to impose rules that were not rules yet,” he said.
“He wanted to examine the accounts of the Secretariat of State. But to audit the accounts of the Secretariat of State, you must have the authorisation of the Pope which never happened.”
This contrasts the disclosure made by Milone at the end of 2022 when he showed a list of
entities within their perimeter which both Cardinal Pell and he had received from the Holy
Father, which included the Secretariat of State.
Becciu also used the documentary to comment on allegations published by Italian media that he had played a covert role in the airing of child sexual abuse accusations against Cardinal Pell, which led to his return to Australia to stand trial before being exonerated by the High Court.
The Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, reported in 2020, that several hundred thousand euros were sent from the Vatican to Australia, and suggested that money may have been used to bribe Pell’s accusers. It also highlighted that the money transfers coincided with Pell’s first requests for full scrutiny of the Secretariat of State’s finances.
Cardinal Becciu agreed that it was true that Corriere della Sera, had accused him of orchestrating the accusations in 2020, but described this as “manipulated news … crazy, crazy stuff” and insisted that Pell himself had approved the payments.
“We have the records, given to me by (Secretary of State) Cardinal Parolin just the day before my interrogation, and the manifest of money sent to Australia … 2.3 million Australian dollars,” Becciu said.
“This payment had been requested from us by the Pontifical Council of Social Communications at the time, to guarantee (ownership) of the ‘Catholic’ domain name. Not only that, but the authorisation was given by Cardinal Pell himself.” The last two instalments were apparently paid in 2018 when Cardinal Pell was already back in Australia.
The Australian has made a written request to the Vatican seeking information on the records or mandate referred to by Cardinal Becciu for the Australian transfer payments but had not received comment at the time of publication.
Milone and his late deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, filed a multimillion-euro lawsuit for wrongful dismissal and damages in 2022, claiming they were targets of illegal break-ins, computer hacking and months of covert surveillance as efforts to shut down their investigations ramped up. The case was dismissed last year on the basis that Becciu and the chief of the Vatican gendarmes, Domenico Giani, had acted alone and without official Vatican mandate.
However, in the TV interview, Becciu contradicts this too, and shifts the blame for Milone’s removal directly onto Pope Francis.
“Doctor Milone accuses me of having plotted his defenestration … false, false, false. I only carried out orders,” he said.
“The Pope one morning said to me, ‘Look, I must ask you to conduct an irksome task and I am sorry that I always have to give you unpleasant assignments. You must call Dr Milone and tell him he has lost my confidence and therefore it is best he resigns’. I did this, but he did not believe me.”
Milone previously told The Australian that his removal unfolded not long after he had discovered cardinals “putting money in their pockets, doing strange things” and that he was
not able to view evidence of investments made by the Secretariat of State and some other
entities and that all was reported to Pope Francis. Cardinal Pell on more than one occasion
commented that they had not understood that he [Milone] was just auditing!
A further hearing on the wrongful dismissal suit is to be heard on November 13.
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