Vogon Today

Selected News from the Galaxy

StartMag

Because Pell rejoices over Becciu’s torpedo

Because Pell rejoices over Becciu's torpedo

What happened between Pell and Becciu on Vatican finances. Facts, reconstructions and insights by Calabrò, Franco and Matzuzzi

The vaticanista del Foglio, Matteo Matzuzzi, hot after the torpedoing of Angelo Becciu by Pope Francis, tweeted:

"Everything is linked to the period, almost eight years from 2011 to 2018, during which Becciu was Substitute of the Secretariat of State and managed the funds, including the reserved ones and the St. Peter's donation", wrote the Corriere yesterday of the Evening .

Yesterday George Pell lashed out at Becciu saying that Francesco should be thanked for what he did with him, Repubblica remarked.

The tensions Massimo Franco wrote today in Corriere della Sera – are “still incandescent, if the lapidary statement attributed to the Australian cardinal and released yesterday is true. These are few words with the taste of gall towards Becciu. "The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances," Pell wrote. “He has done a long job and should be thanked and congratulated (sic) for the recent developments. I hope that the cleaning in the stables will continue both in the Vatican and in Vittoria ». The Australian state of Victoria is the one where, it seems to understand, Pell believes the judicial trap has been prepared for him ”, wrote the columnist and expert on Vatican matters.

The reckoning phase has reopened in a virulent way; indeed, it was probably only frozen during the coronavirus emergency, Franco added: "And the pontiff, however weakened, appears determined to react harshly to the scandals that have emerged in recent months".

Not only contributions to organizations and companies linked to the Becciu brothers at the center of the case: "the story of the London building in Sloane Avenue, on which the Vatican attempted an unfortunate real estate speculation, investing over 300 million euros, partly drawn from the Obolo of San Pietro, continues to release poisons ”, according to Corriere della Sera . And there are those who suspect – added Franco – “that behind the latest developments there is also that scandal. "We have to go all the way", Francesco ordered, using, it seems, more crude words. Becciu is the last and heaviest link in the Bergoglian chain of command in recent years. It is understood that it cost the Pope a lot to sacrifice him: the now former cardinal served him loyally during most of the pontificate. But it is also clear that the former "minister of the interior" of the Holy See is preparing himself to defend himself. "Until the end"".

The Fact wrote some time ago: “Cardinal George Pell was on bad terms with the Substitute for General Affairs. And Pell's controller, the layman Milone, bluntly accused Becciu: “He told me to leave the post. They wanted to arrest me ”. Be that as it may, "the duel between Becciu and Milone is not the epilogue of a partnership interrupted with the usual disagreements, but the prologue to yet another season of Vatican tensions". And then one thinks of the words of Milone pronounced in the interview granted to Massimo Franco, years ago, to Corriere della Sera : “I hope that all the papers concerning me come out. When and if the truth is known, it will be clear that I am a thousand percent innocent ”.

When the career of George Pell, Australian cardinal, "economic czar" and opponent of many, including Becciu, was broken in the summer of 2017, Francis appeared struck and resigned, Franco writes today: "Faced with accusations of pedophilia against Pell and the trial to which he had had to submit in Australia, despite being perplexed, he had "dismissed" one of the men he had bet on to clean up the finances of the Holy See. And when a few months later the supervisor general Libero Milone, Pell's operational arm, said he had resigned because he had been threatened with arrest, pointing the finger at the Gendarmerie and Becciu, the Pope had sided with the latter. But Pell eventually came out unscathed and rehabilitated from the legal proceedings. On his trial via crucis, the shadow of an obscure maneuver managed "with Australian guns and Vatican ammunition" has stretched, according to an intellectual friend of the Pope and of Pell himself. And next week the former plenipotentiary will return to Rome from his Australia after more than three years of absence, without his position anymore: just as Becciu is forced to defend himself not only from embarrassing accusations, but from a papal reaction that in Vatican circles has left everyone stunned; and after the head of the Gendarmerie, Domenico Giani, very close to the Italian cardinal, was induced to resign on 14 October 2019, with official reasons that have not convinced everyone ".

"Behind the Becciu case is the Vatican's terror of ending up on the blacklist", the expert on Vatican matters, Maria Antonietta Calabrò wrote yesterday in Huffington Post Italy : "Next week, September 29 – just as the secretary of American State Mike Pompeo – the inspectors of the Moneyval Committee of the Council of Europe will arrive at the Vatican for a so-called "on-site visit" to check compliance with international financial standards, starting with anti-money laundering ones. It won't be a walk in the park. The inspection (the second after that of the first in 2012, which made the Holy See pass the exams after the IOR scandals, albeit with some points to implement) will begin on September 30 and will last until October 13. Two weeks in which the Vatican structures and their modus operandi will have passed under the lens. And with a scandal of such proportions under investigation (such as that of the London palace and the other flaws that have emerged) it may not be easy. The outcome of the investigations could be the last 'vote' of the inspectors to ensure that the Vatican lands on the so-called 'white list', the list of virtuous countries for managing budgets, fighting corruption and money laundering ”.


This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-pell-gode-per-il-siluramento-di-becciu-da-parte-di-papa-francesco/ on Sat, 26 Sep 2020 08:22:45 +0000.