Cardinal George Pell has cast doubt on whether a big Vatican financial trial will go ahead, saying “it might fail for legal reasons”. The trial concerns the Holy See’s 350 million euro (nearly $A550 million) investment in a London property deal but has expanded to include other alleged financial crimes. Vatican prosecutors accuse Italian brokers, … Read more
Francis not only had been kept informed of every step of the London deal, actually approving it, but personally intervened in at least one crucial moment of the affair. While at the Vatican the trial of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu and the other defendants is approaching its fifth hearing without ever really getting started, the … Read more
Former Vatican economy czar Cardinal George Pell warns in a new book that the Catholic institution is facing a growing deficit, but he hopes financial reform efforts have put a stop to money laundering in the small city-state. Pell’s newest book, “Prison Journal, Volume 3: The High Court frees an Innocent Man,” was published in … Read more
A senior Catholic cardinal has been accused of using €700,000 in Vatican funds to bribe witnesses to secure a sex abuse conviction against a rival. Italian media have reported that Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, 72, is suspected of wiring the cash to recipients in Australia who helped ensure hostile testimony in the abuse trial of … Read more
An Italian newspaper reported that Vatican prosecutors have received allegations that the funds were transferred after Cardinal George Pell returned there to face sexual abuse charges. Vatican prosecutors are investigating allegations that Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu funneled 700,000 euro through the apostolic nunciature in Australia — an action that one Italian newspaper suggests could be … Read more
As Cardinal Pell arrives in Rome this week after three years in Australia, a look at the counterpoint between the cardinal’s return and Cardinal Becciu’s fall. An important, but not the primary, consequence of the stunning sacking of Cardinal Angelo Becciu is that it completes on the Vatican side what was accomplished by the Australian … Read more
Cardinal George Pell has said that senior people in Rome believe his conviction and imprisonment in Australia was related to the trouble he was causing to “corrupt officials in the Vatican” as he led the financial reforms. In an interview released today with Australia’s Sky News, host Andrew Bolt asks Pell whether he had ever … Read more
How much more persecution will this man have to endure? Cardinal George Pell now faces a Church inquiry into allegations of sexually assaulting children, even though the High Court of Australia dramatically quashed his earlier convictions. Following the cardinal’s conviction by a jury, which became public in February 2019, the Vatican opened a case against … Read more
The boiling frog never marks that first millisecond, when the water in his pot becomes just a half-degree warmer. And so, Catholics living in America circa 2019 couldn’t possibly appreciate the magnitude of what happened this week in Australia. Yet I have no doubt my grandsons will. Here are the facts. In December of 2018, Cardinal … Read more
Australian Cardinal George Pell, as a Vatican official who would have retained diplomatic immunity, did not have to face trial in Australia for sexual abuse of minors but chose to do so to clear his name. The fact that he went on his own free will in an attempt to clear his name adds weight … Read more