The correspondence between the two, which took place in July 2021, was read and displayed in a Vatican court March 9 — an unexpected turn of events coming during the 50th hearing of the trial.
Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, pictured June 27, 2019. (photo: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA / EWTN)
Prior to the start of his trial on financial malfeasance charges, Cardinal Angelo Becciu tried to get Pope Francis to confirm that he had authorized the financial transactions that led to Cardinal Becciu’s prosecution.
The Pope refused.
“I regret to inform you that I cannot comply with your request,” the Pope wrote back.
The correspondence between the two, which took place in July 2021, was read and displayed in a Vatican court March 9 — an unexpected turn of events coming during the 50th hearing of the trial.
Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi obtained the three letters directly from the “sovereign authority,” that is, Pope Francis himself.
In one letter, dated July 20, 2021, Cardinal Becciu asked the Pope to confirm that he had given the go-ahead for an investment by the Secretariat of State in a luxury property in London in 2013. Not only that, Cardinal Becciu also asked the Pope to acknowledge that he had personally approved the hiring of an intermediary, Cecilia Marogna, to help secure the release of Sister Cecilia Narvaez, the Colombian nun kidnapped in Mali in 2017 and freed in 2021.
In a style that seems more legalistic than Pope Francis’ usual writing, the Pope wrote back on July 21 to say that Cardinal Becciu’s letter surprised him. Instead of granting the confirmation that Cardinal Becciu sought, the Pope emphasized that the proposal for the purchase of the property in London “immediately seemed strange to me.” For that reason, he wrote, “I suggested that a prior consultation be carried out with the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and with Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, prefect of the SPE, for the insights of their respective competences.”
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