CNA Staff, Apr 1, 2021 / 02:15 pm (CNA).- Italian media reported Thursday that Pope Francis celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who resigned from his Vatican post last September.
Citing sources close to the cardinal, La Repubblica said that the pope celebrated the Mass at around 5:30 p.m. Rome time on April 1 in the chapel of Becciu’s private apartment.
The Holy See press office has not confirmed the reports, but Vatican News posted a brief story, saying that there was no official confirmation as the Mass was a private papal engagement.
The Mass would have taken place around the same time as the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.
The Vatican did not say in advance why the 84-year-old pope opted not to preside at this year’s Mass. Francis did, however, offer the Chrism Mass on Thursday morning in St. Peter’s Basilica.
La Repubblica said that Francis used to visit Becciu every Holy Thursday for lunch with Roman priests and decided to maintain the tradition, even after Becciu dramatically resigned on Sept. 24 as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and from the rights extended to members of the College of Cardinals.
La Stampa reported that nuns who help to maintain Becciu’s home and members of the Focolare Movement were also present at the Mass.
The Italian newspaper said that the cardinal’s brother, Tonio Becciu, told the ANSA news agency that the cardinal had called him to tell him about the pope’s visit.
“His Holiness went to his apartment in the afternoon and they celebrated Coena Domini [the Mass of the Lord’s Supper] together. We are all very happy. It is really a beautiful thing,” Tonio Becciu was quoted as saying.
The Associated Press reported that Becciu’s private secretary had confirmed that the Mass took place.
Becciu served as “sostituto,” or second-ranking official at the Secretariat of State, from 2011 to 2018, when Pope Francis named him a cardinal and moved him to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
During his tenure in that position, he was linked to a number of financial scandals, most recently the Secretariat’s investment of hundreds of millions of euros with the Italian businessman Rafaelle Mincione and the controversial purchase of a London building.
The financial scandals are the focus of a continuing Vatican investigation that is expected to result in prosecutions.
Becciu has repeatedly maintained his innocence of financial wrongdoing, including at a press conference on the day after his resignation.
“I didn’t commit any crimes,” Becciu told journalists Sept. 25. “I received no communication on the part of the [Vatican] magistrates. I’m ready. If they want me to explain [my actions], I’ll explain.”
“I’m maintaining my serenity,” he said. “I renew my trust in the Holy Father.”
The cardinal described the meeting with the pope and his subsequent resignation as “surreal,” because “yesterday, until 6:02 p.m., I felt I was a friend of the pope, a faithful agent of the pope … and then there, speaking, he tells me that he no longer trusts me.”
“That he no longer trusts me because he had seen reports from the [Vatican] magistrates that I had embezzled,” he said.
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Interesting. It’s one thing to have a personal friend who is defrocked for corruption yet to maintain that friendship in a private way.
It’s quite another to forgo your public responsibilities so that you can spend time with your corrupt friend and have it leaked to the press.
It’s as if the Pope has decided that it’s time to come out-of-the-closet about his personal ties to corruption.
Pope Francis is a friend of symbolic actions.
Maybe he wants to show us how important it is to love the sinner, not to cut ties because someone has committed a crime.
We all hope that Pope Francis will make sure that this horrendous financial scandal will be investigated without regards for the name or office of the person involved.
Oh, how does that pithy little saying go: “Like attracts like.”