Cardinal Angelo Becciu has become the highest-ranked cleric in the Vatican to be indicted over charges that include embezzlement and abuse of office, according to the BBC.
The charges relate to a multi-million-dollar property purchase with Church funds in London. The $200m paid for the apartment block in the British capital’s Sloane Avenue came out of Church money through offshore funds and companies.
The 73-year-old Cardinal is one of 10 people a Vatican judge has ordered to stand trial for alleged financial crimes. Becciu, who denies wrongdoing, was forced to resign last September, though retains his title.
The Cardinal was a close aide to Pope Francis and formerly held a key post in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, which manages the Church’s donations.
The BBC’s John McManus commented yesterday that getting to the heart of the troubling relationship between the Vatican and its finances had become one of the main themes at the Vatican under Pope Francis.
‘Parallel to his desire to make the Church a sanctuary where everybody, however imperfect, can find a place, has been his work to make the Vatican a distinctly unwelcoming destination for those who would use it to enrich themselves,’ McManus wrote.
The fact that the Pope ‘was ready to sanction the indictment and trial of a cardinal who was not only a senior member of the Vatican hierarchy, but also by his own account a friend of Francis, signals again his clear intention that when it comes to financial wrongdoing he’s prepared to take unprecedented action to clean up the Church’s reputation’.