ROME (RNS) — At a session of the Vatican’s corruption trial on Thursday (March 9), the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, presented the court with an extraordinary exchange of letters between Pope Francis and Cardinal Angelo Becciu, one of the trial’s 10 defendants, in which the cardinal pleaded with the pontiff to back his version of events and drop charges of financial malfeasance against him.Becciu asked the pope to confirm that he had endorsed the 2014 purchase and later sale of a London real estate property that resulted in the Vatican losing millions of euros.
In a letter dated July 21, 2021, Francis expressed “surprise,” writing that Becciu’s request “immediately seemed strange to me because of the content, forms and timing.”
Since “I had no other elements of evaluation, I suggested that we proceed to a preliminary consultation with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and with Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, prefect of the (Vatican Secretariat for the Economy).”
The pope’s letter was in response to a July 20 missive sent by Becciu, sent two weeks after the cardinal was indicted, in which he also asked the pope to confirm that the cardinal’s deal …
Vatican prosecutors reveal extraordinary exchange between pope and accused cardinal
