Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the pope's former chief of staff was found guilty of several counts of embezzlement and was sentenced to more than five years in jail. He is the highest-ranking Vatican official to face a trial in the Vatican's criminal court.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu is one of ten defendants in what is the Vatican’s largest trial for financial crimes in the modern era. The cardinal is going before the Vatican tribunal for the first time since Pope Francis changed norms in April to allow cardinals and archbishops to be tried by lay judges, in this case on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office.
The Vatican said it is investigating two former officials over claims money meant for a children’s hospital was used to refurbish a cardinal’s luxury apartment. Costly work at former Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s flat, (seeming to clash with Pope Francis’s recommendations that church officials live as modestly as he), caused a scandal when allegations emerged that the Bambino Gesu Hospital foundation had helped foot the bill.
The scale of the challenge facing Pope Francis as he struggles to overhaul the Vatican’s finances was exposed on Wednesday by the publication of confidential documents and private recordings of his meetings. In effect just months after his election in 2013, Francis demanded a clampdown on uncontrolled spending by the Vatican.