The cardinal maintains he acted with papal approval and says prosecutors ignored key evidence in the landmark financial case.

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The appeal hearing for Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former deputy Vatican secretary of state who was convicted in December 2023 of embezzlement, aggravated fraud and abuse of office, was set to begin Monday.

Heard by a six-judge Vatican Court of Appeal, the appeal is expected to revisit both factual and procedural objections from the first trial, including evidence, court transcripts and all submissions from both Cardinal Becciu’s defense and the Vatican prosecution.

After the so-called “Trial of the Century” lasting two and a half years, Cardinal Becciu, 77, was convicted of financial malfeasance and sentenced to five years and six months in prison. He was also handed a fine of 8,000 euros and permanently disqualified from holding public office.

The cardinal’s appeal will be heard alongside those of eight other defendants who were also tried, found guilty, and given a variety of sentences. Five of those defendants — Raffaele Mincione, Enrico Crasso, Gianluigi Torzi, Fabrizio Tirabassi and Cecilia Marogna — also received prison sentences of varying length.

Becciu was the first cardinal to be tried by a Vatican tribunal and has remained free pending the outcome of his appeal. Despite initially claiming he was eligible to vote in the May conclave, he decided to withdraw his participation for the “good of the Church” and out of “obedience” to Pope Francis.

The Vatican court said the cardinal’s conviction was based on “full and irrefutable evidence” that he was investing Vatican money in a highly speculative real-estate deal in London’s Sloane Avenue with “total disregard” for Vatican policies. Due to the way the deal was structured and restructured, it ended up losing the Vatican more than $200 million. The Italian cardinal was deputy Vatican secretary of state at the time when the secretariat began negotiating the property deal using the secretariat’s funds in 2014.

The cardinal was also found guilty of making at least 125,000 euros in unauthorized payments to his brother’s charity in Sardinia, as well as funneling more than 500,000 euros from Vatican funds to geopolitical expert Cecilia Marogna who, instead of using it for intelligence and a humanitarian mission to help free a kidnapped religious sister in Mali, was accused of spending the funds on luxury goods and travel.

Cardinal Becciu has consistently protested his innocence, maintaining that he acted with papal approval or authority. He has insisted that donations were for humanitarian or ecclesial purposes, and that there was procedural misconduct during the investigation and trial.

He has stressed that his office as sostituto (deputy in the secretariat of state) required acting on papal trust and this role gave him broad discretion for diplomatic and humanitarian missions, such as the ransom effort to free the kidnapped religious sister.

The cardinal has insisted the money sent to the Sardinian charity was requested by the local bishop for social projects, remained in diocesan coffers, and was not used for personal or family benefit. Regarding Marogna, Becciu has claimed that all payments were for legitimate diplomatic and security services, not for improper or private ends.

Arguing for his defense, his lawyers have said the prosecution benefited from undisclosed papal decrees that included permitting secret wiretaps and warrantless detentions, and that witnesses were coached by Vatican police, undermining fair-trial guarantees.

Cardinal Becciu also has alleged new evidence of outside manipulation and collusionwith Vatican prosecutors, reiterating a claim of being “framed” by a campaign built on falsehoods and media pressure — claims that have been strenuously denied

He has also said he was unjustly presumed guilty from the outset, and that key exculpatory evidence was ignored or overlooked at trial — accusations that the Vatican tribunal dismissed. His defense intends to challenge both the factual findings and legal procedures in his appeal.

Last October, the Vatican released its reasons for convicting Cardinal Angelo Becciu, stating he was involved in the illicit use of Holy See funds despite having no “profit-making purpose” and stressing that the trial was fair.

Commenting on the court’s 800-page judgment in an editorial in L’Osservatore Romano, Andrea Tornielli, Vatican Media’s editorial director, reasserted the judgment’s assessment of a fair trial. He added that the trial’s outcome showed the need for prelates and those in charge of Vatican finances to be held accountable for their actions.

Although Tornielli did not name Cardinal Becciu, the cardinal criticized the editorial for its “vaguely moralistic tone” and again protested his innocence. He acknowledged that the sums involving the London property were “enormous” but insisted they were not without precedent and had the “approval of the superior at the time,” namely the head of the Vatican’s administrative office, Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, who, as a star witness in the trial, avoided prosecution.

As in the trial, Cardinal Becciu was accused of seeking to shift responsibility to others, including Pope Francis, whom he said knew all about the London property deal, although the extent of the Pope’s involvement has never been fully known.

This article was originally published by NCRegister.