untitled design

Court hears secretly recorded phone call between Pope Francis and cardinal

Pope Francis was secretly recorded during a phone call with one of his cardinals, which emerged during an ongoing financial trial at the Vatican on Thursday.

A Vatican court heard the audio recording between Pope Francis and Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the defendant in the trial, in which the Cardinal asks the Pope to confirm that he has authorized payments to help free a kidnapped nun in Africa.

Journalists were not allowed to listen to the recording, but a transcript from the Italian Financial Police was later published by the Italian news agency Adnkronos. Three defense lawyers at the trial also later confirmed the contents of the conversation to Vatican journalists present.

The recording was made by a third party in the room with Cardinal Becciu during the telephone conversation, which took place on July 24, 2021. The call took place three days before the start of the Vatican trial in which Becciu is accused of embezzlement and abuse of office, and just 10 days after Francisco was released from the hospital for bowel surgery.

In the call, Becciu asks the Pope to confirm that he has authorized payments the cardinal made to a self-styled security adviser called Cecilia Marogna – who is also accused of embezzlement in the trial – to, in turn, pay the British company Inkerman, to help to secure the release of the nun who had been kidnapped by Islamist militants in Mali in 2017, the transcript states.

The amounts paid, according to Cardinal Becciu, who at the time was number two in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, were 350,000 euros ($363,706) for the British firm and 500,000 euros ($519,580) in ransom for the nun.

According to the transcript, the Pope said in the call that he vaguely remembered and asks the cardinal to put in writing what he would like the Pope to confirm.

Under Vatican law, there is no provision for a pope to be called as a witness in a trial.

Cardinal Becciu, who was dismissed from his post and stripped of most of his rights as a cardinal by Pope Francis in September 2020, has always maintained that all financial transactions he has undertaken have been fully approved by his superiors, including Pope Francis.

Becciu and Marogna pleaded not guilty to all charges at trial.

A statement by Becciu’s lawyers sent to the CNN on Thursday he did not comment on the secretly recorded phone call.

The revelations of a secretly recorded phone call and what Pope Francis knew about the Vatican’s financial dealings are just the latest in a long and complicated trial that focuses on the Vatican’s purchase of a luxury building in London, in which 10 defendants are accused of fraud and extortion.

Source: CNN Brasil

You may also like

Get the latest

Stay Informed: Get the Latest Updates and Insights

 

Most popular