A cardinal convicted of financial crimes by the Vatican said Tuesday he will not take part in the secret conclave to elect the new pope. <\/p>\n
Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once one of the most powerful figures in the Vatican, was ordered by Pope Francis in 2020 to resign the \u201crights and privileges\u201d of a cardinal after he became embroiled in a Vatican financial scandal. <\/p>\n
Following the pope\u2019s death last week, Becciu launched an appeal in support of his right to be in the conclave, but on Tuesday, he issued a statement announcing he was formally pulling out. \u201cI have decided to obey, as I have always done, Pope Francis\u2019 will not to enter the Conclave while remaining convinced of my innocence,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Cardinals have chosen May 7 as the date to start conclave and elect a new leader for 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, the Vatican announced Monday. <\/p>\n
Becciu\u2019s decision to withdraw from the conclave comes just seven days after he told a Sardinian newspaper that \u201cthere was no explicit will to exclude me from the conclave nor a request for my explicit renunciation in writing.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Sardinian cardinal previously held the position of \u201csostituto\u201d (\u201csubstitute\u201d) in the Holy See\u2019s Secretariat of State – a papal chief of staff equivalent. The role offered Becciu walk-in privileges to see the pope and he commanded huge authority across the church\u2019s central government. He was later moved to a position running the Vatican\u2019s saint-making department. <\/p>\n
Becciu was convicted of embezzlement and fraud in 2023 and handed a five-and-a-half-year jail sentence. He is the first cardinal to be convicted by the Vatican\u2019s criminal court. <\/p>\n
But the cardinal, who has always maintained his innocence, launched an appeal that\u2019s currently still under consideration. He\u2019s allowed to continue to live in a Vatican apartment while this process is underway. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A cardinal convicted of financial crimes by the Vatican said Tuesday he will not take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}