Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the highest
ranking Vatican official to be tried for financial crimes, said
Monday he had met Pope Francis Saturday and the latter had
encouraged him in the case, in which the Sardinian cardinal was
last year heard on a wiretap saying Francis "wants me dead".
The audience with the pope came amid the furore caused by the
wiretap and also news that Becciu secretly taped a phone call
with the pontiff last year.
"I was received in audience by the Holy Father on the afternoon
of last Saturday," Becciu told ANSA Monday, adding: "it was, as
always, a cordial meeting.
"As well as supplying him with the necessary clarifications
which I deemed necessary, I showed him and renewed to him my
absolute devotion.
"He encouraged me renewing an invitation to me to continue to
take part in cardinals' celebrations".
Becciu said the pope had authorized him to make the meeting
known.
Becciu told his family in the intercepted chat that Pope
Francis wanted him dead, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera
dailies reported online Friday.
"He wants me dead" and "I didn't think we'd get to this point"
were two of the comments reportedly made public by the Vatican's
promoter of justice Wednesday in the trial into alleged
mismanagement of Vatican funds including a London property on
Sloane Avenue.
"I didn't think we would get to this point: he want my death,"
Becciu said in a message to his relative Giovanna Pani on July
22 last year, the promoter reportedly said.
This was two days before, as revealed Thursday, Becciu secretly
taped a phone conversation with the pope with the help of Pani's
daughter, and Becciu's niece, Maria Luisa Zambrano.
In the chat, Pani urges Becciu to be brave saying "you'll see
that the truth will triumph", to which he replied "for now it is
they who are triumphing and transfixing us!", adding "victory
will go to the honest".
Pani also writes to Becciu: "He's bad, he wants your end,"
referring to "su Mannu", Sardinian for "the big guy" and
therefore the pope.
The cardinal replies: "He doesn't want to make a bad impression
over the initial conviction he gave me" and also "I would never
have imagined that a man, let alone a pope, would go so far".
Pani replies to this: "He's a great coward, but you fight and
let your truth shine out, it's hard I know, courage, we'll win
fully", and adds: "there's something rotten in the Vatican".
The messages were intercepted by finance guards from Oristano.
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