Pope Francis removes the cardinal from Angelo Becciu: he is no longer prefect of the causes of the saints. To journalists: “I prefer silence”

The cardinal Angelo Becciu Yes it is give up and has renounced Alabama cardinal. The Vatican communicates it. “Today, Thursday, September 24, the Holy Father accepted the resignation of the post of Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and of the rights linked to the Cardinal, presented by His Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu,” read the note. Contacted byDnakronosBecciu replied with a broken voice: “I prefer silence.” Based on what the agency learns Ansa, the Pope’s decision was recently communicated by Bergoglio himself to Becciu in a shock hearing. Until June 2018, Becciu had also been an alternate to the secretary of state, basically a kind of deputy prime minister. In one case, only one pontiff had practically dismissed a cardinal: it had been done by Pius XI, Pope Achille Ratti, Peter’s successor from 1922 to 1939.

Becciu had ended up at the center of the investigation onluxury property bought from Vatican a London, for a value of more than 200 million euros, when he was a substitute for Secretary of state of the Santa Claus Campus. Later, he defended himself by saying that someone had “I took advantage of situation“But he had also said that not a penny of theSaint Peter Pennies had been used for the purchase of the property and that the building was “greatly appreciated after Brexi“, Claiming that it had been a good investment for the Vatican. He finally revealed that he was not personally investigated, having been authorized to proceed by his superiors. The investigation led to seizure of computers and documents in the offices of the Secretary of State andAif, and the suspension of five officers, including the director of the Aif Tommaso Di Ruzza and monsignor Mauro Pug, Becciu’s own secretary.

A highly intelligent diplomat, in recent years he has become the “Italian cardinal par excellence”, capable of awakening feelings of division within and outside the Leonine walls. In January 2019, to say, in the midst of the battle for the migrants from the Sea Watch and Sea Eye ships, then-Interior Minister Salvini addressed Cardinal Becciu with Giancarlo Giorgetti, who was undersecretary of Palazzo Chigi.
Of Sardinian origin, Giovanni Angelo Becciu, a native of Pattada, in the province of Sassari, became a priest in August 1972. After graduating in canon law, he joined the diplomatic service of the Holy See on May 1, 1984, giving his title He worked for many years in various apostolic nunciatures in the world: in the Central African Republic, in New Zealand, in Liberia, in the United Kingdom, in France, in the United States of America. In October 2001, Pope Wojtyla appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Angola. A few months later, Becciu received the episcopal consecration at the hands of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, then the Vatican secretary of state. In 2009 Pope Ratzinger transferred him to the Apostolic Nunciature in Cuba.
It is with Benedict XVI that Mgr. Becciu’s career receives a turning point with the appointment as substitute for General Affairs of the Secretary of State, in practice he becomes number two. On August 31, 2013, Bergoglio also confirmed him in office. And, four years later, in the midst of the crisis of the Order of Malta, Pope Francis appoints him special delegate to the Sovereign Order of Chivalry.

On May 20, 2018, at the end of Regina Coeli, Pope Francis announces that Becciu will be among the promoted bishops who will receive the purple. And on the following May 26, he removed him from the Secretary of State and placed him at the head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. A disguised promotion according to many Oltretevere who have interpreted it – as has happened on other occasions – in the key of ‘promoveatur ut amoveatur’.
It is in October 2019 when the sparks fly between the Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, and Cardinal Becciu around the million-dollar sale of the London building on which there is an internal investigation. Parolin – speaking of the operation carried out when Becciu was substitute for General Affairs of the Secretary of State, a role that many consider responsible for the alleged speculation – speaks of an “opaque operation on which light will be shed.”
Becciu’s reply comes early and he sends the “defamatory accusations” to the sender, assuring, he will repeat over and over again, that “he has never manipulated the money of the poor.” (by Elena Davolio)