Controversial Trial: Becciu Has Two Options
On July 25, Becciu’s lawyers stated that their “totally innocent” client will have the opportunity “to prove this.” In a normal trial guilt must be proven, not innocence.
Becciu is the first cardinal in Church history whom a pope wanted to be tried by a lay judge. The charges against him were first passed on the oligarchs’ newspapers before Becciu saw them.
According to Renato Farina (Libero.it, July 27), the procedure of the trial “seems to be taken from a manual inherited from the Spanish Inquisition.”
The prosecutors admitted that “the Holy Father” authorised them to adopt any precautionary measure to ascertain the facts even to ignore the rules in force. Farina translates: The prosecutors are above any law.
Farina doubts that Italy, Switzerland, and the UK would have collaborated with the Vatican, had they known about this. The contradiction between Francis’ words and “his actions as absolute Monarch,” nullifies the progress which has been made since Pius XI, Farina comments.
Even a Francis follower, such as the Church historian Alberto Melloni, wrote on Repubblica.it that “King Francis, abdicated the Gospel subjecting Becciu to a precautionary crucifixion.”
Now, Becciu has two options: either to betray the papal secret imposed on him, or to hand himself over to his judge.
Picture: Angelo Becciu, © Mazur, CC BY-NC, #newsObrnoyfdel
