A Church that has lost its voice for justice is a Church that has lost its relevance in the world.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The greed, corruption and hypocrisy of the catholic church – the richest fucking corporation on earth, which pays no taxes and steals from and rapes ordinary citizens (mostly kids) the world over – stuns me more and more by the day. What stuns me the most is that people still attend and worship this corrupt gang of ugly thugs.
In this case, the church chases after a few hundred million stolen Euro while intentionally bankrupting branches of itself (aided by courts, judges after all want to get a free ride to heaven too) to evade paying court-ordered awards and legal fees of many more hundreds of millions of dollars to victims of rape by priests etc.
Just galling immorality, greed and crime on all levels of the stinky church – richest fucking tax-evading raping corporation on earth.
Cardinal is convicted of embezzlement in big Vatican financial trial, sentenced to 5 1/2 years by Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press, Dec 16, 2023, The Globe and Mail
A Vatican tribunal on Saturday convicted a cardinal of embezzlement and sentenced him to 5 1/2 years in prison in one of several verdicts handed down in a complicated financial trial that aired the city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first cardinal ever prosecuted by the Vatican criminal court, was absolved of several other charges and nine other defendants received a combination of guilty verdicts and acquittals among the nearly 50 charges brought against them during a 2 1/2 year trial.
Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, said he respected the sentence but would appeal.
Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi said the outcome “showed we were correct.”
The trial focused on the Vatican secretariat of state’s 350 million euro investment in developing a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments. Prosecutors alleged Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to cede control of the building.
I am laughing my head off at their hypocrisy. What a disgusting bunch.
Becciu, the first-ever cardinal to be prosecuted in the Vatican’s criminal court, was accused of embezzlement-related charges in two tangents of the London deal and faced up to seven years in prison.
In the end, he was convicted of embezzlement stemming from the original investment of 200 million euros in a fund that bought into the London property, as well as for his 125,000 euro donation of Vatican money to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia. He was also convicted of using Vatican money to pay an intelligence analyst who in turn was convicted of using the money for herself.Howling laughter. Beyond evil, and the world knows how evil, yet millions of humans still trust their kids with these filthy criminal fuckers.
The trial had raised questions about the rule of law in the city state and Francis’ power as absolute monarch, given that he wields supreme legislative, executive and judicial authority and had exercised it in ways the defense says jeopardized a fair trial.Too funny. The catholic church is like Alberta’s AER and Canada’s CER = Sleazy enablers of law violators and rapists.
The defense attorneys did praise Judge Giuseppe Pignatone’s even-handedness and said they were able to present their arguments amply. But they lamented the Vatican’s outdated procedural norms gave prosecutors enormous leeway to withhold evidence and otherwise pursue their investigation nearly unimpeded.All the better to protect raping cardinals, priests, bishops, popes, etc. and help them keep raping kids and destroying countless lives!
Prosecutors had sought prison terms from three to 13 years and damages of over 400 million euros to try to recover the estimated 200 million euros they say the Holy See lost in the bad deals.
In the end, the tribunal acquitted many of the suspects of many of the charges of course they did. The puny prison terms are just for show, con the people into believing justice was served. I expect the prison terms will be ignored by officials but ordered the confiscation of 166 million euros from them and payment of civil damages to Vatican offices of 200 million euros. One defendant, Becciu’s former secretary Monsignor Mauro Carlino, was acquitted entirely.
The trial was initially seen as a sign of Francis’ financial reforms and willingness to crack down on alleged financial misdeeds in the Vatican. But it had something of a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, with revelations of vendettas, espionage and even ransom payments to Islamic militants.
The secretariat of state, for example, sought damages to fund a marketing propaganda campaign to try to repair the reputational harm it says it incurred. Even the Vatican communications department said the trial itself had been a “stress test” for the legal system.
Much of the London case rested on the passage of the property from one London broker to another in late 2018. Prosecutors allege the second broker, Gianluigi Torzi, hoodwinked the Vatican by maneuvering to secure full control of the building that he relinquished only when the Vatican paid him off 15 million euros.Ha ha ha!
For Vatican prosecutors, that amounted to extortion. For the defense — and a British judge who rejected Vatican requests to seize Torzi’s assets — it was a negotiated exit from a legally binding contract.Legally? Pfffft. Just a criminal circus gang, the lot of them, judge included
In the end, the tribunal convicted Torzi of several charges, including extortion, and sentenced him to six years in prison.
It wasn’t clear where the suspects would serve their time.
The Vatican has a jail, but Torzi’s whereabouts weren’t immediately known.
I bet the convicted thieves and their accomplices will holiday at a nice beach resort, expenses paid, with cash bonuses – including fine wine and brandies, massage and pedicures, unlimited sex and dubious entertainment, perhaps a few gang bang rapes, in the Bahamas or Bermuda.The original London investigation spawned two other tangents that involved the star defendant, Becciu, once one of Francis’ top advisers and himself considered a papal contender.Rule of papal law expert! I bet Mr. Thief becomes pope anyways
Prosecutors accused Becciu of embezzlement for sending 125,000 euros in Vatican money to a Sardinian charity run by his brother. Becciu argued that the local bishop requested the money to build a bakery to employ at-risk youthsto bribe them via those jobs for sex/rape?and that the money remained in the diocesan coffers.
The tribunal acknowledged the charitable ends of the donation but convicted him of embezzlement, given his brother’s role.
Becciu was also accused of paying a Sardinian woman, Cecilia Marogna, for her intelligence services. Prosecutors traced some 575,000 euros in wire transfers from the Vatican to a Slovenian front company owned by Marogna and said she used the money to buy luxury goods and fund vacations.
Becciu said too funny, as if dude has a truthful bone in his body he thought the money was going to pay a British security firm to negotiate the release of Gloria Narvaez, a Colombian nun taken hostage by Islamic militants in Mali in 2017.
He said Francis authorized up to 1 million euros to liberate the nun, an astonishing claim that the Vatican was willing to make ransom payment to al-Qaida-linked militants.
The tribunal found both Becciu and Marogna guilty and sentenced Marogna to three years and 9 months in prison.
Senior cardinal convicted in Vatican corruption trial by Philip Pullella, December 16, 2023, Reuters
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the most senior Catholic Church official ever to stand trial before a Vatican criminal court, was convicted on Saturday of embezzlement and fraud and sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail.
The Italian prelate’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, told reporters in the courtroom he would appeal, saying his client was innocent. Becciu, who lives in the Vatican, was expected to remain free for the time being.
In all, 10 defendants were accused of crimes including fraud, abuse of office and money laundering. All denied wrongdoing.Ya, like no priest ever raped or starved a kid, ’cause they say they don’t.
It took Court President Giuseppe Pignatone 25 minutes to read all the verdicts and sentences.
Becciu, like most of the other defendants, was convicted on some counts and acquitted of others. Only one, Becciu’s former secretary, Father Mauro Carlino, was acquitted of all charges.
The trial, which exposed infighting and intrigue in the highest echelons of the Vatican, lasted for 86 sessions over two-and-a-half years.Satanic frac farce!
It revolved mostly around the messy purchase of a building in London by the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s key administrative and diplomatic department.
Becciu, then an archbishop, held the number two position there in 2013 when it began investing in a fund managed by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, securing about 45% of the building at 60 Sloane Avenue, in an upmarket district of the city.
Mincione was found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering and given the same sentence as Becciu.
IRRESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT
The court said Becciu had been irresponsible and “highly speculative” to invest more than $200 million with Mincione’s fund between 2013-2014, noting this was about a third of the holdings of the Secretariat of State at the time.
In 2018, with Becciu in another Vatican job, the Secretariat of State felt it was being deceived by Mincione and turned to another financier, Gianluigi Torzi, for help in squeezing Mincione out and buying the rest of the building.
Torzi also fleeced the Vatican, according to prosecutors. He was found guilty of fraud and extortion and sentenced to six years.
The Vatican sold the building last year, taking an estimated loss of about 140 million euros ($150 million).
Becciu, who was fired by Pope Francis from his next job in 2020 for alleged nepotism, but remains a cardinal, was also found guilty of embezzlement for funnelling money and contracts to companies or charities controlled by his brothers on their native island of Sardinia.
Another accusation involved his hiring of Cecilia Marogna, a self-styled security analyst, also from Sardinia, as part of a secret project to help win freedom for a nun who had been kidnapped in Mali.
Marogna, 46, received 575,000 euros from the Secretariat of State in 2018-2019. The money was sent to a company she had set up in Slovenia and she received some in cash, prosecutors told the court.
Italian police said Marogna had spent much of the money on luxury clothing and health spas. Both she and Becciu were found guilty of aggravated fraud related to the transfer of money and Marogna was ordered to return the money to the Vatican.
Enrico Crasso, a banker who managed funds for the Secretariat of State, was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to seven years. Fabrizio Tirabassi, who worked in the Secretariat, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years.
The court ordered Becciu, Mincione, Tirabassi and Crasso to repay a total of more than 100 million euros to the Vatican.
Nicola Squillace, a lawyer who worked with both Crasso and Tirabassi, was given a suspended sentence of a year and 10 months.
Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer and former president of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Unit, and its director, Italian Tommaso Di Ruzza, were convicted of administrative omission and ordered to pay small fines.
