Cardinal Becciu, the Vatican's former chief of staff, read on May 5 at his trial a fifty page statement seeking to refute accusations against him.
He presented an April 29 letter from Cardinal Parolin showing that Australian$ 2.3M were sent to Australia during the Pell trial to pay for the Internet domain .catholic. He added that payments which Pell had called "suspicious" were authorised by Pell himself when he was the Vatican's chief financial officer.
Pell countered in a May 6 statement saying that Becciu's explanation was “incomplete” and bizarre” because the 2015 payment he “allegedly authorised” was “obviously different” from the Australian $2.3 million payment made by the Secretariat of State and signed off by Becciu in 2017/2018. Pell still wants to know what the money was for.
Further, Pell criticises that Becciu didn’t explain his role in sacking Vatican auditors and why the Peter’s Pence was spent at odds with the scope of the fund and the financial reports.
Picture: Becciu …More