Cardinal Who Threatened to Crash the Conclave Now Says He Received’t

When greater than 130 cardinals solemnly file into the Sistine Chapel on Might 7 to start voting on who amongst them will lead the Roman Catholic Church as the following pope, there will probably be one cardinal omitted within the chilly.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu — a former energy participant earlier than his involvement in a Vatican monetary scandal led him to resign his positions and surrender a few of the privileges of being a cardinal — mentioned on Tuesday that he would sit this one out.

For the nice of the church, he mentioned in an announcement despatched by his lawyer, he vowed to obey “the need of Pope Francis to not enter into the conclave, though I stay satisfied of my innocence.”

However within the days after Francis’ demise final week, it was unclear whether or not the pope had truly stripped the cardinal of his voting rights, or whether or not he had maybe reinstituted them. Cardinal Becciu, who in 2023 acquired a responsible sentence from a Vatican tribunal for fraud and embezzlement, noticed the migration of cardinals to Rome for the conclave and needed in.

The cardinal, a former papal chief of employees who had additionally led the church’s saint-making workplace, flew from his native Sardinia to Rome. He insisted on becoming a member of his fellow cardinals in pre-conclave conferences behind closed doorways the place they mentioned the good challenges to the church. But in addition him.

The prospect of Swiss Guards bouncing a 76-year-old cardinal from the Sistine Chapel led to gossip and hypothesis at eating places across the Vatican. Italian tv reporters ran after cardinals round St. Peter’s Sq., shouting, “Will Becciu be on the conclave?” The difficulty hijacked Vatican press briefings, the place reporters requested whether or not the Becciu case would postpone the conclave’s begin date. (“Within the sense,” one requested, “that no Becciu, no conclave?”)