Becciu Media Pell Trial
ROME – Over the weekend Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who last month was fired from his Vatican job over accusations of embezzlement, has announced plans to take legal action against media outlets saying he bribed a witness in the abuse trial of his former nemesis, Australian Cardinal George Pell.
In a statement issued Oct. 17, Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, referred to allegations that his client interfered in Pell’s legal process, “vigorously” insisting that Becciu “has never interfered with it in any way whatsoever.”
“Furthermore, given the apparent will of some news organizations to falsely depict an alleged, albeit non-existent, activity to taint the evidence of Cardinal Pell’s trial, Cardinal Becciu will promptly resort to the Judicial Authorities to protect and defend his honor, so gravely damaged,” Viglione said, but offered no further details.
Pell was formerly prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy and had been entrusted with cleaning up the Vatican’s finances, and was known to be at odds with Becciu over the Holy See’s financial reform. In 2017 he was convicted but later absolved by Australia’s High Court of allegations he molested two choirboys in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne while he was archbishop in the 1990s.