Tag Archives: Cardinal Becciu

Catholic Church, Law, Media, Politics

Where did Becciu’s money go? The question remains

Cardinal Pell to Becciu: What was that $2M payment actually for?

By Christine Rousselle

Catholic News Agency, Dec 17, 2021

Cardinal George Pell says that he does not harbor any ill will toward the man whose sexual assault accusation sent the Australian prelate to prison for 13 months, but he still wants to know why the Vatican sent more than $2 million to Australia during his trial. 

Pell, the former archbishop of Sydney and the prefect emeritus of the Secretariat for the Economy, was released from prison on April 7, 2020, after the Australian High Court unanimously found that the jury which convicted him on Dec. 11, 2018 should not have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Pell was initially found guilty of sexually assaulting two choirboys in 1996, a claim he had always denied. He was freed 13 months into a six-year sentence. 

Since being freed, Pell has published his prison diaries in a series of volumes. His latest, “Prison Journal, Volume 3: The High Court Frees an Innocent Man,” was published by Ignatius Press on Nov. 2, 2021. 

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Catholic Church, Catholicism, Media, Radicalism, Religion

Cardinal Pell’s vatican enemies – how far did they reach?

George Pell, vice and the Vatican

by Paola Totaro, Australian, 28 November 2020

Cardinal George Pell shared his suspicions that up to €100m in ­unregistered cash owned by the Vatican could be hidden in foreign bank accounts at a secret meeting with Australian bankers in London’s financial district in 2016 — but four years later his questions remain unanswered.

In a new book citing confidential letters, documents and transcripts of private conversations between cardinals, Italian investigative journalist Gian Luigi Nuzzi recounts in detail the campaign of intimidation and psychological warfare unleashed by the Vatican’s old guard against attempts by Pope Francis and his German predecessor Benedict XVI to clean up the finances of the Holy See.

The intimidation included a Watergate-style break-in and the theft of a dossier of documents relating to the 1982 murder of the Vatican banker Roberto Calvi just weeks after Pell’s appointment as financial tsar. This was interpreted internally as a Mafia-style warning to busybody outsiders.

Nuzzi’s 835-page tome, The Vatican’s Black Book, documents more than 50 years of financial skulduggery by sections of the Roman curia to avoid proper scrutiny and accounting for the millions in cash donated by Catholics around the world each year.

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Catholic Church, Culture, Law, Media, Religion, The Left

The Pell case: Who’s running scared?

In his Spectator article, The sinister Vatican plot against Cardinal Pell, Damian Thompson writes that he and others have always suspected Cardinal Pell’s enemies in the Vatican had something to do with the cardinal’s conviction. Even so, he did not expect a Vatican cardinal to provide evidence to support those suspicions.

He relates, as others have done (see previous posts), the fall of Cardinal Becciu because of delinquency with Vatican funds, highlighting the mysterious transfer of A$1.1 million to an Australian account around the time Cardinal Pell was running the gauntlet of Victoria’s degraded criminal justice system. In the final paragraphs of his article, he raises some interesting points about where to from here. He says the public may learn more about Cardinal Pell’s ‘solitary accuser’. ‘God only knows,’ he adds, ‘what will happen then.’ If I’m right about the choirboy, some journalists will at this moment be running scared. They will be lucky to come off with no more than mere humiliation.

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Catholic Church, Law, Media, Religion, The Left

Vatican money to destroy Cardinal Pell – The story so far

The following details are from media reports this last week:

National Catholic Register 29 September 2020

An important, but not the primary, consequence of the stunning sacking of Cardinal Angelo Becciu is that it completes on the Vatican side what was accomplished by the Australian High Court in April, namely the complete vindication of Cardinal George Pell.

As Cardinal Pell arrives in Rome this week after three years in Australia, the counterpoint between the cardinal’s return and Cardinal Becciu’s fall is worthy of a novel.

“The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances … and is to be thanked and congratulated on recent developments,” Cardinal Pell stated in reference to his brother cardinal’s dismissal. “I hope the cleaning of the stables continues in both the Vatican and Victoria [Australia].”

Continue reading Vatican money to destroy Cardinal Pell – The story so far →
Culture, Law, Media, Politics

The Becciu File – Was the Cardinal framed?

Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s unprecedented sacking by Pope Francis has crucial importance for several reasons. Becciu was a second-rank official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State – a position with power. He frustrated and blocked Cardinal Pell’s efforts to sweep the filthy financial stables of the Vatican clean. His sacking vindicates Pell’s efforts as Prefect for the Secretariat of the Economy to bring some transparency – and honesty – into Vatican finances.

The prelude to Becciu’s inglorious removal was a string of dodgy, smelly (some stinking) financial dealings. One of those shifty splashings of Vatican cash was a transfer of $800,000 to an account in Australia just when Cardinal Pell was undergoing his ordeal in Victoria’s corrupted legal system and police force. The voices talking about a framing originating in the Vatican are becoming louder. My Becciu file (a tab under Cardinal Pell section) will keep up to date with the Becciu and Pell affair.