On Monday, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the highest ranking Vatican official to be tried for financial crimes, said he had met with Pope Francis on Saturday, and that the pontiff had encouraged him in his case.
The audience with the pope came amid the furore caused by a wiretap from last year, in which the Sardinian cardinal was heard saying Pope Francis “wants (him) dead”, and also, news that Becciu secretly taped a phone call with the pontiff.
“I was received in audience by the Holy Father on the afternoon of last Saturday,” Becciu said, adding:
“It was, as always, a cordial meeting.
“As well as supplying him with the clarifications which I deemed necessary, I showed him, and renewed to him, my absolute devotion.
“He encouraged me, renewing an invitation to me to continue to take part in cardinals’ celebrations.”
Becciu said the pope had authorized him to make the meeting known.
Becciu told his family in the intercepted chat that Pope Francis wanted him dead, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera dailies reported on Friday.
“He wants me dead” and “I didn’t think we’d get to this point” were two of the comments made public by the Vatican’s promoter of justice on Wednesday in the trial into alleged mismanagement of Vatican funds, including a London property on Sloane Avenue.
Becciu reportedly sent these messages to his relative Giovanna Pani on July 22 last year.
This was two days before, as was revealed on Thursday, Becciu secretly taped a phone conversation with the pope with the help of Pani’s daughter, and his niece, Maria Luisa Zambrano.
In the chat, Pani urges Becciu to be brave saying “you’ll see that the truth will triumph”, to which he replied “for now it is they who are triumphing and transfixing us!”, adding “victory will go to the honest.”
Pani also wrote to Becciu: “He’s bad, he wants your end,” referring to “su Mannu”, Sardinian for “the big guy” and therefore the pope.
The cardinal replies: “He doesn’t want to make a bad impression over the initial conviction he gave me” and also, “I would never have imagined that a man, let alone a pope, would go so far.”
Pani replied to this: “He’s a great coward, but you fight and let your truth shine out, it’s hard I know, courage, we’ll win fully”, and added: “there’s something rotten in the Vatican”.
The messages were intercepted by finance guards from Oristano.
