Life, works and missions (including political ones) of Angelo Becciu, torpedoed by Pope Francis. Facts, reconstructions, insights and curiosities
To recall the recent former cardinals and cardinals reduced to half a portion in the history of the Church, no honor is given to the past, disgusting, but cultivated, proud sins of the protagonists of the time, nor to the present small world.
The dismissal from the rights related to the purple (which the purple retains) inflicted on Angelo Becciu is an absolute premiere. Where the opera on stage risks overturning the theatrical broccardo.
Here it starts with farce and ends in tragedy.
And not because of Moneyval’s upcoming crucial inspections, nor because of a visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to his Vatican counterpart after – and despite – a couple of tweets on freedom in China following winks from the Holy See towards the Beijing regime. Big games, but the playing fields are different.
The tragedy is another, and it is already underway.
Perhaps in a non-final act in a daily scene that knows no curtain. And not so much because in modern events it is the first time that the sanction is imposed on a cardinal of the Curia – as correctly recalled by the Vatican. Not just because what Becciu is contested has nothing to do with murky events comparable to the predecessors Keith Patrick O’Brien (2015) or Theodore McCarrick (2019). Both deprived of cardinal rights for stories of sexual abuse and sheets. The second was also torn from his hat and resigned to the lay state.
And maybe it was the times of 1927, when a Louis Billot lost his capamagna for theological disquisitions with the then reigning Pius XI.
Macche.
For Becciu it is very different.
Today we live on dances, guittezze, great theater, as the poet Ivano Fossati would sing.
In fact it is about money. Only of those. And it also makes you yawn a little. For the millennial history of the Church, attentive to people in view of eternal life, that of money is an important question, but of poor thing in the face of violations of conscience, sexual and doctrinal disquisitions. It has been since the time of Judas’ thirty denarii that the Church has had some problems with money. So
And then
An Augustinian friar, seated in a confessional in St. Peter’s Basilica, from behind the grate of the court of penance – were he reader of an eighteenth-century manual a la Jean Baptiste Bouvie – would absolve the penitent by assigning a sleepy fine of three Pater, Ave and Gloria. And a subsequent – more thunderous as well as merciful – an invitation to the purpose of sinning no more. And then that’s it.
Today for the repair there is the obligation of something else. Penance must be socialized. Better: executed.
Penance that fell on Becciu like a guillotine.
After all, even an imperfect separate collection has become an ecological sin, and there is a risk that if you confuse glass with plastic you will be sent by a zealous spiritual father to repair by going to parks to collect litter in the company of Greta Thunberg. Where it is not clear whether penance consists in walking in the green to pick up cans or in the company of the Swedish activist.
Provided that Becciu can really be contested with something. In internal and external forum. Because to date it does not appear.
At the moment nothing appears. In dubio pro reo. But someone has to explain. And the Vatican is not doing it.
Archbishop Angelo could be reproached – as much as praised, depending on your point of view – for a habit with power gained through years of diplomatic service around the world, and attempts to weave relations with the Italian political world.
“And a man of the old guard”, the detractors keep silent. Which is true. (Becciu is 72 years old that in those parts and yet he is a young man. But the curriculum is relentless).
The portrait of a man of the old guard, after all, might not displease him anyway. Becciu organized the historic visit of Benedict XVI to Cuba in 2012, where Angelo da Pattada was nuncio. Then he was the protagonist of an attempt at dialogue – it is said – with an interview with the leaders of the League Matteo Salvini and Giancarlo Giorgetti, received in his Vatican apartment. Already when (and it is one more time), the League between the CEI and the Vatican was and is still being looked upon with more than one distrust. (What then to Salvini, Monsignor Becciu, active on social networks and certainly not a character who shuns comments and interviews, did not soundly reproach him for the initial use of rosaries and bibles and equally documentable).
Enjoyable, however, the still image of a Salvini and Giorgetti made to enter the house of the then – still Eminence with full rights and rights – from a back staircase; up to forcing the two to a gymnastic jump of some garbage bags.
It was supposed to be a confidential meeting. As if, on the other hand, behind the Sacred Walls even the fish bones from the previous dinner stuck in the wet bag did not have eyes and ears. And word. Mysteries of faith. Especially the speech.
It is as if the crows on permanent duty Beyond the Walls were not chatting morning and evening with the seagulls that hover over Rome from one side of the Tiber to the other. In fact, the thing came out almost immediately.
And how can we forget that the weaving of the dialogue of a not inexperienced diplomat has affected the entire Italian political spectrum. Call Palazzo Chigi where, for obvious reasons, they do not answer. But some embarrassment now … Who knows. Whatsappare randomly.
That Becciu of money has been very busy and known.
Normal.
As nuncio, inevitably; even more inevitable as Substitute of the Secretariat of State for Benedict XVI and later Francis. There where the money of the Pence of St. Peter is managed, which does not go only to the poor: beautiful souls are resigned. They also go there, but not only. They are used to make the machinery of the Church work. Like it or not. May the Church not only dispense charity with change offered at random outside the market to those who bring you the shopping cart. The question is addressed in a slightly more articulated way. Design
Everyone look.
So surely Archbishop Angelo also had to put his hand in the coffers inside the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, where until a few years ago a poor Christ who had died for decades, who perhaps had married a poor lady in life, risked finding himself posthumously going up to the altars costing posterity between dutiful and expensive processes and lengthy archive searches – but also refined catering, various and eventual sumptuous celebrations – up to 300 thousand euros.
And of badly or well managed money, Becciu must have also taken care of it since 2017, when Pope Bergoglio sent him to solve one of the greatest crises of the Order of Malta. A crisis that has not been resolved at all, between internal revolts that do not seem to subside. On the contrary.
And then yes. He stumbles. There is the attempted rescue of the Dermopathic Institute of the Immaculate Conception (Idi), a Roman hospital that collapsed in 2013 under millions of euros. Involved the powerful and wealthy Knights of Columbus. From Rome they asked for help. The US knights answered spades, only to be led back to milder advice thanks to high, very high mediations of the Secretariat of State. Also because the Pope refused the usual annual audience for that non-repayable donation. And it wasn’t Covid times. He was really angry.
And then yes: Archbishop Angelo fired the auditor Milone who wanted to clean up; and he had more than one confrontation with the Australian Cardinal George Pell, at the time prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, called by Francis to reform the troubled Vatican finances. The clash took place, Becciu himself recognized as soon as Friday at a press conference.
The Becciu-Pell clash has not healed, he sends to say Pell from Australia where he had flown immediately when summoned to be tried, then conspicuous convicted of abuses on two altar boys; then incarcerated for more than a year, and then finally acquitted in the last degree of judgment.
Here, Pell’s recent words – which Bergoglio never dreamed of not only removing the purple but not even asking for a step back – would be about to return to Rome. His words are unusual towards a confrere: given him time to learn the news of Becciu’s dismissal from cardinal rights, the Australian congratulated the Pope for the steps in the cleanup action in Vatican finances, hoping that the action continues in Rome as in Vittoria’s.
Indelicate. Perhaps. But in short, when it spins it spins.
Yet: Victoria and the Australian state from where Pell was made incredible accusations of pedophilia dating back to years ago. Australian accusations that many have led back to a Roman direction. That is: curial. “Cannons fired in Australia with ammunition prepared under the Dome” has been said several times. And it cannot be ruled out that the narrative is so far-fetched.
What Becciu and Pell mean in the event of a personal meeting
is their business.
But the point (one of many possible) is precisely that Pell and Becciu at this moment – so far and so close – have to share a step: cleaning the name, as the Anglo-Saxons say. That is: protesting one’s innocence before a jury. He has already tasted the first, and bitterly. Convicted, caged and then fully rehabilitated by a civil court. The second, still not.
The decardinalization at meta Becciu by virtue of the decardinalization at meta ora is widely processable by the Vatican judiciary.
And this is new.
Not only could he be prosecuted by the canonical one (he would also have been prosecutable as a full cardinal), but by the civil one. And from the Vatican, however, administered in the name of His Holiness. But a notice of guarantee to Becciu did not arrive. The dossiers against him – with alleged offenses that would have been reported by the Italian Finance Police, probably after a request for rogatory from the Vatican judiciary – are only now delivered to a journalistic scoop of the Espresso.
And where will the hand passing papers come from, certainly not via email or fax
. Anyway: a trial, instructed by the Vatican, civil judiciary, would be the most desirable step at this time.
It would be the only clarifier. For the good of the Church – that is, of the faithful, of those who pay for the Pence of St. Peter and sign for the Otto per mille and feel betrayed – and for justice towards Becciu.
Monsignor
Innocente is guilty.
No press conferences are needed to clarify this. It is necessary to discuss in the most appropriate place with respect to interviews variously released, broken down tweets. On the other side of the deaf and not very transparent whispers of Vatican communication, which another evening liquidated the matter with a line. Feeding journalistic reconstructions that obviously capture only one aspect, and cannot summarize.
Otherwise, perhaps the backstories are not too wrong to wallow in news gathered from some long cassock (obviously always interested in saying A to Matins and then Z to Vespers) or dossiers cleverly leaked from Porta Sant’Anna.
What then: who released the covers of the scoop finished on the desk of Francesco
Che it would also be time to stop with this alleged Vatileaks to be numbered; which by now no longer needs to be numbered: it has been in existence since the time of Benedict XVI. One, two, three, four, five…
Enough. No: we are at the colander not of news – there were! – but of documents escaped out of interest that play the game of that or that ecclesial party. It is a permanent Vatileaks. There are so many ravens that it is no longer right to look for them.
And the discussion on the keeping of the reign of Francis that so fascinates (few; more and more reduced insiders) got bored. They are things that enrich bank accounts with handrails and lacquers. And some publishers. The intentions were good. The mitigating factor in war is admitted in the good fight fought in the positioning between curial bands. It would be serious. The rest, even not.
In fact, something does not add up.
Because the dismissal of Becciu communicated in an audience with Francis – audience in the table for routine issues such as the approval at the conclusion of beatification and canonization processes that Becciu was dealing with since 1 September 2018 – is not credible that it turned into an expulsion for this reason. Not like this.
The accusation would in fact have allocated, when Bishop Angelo was Substitute in the secretariat of state, a few hundred thousand euros to the Caritas of his diocese of origin to support projects for the unemployed and immigrants. One hundred of which are still on account of the Diocese, waiting to perfect projects.
Agree: the cooperative receiving the funds and coordinated by a brother of Becciu. But the diocese of Ozieri is small, very small. It is not uncommon for a Catholic family to have children, sisters, grandparents and uncles engaged in some activity. Becciu’s brother got rich
Not shown. The money was destined not to him but to a coop connected to Caritas.
The scoop of the Espresso on what would be the accusations made by the Pope against Becciu then report some carpentry work commissioned by Monsignor Angelo Nunzio to another brother, first for a restructuring in the nunciature in Angola and then in Cuba. These latest works completed by the successor. It could be said that a direct call from a “relative” to work in an ecclesiastical structure is not correct. Moreover, the recent Vatican procurement code – released last June – not only discourages it, but seems to deprecate it in a more than explicit way. But a 16-year-old parish animator also knows this, from the provincial deacon to the bishop and on, it is common practice to entrust work in the various structures to relatives and friends.
That’s no good
Sure. Ok. Just change pace. But semi-cardinalizing a prelate for this is perplexing. The penalty is huge.
So: either there is something else, or there is something else.
So much so that – but this is a splash of color from the weekly L’Espresso – even the third brother of Angelo da Pattada is brought up to obscure the image of the now half cardinal. Only because the cardinal joint would have sponsored a mythical and unobtainable “Birra Pollicina” at religious organizations. This third brother is a university teacher and invests in breweries. He is perhaps Becciu wrong when he notes that making friends taste a beer is neither a commercial nor a pressure
Maybe someone felt compelled to buy it “because the cardinal advised it.” But there is a rift between perception and coercion.
(1. continues; here the second part)
+++ THE START MAGAZINE
IN DEPTH: WHAT IS SAID IN THE VATICAN CURIA OF BERGOGLIO, BECCIU AND NOT ONLY ACCORDING TO THE VATICANIST MATZUZZI THIS IS
WHY POPE FRANCIS HAS BEEN
SILURED OF BERGOGLIO
BECAUSE PELL ENJOYS BECCIU
SILURING START MAGAZINE ARCHIVE ARTICLE: LONDON AND VATICAN, WHAT THEY SAID AND DIDN’T SAY PAROLIN AND BECCIU
