The appeal phase of the so-called Becciu case, the most complex and controversial criminal trial held in the Vatican in recent times, has placed at the center of the debate a particularly delicate issue: the role of Pope Francis in the approval of exceptional norms that would have decisively conditioned the development of the trial.
The process, initiated in 2021, examined alleged irregularities in a real estate operation in London that caused million-dollar losses to the Secretariat of State. The sentence, issued in December 2023, marked a historic milestone by culminating in the conviction of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first of a cardinal in a Vatican criminal court. Since then, the case has not stopped generating controversy.
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Papal decrees not published during the trial
In the appeal hearings held between February 3 and 5, the defense of Becciu and the rest of the convicted has centered its strategy on denouncing that the trial was vitiated from its inception. According to Rome Reports, one of the key points is the existence of decrees signed by Pope Francis during the investigation of the process, which modified essential procedural norms.
According to the defense, these decrees were not officially published nor communicated to the accused, which prevented them from knowing the real rules under which they were being judged. This circumstance, they argue, violated basic guarantees of the right to defense and altered the procedural balance.
The prosecution has defended the validity of the decrees by alleging that the Pope has full legislative power in the State of Vatican City and that the non-publication responded to security reasons, a practice that—they claim—would not be unprecedented in the recent history of the Holy See.
Papal authority or instrumentalization?
The issue raised in the appeal goes beyond formal legality. The central question is whether Pope Francis signed those decrees with full knowledge of their concrete impact on an ongoing criminal process, or if he acted based on partial information provided by those driving the prosecution.
It is not about questioning the authority of the Roman Pontiff, but about determining whether that authority was used instrumentally, affecting the impartiality of the trial. The defense argues that the Pope may have been induced to approve exceptional norms without a complete vision of their legal consequences.
A process weakened by subsequent decisions
The appeal is also taking place in an unfavorable context for the prosecution. The Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi attempted to appeal the convictions considering some penalties too lenient, but his appeal was rejected due to a formal defect in the deadlines, which definitively closed any possibility of aggravating them.
Read also: Diddi’s step back and the decisive test for Vatican justice
This setback left the accused in a clear procedural position: in the appeal, only a reduction or annulment of the penalties is possible, not their hardening. Shortly after, in January, the prosecutor himself resigned, a fact that adds more questions about the handling of the case.
To these episodes are added other procedural incidents recorded throughout the procedure, such as unexpectedly suspended hearings and decisions that have fueled the perception of an improvised and legally fragile trial.
The intervention of Pope Leo XIV
Given the gravity of the issues raised, the defense has requested the intervention of Pope Leo XIV to clarify how and in what context the decrees signed by his predecessor were approved, and to clearly delineate the relationship between papal authority and the actions of prosecutors and judges.
What is at stake is not only the judicial fate of Cardinal Becciu, but the credibility of the Vatican justice system and the way in which papal authority was exercised during Francis’s pontificate in an unprecedented criminal process.
A trial under review
With the hearings concluded, the Vatican Court of Appeal is now in the deliberation phase. It will have to decide whether the papal decrees were legitimate in their specific application, whether the process respected fundamental guarantees, and whether the first-instance sentence can be upheld or must be substantially corrected.