Cardinal Angelo Becciu: George Pell’s arch nemesis found guilty of corruption

The late George Pell had long claimed that Cardinal Angelo Becciu was thwarting reform of the Vatican moneys. On Saturday the Sardinian was sentenced to five years jail.

Giovanni Angelo Becciu from Italy. Picture: AFP

What would George Pell have thought? The deceased Australian cardinal had engaged in a fraught battle with Cardinal Angelo Becciu for most of his time in the Vatican, when the Victorian’s mandate to clean up the Catholic Church’s finances came head to head with one of the most obstructive cardinals.

Now Becciu, 75, on Saturday, has been sentenced to jail for five and a half years and fined 8000 euros for fraud in a rare conviction of a cardinal in the Vatican court.

Becciu says he will appeal.

Cardinal Pell had long believed that Becciu had influenced in some way the sex abuse charges against himself (which ended with all convictions quashed by the High Court), and the two senior cardinals had often clashed about the financial control and oversight of the church’s billions of assets.

Italian Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu Becciu says he will appeal. Picture: AFP

Pell, at the time the prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy and considered number three in seniority in the Vatican had insisted that Becciu was thwarting his own attempts to reform the Vatican finances,

But Cardinal Pell, 81, had also made it clear shortly before his death in January, that Becciu and nine other defendants involved in a highly controversial London property had not been afforded due process.

Only after his death was it revealed that Pell had been the author of an explosive anonymous memo about Pope Francis’ leadership and the mess of the church’s finances. But in one of the memo’s complaints Pell had written that Becciu and the other nine charged with corruption had not been afforded a fair trial.

Cardinal George Pell. Picture: Getty

However Pell had also issued a statement months before he died describing Becciu’s evidence to the court as being incomplete, and he mocked the Sardinian’s “spirited defence of his blameless subordinate role in the Vatican’s finances”. He questioned Becciu’s unexplained payments including a six-figure payment to an Australian tech company when he was facing sex abuse charges in Australia, as well as other unexplained financial transactions, including payments to Becciu’s family.

Last week, shortly before the sentence was handed down, Pope Francis had referred to Pell’s consecration motto, “be not afraid”, as a motto for the Vatican officials now in charge of finance reform to show courage and absolute transparency.

Pell’s quest to sort out the church’s funds had brought him head to head with Becciu and the Australian had often queried Becciu’s role in sacking the auditor, Libero Milone, just two years into a five year posting.

The two and a half year long court case involving Becciu centred around Vatican moneys being invested in a fund managed by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione in 2014 to buy 45 per cent of a central London building at 60 Sloane Ave. The Holy See lost more than €150m on the deal. Mincione and eight others involved in the deal were also found guilty.

Only one, Becciu’s former secretary Mauro Carlino, was found not guilty.

Mincione was jailed for five and a half years and a London deal broker, Gianluigi Torzi, was jailed for six.

Becciu was also found guilty of improper payments to his brother, and also to a Sardinian woman, Cecilia Marogna, which he claimed were to help negotiate the release of a Colombian nun kidnapped in Mali.

Marogna was jailed for three years and nine months.

Also sentenced were former Vatican employees, Enrico Crasso, who was given seven years jail and Fabrizio Tirabassi, who was given a seven and a half year sentence.

The court also ordered the confiscation from those convicted of 166 million euros, and ordered them to compensate the civil parties more than 200 million euros.