Cardinal Becciu’s Vatican Appeal Hearing Begins

The cardinal maintains he acted with papal approval and says prosecutors ignored key evidence in the landmark financial case.

His Eminence Giovanni Angelo Becciu, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, June 27, 2019. (photo: Daniel Ibanez / EWTN)

The appeal hearing for Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former deputy Vatican secretary of state who was convicted in December 2023 of embezzlement, aggravated fraud and abuse of office, begins today.

Heard by a six-judge Vatican Court of Appeal, the appeal is expected to revisit both factual and procedural objections from the first trial, including evidence, court transcripts and all submissions from both Cardinal Becciu’s defense and the Vatican prosecution.

After the so-called “Trial of the Century” lasting two and a half years, Cardinal Becciu, 77, was convicted of financial malfeasance and sentenced to five years and six months in prison. He was also handed a fine of 8,000 euros and permanently disqualified from holding public office.

The cardinal’s appeal will be heard alongside those of eight other defendants who were also tried, found guilty, and given a variety of sentences. Five of those defendants — Raffaele Mincione, Enrico Crasso, Gianluigi Torzi, Fabrizio Tirabassi and Cecilia Marogna — also received prison sentences of varying length.

Becciu was the first cardinal to be tried by a Vatican tribunal and has remained free pending the outcome of his appeal. Despite initially claiming he was eligible to vote in the May conclave, he decided to withdraw his participation for the “good of the Church” and out of “obedience” to Pope Francis.

The Vatican court said the cardinal’s conviction was based on “full and irrefutable evidence” that he was investing Vatican money in a highly speculative real-estate deal in London’s Sloane Avenue with “total disregard” for Vatican policies. Due to the way the deal was structured and restructured, it ended up losing the Vatican more than $200 million.

The Italian cardinal was deputy Vatican secretary of state at the time when the secretariat began negotiating the property deal using the secretariat’s funds in 2014…. Read the rest of the article at www.NCREGISTER.com

60 Sloane Avenue, London, pictured on Sept. 20, 2025. The Vatican had planned to turn the property into luxury flats but sold it at a significant loss in 2022. The real estate has since been purchased by CIT, a property developer, which has rebranded it Sixty Sloane and is turning it into office and retail space. (Images: Edward Pentin)