Convicted: Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu in a recording from 2018
Image: AFP
For the first time, a Vatican court has sentenced a cardinal to prison. Angelo Becciu's downfall was a luxury property in London, which brought gigantic losses to the Vatican.
ECardinal of the Catholic Church, who did not take the law very seriously in the Vatican, has only had to fear one judge on earth: the Pope. But for a long time he only knew equality before God, not equality before the law. In recent years, Benedict XVI's valet, who stole documents from the papal desk, and a clergyman who leaked secret financial documents from the press have had to appear before a secular court in the Vatican. An archbishop who, as Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, is said to have paid minors for sex, died before the trial began. But no cardinal has ever sat in the dock.
On Saturday, the Vatican City Criminal Court sentenced a cardinal to prison for the first time since its founding in 1929. The Sardinian Angelo Becciu was one of Pope Benedict XVI's closest collaborators from 2011 to 2018. and then by Pope Francis.
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