Cardinal Angelo Becciu authorized “classified” payments from the Vatican to a company in Australia during 2017 and 2018. The cardinal told The Pillar this week they are unrelated to the trial of Cardinal George Pell, which was underway at the time.
Four international wire transfers, from 2016 to 2017, which total more than AU$2 million, are under investigation by financial authorities in Australia because they raised red flags amid an audit of financial transfers between the two jurisdictions.
Cardinal Becciu’s lawyer on Wednesday told The Pillar that the transfers are part of the “official activities by the Secretariat of State which, by nature, are classified and couldn’t be possibly commented on.”
But senior Church and government officials close to the Secretary of State and the Secretariat for the Economy told The Pillar this week that two of the payments were approved in an authorization document signed by Cardinal Becciu, with the other two payments signed by another secretariat official in a separate authorization.
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