After initially insisting he would take part in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, stripped of his privileges as a cardinal by the late pontiff in 2020 and convicted of financial fraud by a Vatican court in 2023, has withdrawn after reportedly being shown documents signed by the pope confirming it was his will Becciu not participate.
“Having at heart the good of the church, which I’ve served and will continue to serve with fidelity and love, as well as to contribute to the communion and serenity of the conclave, I’ve decided to obey as I always have the will of Pope Francis to not enter into the conclave, despite remaining convinced of my innocence,” the 76-year-old Becciu said in a statement.
That marks a change of tune for Becciu, who initially insisted he would file into the Sistine Chapel along with other cardinal electors on the grounds that Pope Francis never explicitly told him he couldn’t, and moreover, that a personal invitation from Francis to participate in a consistory in 2022 for the elevation of new cardinals signified a desire by the late pontiff to reintegrate Becciu fully into the College of Cardinals.
Becciu’s position had sparked a mini-furor among experts on church law, who were divided on the question of whether taking part in a conclave is among the “privileges” enjoyed by cardinals, which were taken away by Pope Francis in September 2020 when he sanctioned Becciu over rumors of financial malfeasance, or a “duty,” which was never formally revoked.
Some reports suggested that the question of Becciu’s participation might have to be put to a vote among the cardinal electors, the lone body charged with the ability to make such decisions in the absence of a pope.
That debate, however, apparently was short-circuited by two documents, each annotated by Pope Francis with the initial “F,” expressing the late pope’s intention that Becciu be excluded from a conclave. One dates to 2023, following Becciu’s conviction in the “Trial of the Century” over various charges of financial fraud and misappropriation, while the other dates to March, at a time when Pope Francis was in the Gemelli Hospital fighting double pneumonia.
According to reports in the Italian media, those letters were shown to Becciu by Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who served as the Vatican’s Secretary of State and who will preside over the conclave itself since the Dean of the College of Cardinals, 91-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, is over 80 and ineligible to participate.
In theory, even those letters might not have been enough for Becciu to back down, since neither was ever published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the official Vatican gazette, and thus technically did not have the force of law. In this case, however, Becciu apparently decided that discretion is the better part of valor.
His absence from the conclave marks the latest blow to the reputation and legacy of Becciu, who once seemed to stand at the very apex of the Vatican power structure.
Born on the island of Sardinia, Becciu was ordained to the priesthood in 1972. He joined the Vatican’s diplomatic service in 1984, serving in papal embassies in the Central African Republic, Sudan, New Zealand, Liberia, Great Britian, France and the United States. Later, under St. John Paul II, he became an archbishop and was named the papal ambassador to Angola and São Tomé and Principe, while under Benedict XVI he was appointed the papal envoy to Cuba.
In 2011 Becciu returned to Rome to take up the über-powerful position of the sostituto, or “substitute,” the number two official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, a role in which he was essentially the pope’s chief of staff. By Vatican custom, the sostituto is the only official who doesn’t need an appointment to see the pope, given that he deals with the most pressing business a pope must handle every day.
He was confirmed in that role by Pope Francis and continued in it until 2018, when Francis made him a cardinal and tapped him to run the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Becciu’s march up the career ladder came to an abrupt halt in 2020, when rumors of his involvement in various questionable financial maneuvers at the Secretariat of State led to Francis summoning him to the Case Santa Marta and informing him that he was being removed as head of the congregation and stripped of his privileges as a cardinal.
Becciu maintained his innocence at the time, and continued to do so even as he was indicted and eventually convicted and sentenced to five and a half years in prison by the Vatican’s civil tribunal for alleged financial crimes, including his role in a spectacularly failed $400 million real estate transaction in London.
Despite his difficulties, Becciu has always made a point of being present at all major Vatican liturgies and events, dressed in his cardinal’s robes and taking part in the ceremonies on an equal footing with other Princes of the Church.
The decision to withdraw from the conclave therefore marks a reversal of form for Becciu, though by no means an end to his proclamations of innocence. Sometime soon he’ll have another opportunity to make that argument in court, when a Vatican panel hears his appeal of his conviction in the London case.
