begins the largest criminal trial in modern Vatican history

This Tuesday opens before the Supreme Court of the Vatican a criminal procedure whose main accused is Cardinal Angelo Becciu, dismissed by the Pope as one of his main “ministers”, that of the Cause of the Saints. This is the first time this has happened in the Vatican.

It’s him biggest financial scandal over the past thirty years it has exploded into the Secretariat of State, the center of the Roman Curia, which is the central government of the Church.

The scale of the case makes it one of the few historical processes in which many will be uncovered. untold secrets and we must expect revelations, blows and counter-attacks which may affect the Pope himself.

Jorge Bergoglio, who turns 85 in December, says he’s the one discovered the case because we must put an end to the corruption and colossal internal maneuvers behind these cases.

Before the President of the Supreme Court of the Vatican, Giuseppe Pignatone, former high-ranking Italian judicial magistrate whose Pope has made the most important figure in Vatican justice, Cardinal Becciu and others are due to present themselves nine defendants.

Three of them belong to the world of finance linked to the Church through this scandal, which started in 2014 when Bishop Becciu, then Deputy Secretary of State, decided to make an investment of $ 200 million in the financing of an oil company in Angola.

Se llaman Enrico Crasso, Raffaelle Mincione and Gianluigi Torzi.

Crasso had been a financial maneuver for Vatican investments for many years, channeled through Credit Suisse to which Crasso belonged, who was a man of extreme trust in the Church. Mincione is a The Italian billionaire financier which operates in London and other locations. Torzi does the same job.

In 2014, when this extraordinary story begins in which even the Pope is forced to intervene four years later in an operation held in reserve, there are two funds in the Secretariat of State with a lot of money.

Donations from the faithful

One bears the informal name of Paul VI and is worth 200 million euros. The other, very important, is Obolus of Saint Peter, which accumulated at that time 450 million, fattened donations that the faithful make to the Pope for charitable works.

From the fund intended for the poor, a destiny which only brings together 10% of the total, the most nourished fetas are invested in the “subsistence of the Church”, because the Vatican lives in permanent difficulties. He has just announced that in 2020, the year of the pandemic, the red of the balance reached 66.3 million euros.

From Obolo for the poor came the 200 million euros that Becciu decided to allocate to oil investment in Angola which promised hefty interest.

Becciu ordered to take care of his right arm, Bishop Alberto Perlasca, who in the case plays the role of the Great Repentant who sang everything before the Vatican prosecutors and was excluded thanks to these services, also by the Pope, very serious accusations for which he had to answer.

Perlasca consulted with trusted financier Enrico Crasso, one of the defendants who said in a special History Channel video that it was he who called murderous financier Raffaelle Mincioni.

Hidden commissions

According to Vatican Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi, who, along with his assistants, produced a 500-page indictment after collecting 29,000 pages with the investigations, Crasso and other accused commissions received hidden by this initiative.

Mincione said Angolan business was not good and in exchange offered to buy a large building, from his property which had been a warehouse for the high-value Harrods stores. in the most prosperous heart of London, on Sloane Avenue.

Pass. The financier Mincione armed the operation by working the entrance to the Vatican, which entered by buying shares for 200 million in your Athena company. Credit Suisse intervened. As you enter Athena, it is easy to realize that she did not make the Church the owner of the Palace in London.

Over time there were more investigations and they called Crasso. He said it was better to buy and use another heist financier as a middleman. Gianluigi Torzi has prepared the next scam.

A contract was signed which included the written approval of Cardinal Parolín, the “Prime Minister of the Pope”. The property now belonged to the company GUTT de Torzi, in which the Church accumulated 30,000 shares, while the Italian financier had only 1,000. But, small detail, it is these thousand shares that had the power of purchase. The 30 thousand of the Vatican no and that’s why in fact they were worth nothing.

In this disaster they had various personages of the Secretary of State who participated. Like Monsignor Mauro Carlino. And Fabrizio Tirabassi and others who are now on the list of defendants.

When they understood that they still did not own the building bought four years ago, the Secretary of State was afraid. Torzi said he was ready to fix it, but not for free. He even asked for 30 million euros to disappear from the scene.

The feeling was that there were several officials who regretted what had happened but that in reality they received bribes Torzi is consistent.

The Pope’s intervention

From worry to despair. And though it sounds amazing, and almost is, it was decided to go to the Argentine Holy Father convincing Gianluca Torzi that he had to give up ownership of the building, which at this point was a disastrous investment.

In the Casa de Santa Marta, a Vatican hotel where you are staying, the Pope briefly received Torzi that he was accompanied by discreet figures from the church who participated in the negotiations.

The financier he was arrogant before the same pontiff. He reiterated that he was waiting for concrete recognition and finally, after another meeting between Torzi and the Pope, he agreed to settle for 15 million euros.

He signed and at this point the investigation was ongoing. On June 22, 2020, in the midst of a pandemic that kept the doors of the Vatican closed, Torzi was arrested but it was only ten days behind the fragile city-state bars.

Cardinal Becciu was appointed in 2011 “Minister” of Foreign Affairs, that is to say the mission of deputy of the Secretary of State, by the German Pope Benedict XVI.

Francis confirmed him in his functions when he was elected pope in March 2013. Originally from the island of Sardinia, according to accusations by Vatican prosecutors, Becciu worked in Rome. to his family nothing will be missing.

In the process, he must respond with various gestures, to the aid of his brothers and a niece, in which he allegedly used the money of the Secretary of State and the funds of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

A strange variation is that of a character they call “Lady Vaticano”. Cecilia Marogna. She said she complied mysterious intelligence missions for Becciu.

made several trips and salted expense accounts spent for the clothes and objects of the biggest fashion brands. He explained that these were gifts he gave for public relations. What was your relationship with the very high official of the Curia, considered to be one of the Pope’s closest neighbors?

These ambitions are dashed. In 2018, Becciu left the Secretary of State. His friend the Pope, with whom he sent almost every day, appointed him “minister”, head of the key dicastery of the Cause of Saints, commonly called “the factory of the saints of the Church”. His manifest destiny seemed assured.

But maybe some evidence recommended Bergoglio withdraw it from the Secretary of State.

Becciu is just saying. “All this is the fruit of a plot woven into my damage ”. The process, he assures, is an opportunity to disarm an operation “in which they made up everything about me”.

“The time for clarification is approaching. The court will be able to verify that the accusations are absolutely false ”. The cardinal, whose title Pope has become an empty shell, asserts that the “dark plots and false accusations” will be contrasted in the process until prove your innocence and the guilt of the accusers.

Some of his words sound like threats. “I will reveal everything” and it is obvious that they are aiming very high.

Vatican, correspondent