Cardinal Becciu allegations mount as Vatican appoints new prosecutor

September 28, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

CNA Staff, Sep 28, 2020 / 05:28 pm (CNA).-  

Italian businessman Gianluigi Torzi has provided detailed information to investigators in the ongoing Vatican financial scandal, according to new reports. News of Torzi’s cooperation with prosecutors follows the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Becciu last week, and the announcement that Pope Francis has appointed a new prosecutor to strengthen the case.

As previously reported by CNA, Torzi was arrested by Vatican investigators in June, and charged with “extortion, embezzlement, aggravated fraud and self-laundering,” in relation to his part in the deal.

La Repubblica reported on Monday that, following his arrest, Torzi spent three days with Vatican authorities, walking them through details of the case, and that Italian authorities are now assisting the Vatican in tracking several hundred million euros of Vatican funds.

The Vatican also announced Monday that Pope Francis appointed an Italian lawyer and professor of commercial law to work as an additional prosecutor in the Vatican City State’s court, fueling expectation that Becciu and several of his former colleagues at the Secretariat of State could face criminal prosecution in Vatican City.

On the same day, Italian news site Domani carried a report that a brewing company owned by Cardinal Becciu’s brother received a 1.5 million euro loan from an African businessman with links to Becciu and the Secretariat of State. The loan was made by Angolan businessman Antonio Mosquito, a long-time acquaintance of Becciu, who served as apostolic nuncio to the African nation from 2001-2009.

In 2012, having moved to Rome as sostituto of the Secretariat of State, Becciu was involved in the secretariat’s consideration of a reported $200 million investment in Mosquito’s company Falcon Oil.

After vetting the deal for a year, the secretariat instead chose to invest the money with Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione, leading to the controversial purchase of a London building which kicked off the current investigation.

Mario Becciu told Domani that the money was intended to help children with autism.

Becciu resigned on Thursday following an unscheduled meeting with Pope Francis in which the pope told the cardinal he had lost his trust and ordered him to step down. The following morning, Italian newspaper L’Espresso published a story accusing Becciu of using his positions in the curia to funnel money to members of his own family.
 
Becciu’s resignation followed more than a year of reporting by CNA and other news outlets on various financial scandals involving Becciu and the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, where he served as sostituto for nearly a decade, until he was made a cardinal and placed in charge of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 2018.
 
Many of those reports stemmed from the Secretariat’s controversial investments through Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione, an associate of Torzi’s, including the purchase from him of the London property for hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition to Torzi’s arrest in June, Italian police served a search and seizure warrant on Mincione in July, issued at the request of Vatican prosecutors. Investigators took away cell phones and tablets for examination in relation to the case. Mincione has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the Secretariat of State in a U.K. court, asking a judge to rule he acted in good faith in his dealings with the Vatican.

On Monday, lawyers for the Becciu family released a statement to the media saying that they had lodged official complaints for the “slander and aggravated defamation” of their clients and for “illegal leakage of confidential information and documents” to media. The release did not specify which media, or to whom the complaint had been made.
 
Since October, investigators in Vatican City have conducted several raids on different Vatican departments in connection with the London property deal and connected investments. Investigators raided offices at the secretariat and the AIF, the Vatican’s financial watchdog, seizing computers and phones and resulting in the suspension of several members of staff.

After those raids, investigators also raided the home and offices of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, who worked closely with Becciu at the Secretariat of State.
 
 

 

 

 

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The Dispatch

Benedict XVI’s funeral: Tens of thousands attend simple, solemn liturgy for beloved pope emeritus

January 5, 2023 Catholic News Agency 2
The coffin of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is carried into St. Peter’s Square prior to his funeral Mass on Jan. 5, 2023. / Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jan 5, 2023 / 03:21 am (CNA).

Tens of thousands of people were present in St. Peter’s Square for the funeral Thursday of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, a leading theologian of the 20th century and the first pope to resign from office in nearly 600 years.

Royalty, cardinals, patriarchs, government officials, and many Catholic families and religious attended the funeral on a cold and foggy morning at the Vatican. More than 3,700 priests concelebrated the Mass.

Cardinals Joseph Zen, Daniel DiNardo, Timothy Dolan, Gianfranco Ravasi, and Giuseppe Betori, all cardinals created by Benedict, were seated in the front row. The Vatican said 125 cardinals concelebrated.

The ceremony began with the transport of the pope emeritus’ wooden coffin from the basilica to St. Peter’s Square.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict’s personal secretary, approached the coffin, knelt before it, and kissed it. The crowd then prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary in Latin for the repose of the soul of the late pope.

The funeral Mass was simple and solemn, in accord with Benedict XVI’s wishes. The Sistine Chapel Choir sang the “Salve Regina,” “In Paradisum,” and other hymns.

An image of the resurrection of Christ was hung from St. Peter’s Basilica behind the altar.

Pope Francis presided over the funeral for his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

In his homily, he reflected on Jesus’ final words on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

“God’s faithful people, gathered here, now accompany and entrust to him the life of the one who was their pastor,” he said.

“Like the women at the tomb,” he said, “we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show him once more the love that is undying. We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness and devotion that he bestowed upon us over the years.”

Benedict XVI died on Dec. 31 at the age of 95. As confirmed by Archbishop Gänswein, his last words were “Signore, ti amo!” (“Lord, I love you”).

Nearly 200,000 people came to see Benedict XVI lying in state inside St. Peter’s Basilica in the days ahead of the funeral.

“Together, we want to say: ‘Father, into your hands we commend his spirit,’” Francis said in his homily. “Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever.”

The Vatican only invited two official state delegations — from Italy and Germany — to the funeral, but some heads of state and public figures decided to attend in an unofficial capacity.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar came to the Vatican to attend the ceremony, along with European royals Queen Sofia of Spain and King Philip and Queen Mathilde of Belgium.

In the Prayers of the Faithful, the second prayer was said in German: “For Pope Emeritus Benedict, who has fallen asleep in the Lord: May the eternal Shepherd receive him into his kingdom of light and peace.”

The readings for the Mass were Isaiah 29:16–19 in Spanish; Psalm 23 sung in Latin; 1 Peter 1: 3–9 in English, and the Gospel of Luke 23:39–46 read in Italian.

At the end of the funeral Mass, Pope Francis presided over the Final Commendation and Valediction, which were followed by a moment of silent prayer.

Pope Francis approached with a cane and prayed while touching the wooden coffin of his predecessor.

Bells tolled and the crowd applauded as Benedict XVI’s coffin was carried into St. Peter’s Basilica to his place of burial in the basilica crypt. People waved flags and banners, including one that said “Santo Subito,” calling for Benedict’s immediate canonization.

Born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, he was elected to the papacy in April 2005, taking the name Benedict XVI, after decades of service to the Catholic Church as a theologian, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, cardinal, and one of the closest collaborators of St. John Paul II, whom he succeeded as pope.

Widely recognized as one of the Catholic Church’s top theologians, Benedict’s pontificate was marked by a profound understanding of the challenges to the Church in the face of growing ideological aggression, not least from an increasingly secular Western mindset, both within and outside the Church. He famously warned about the “dictatorship of relativism” in a homily just before the conclave in 2005 that elected him pope.

On Feb. 11, 2013, the 85-year-old Benedict shocked the world with a Latin-language announcement of his retirement, becoming the first pope in 600 years to do so. He cited his advanced age and his lack of strength as unsuitable to the exercise of his office.

Reflecting on life after death in an Angelus message on Nov. 2, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said eternal life will be like “immersing yourself in the ocean of infinite love where time — a before and an after — no longer exists. Fullness of life and joy: This is what we hope for and expect from our being with Christ.”

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