The prelate who wanted to become Pope but was fired – International

The cardinal suspects this is a conspiracy and supports this fact. Therefore, Giovanni Angelo Becciu sued the Italian weekly “L’Espresso”, asking for damages of ten million euros.

According to the Italian press, which cites court cases, the 72-year-old bishop accuses the publication of “having deliberately destroyed his reputation as a person and as a priest” by publishing accusations “totally unfounded”. If the verdict against L’Espresso is issued, Becciu wants to donate the money that will be returned to him for charitable and social purposes, his lawyer Natale Callipari said.

The weekly L’Espresso wrote in the September 24, 2020 issue that Giovanni Angelo Becciu had made completely inappropriate investments, worth millions of euros, of the Vatican in a luxury property in the Chelsea district of London, which had favored the companies of his offering brothers ordered them from the Vatican and that he had paid the high fees to a dubious security advisor.

Also on 24 September, during a brief meeting, dominated by an apparently heated disposition, Pope Francis dismissed Becciu as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and deprived him of all the rights of the office of cardinal, but not of the formal title. This means that Giovanni Angelo Becciu cannot take part in the conclave for the election of a new Pope.