{"id":240425,"date":"2021-04-30T19:33:54","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T16:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/pope-facilitates-vatican-prosecutions-for-cardinals-bishops\/"},"modified":"2021-04-30T19:33:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T16:33:54","slug":"pope-facilitates-vatican-prosecutions-for-cardinals-bishops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/pope-facilitates-vatican-prosecutions-for-cardinals-bishops\/","title":{"rendered":"#Pope facilitates Vatican prosecutions for cardinals, bishops"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Pope facilitates Vatican prosecutions for cardinals, bishops<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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ROME \u2014 Pope Francis has sent another message to Vatican-based cardinals and bishops about his intent to hold them accountable for criminal misconduct: He removed the procedural obstacles that had spared them from being prosecuted by the Vatican\u2019s criminal tribunal.<\/p>\n

A new law published Friday makes clear that Vatican city-state prosecutors have jurisdiction over Holy See cardinals and bishops and need only the pope\u2019s consent to proceed with investigations against them.<\/p>\n

The law abrogated a regulation, upheld as recently as last year, that said only the tribunal\u2019s highest app<\/a>eals court, which is composed of three cardinal judges, could assess the actions of cardinals and bishops accused of criminal offenses.<\/p>\n

The reform is the latest sign that after eight years of preaching about ending corruption and other criminal activity in the Holy See, Francis is taking concrete steps to make it easier to hold his own cardinals and bishops accountable while emboldening Vatican prosecutors to go after them.<\/p>\n

\"Pope
Pope Francis delivers his traditional Easter message and blessing \u201cUrbi et Orbi\u201d (to the city and the world) from the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter\u2019s Basilica on April 04, 2021 in Vatican City, Vatican. <\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Thursday, he passed a different law forcing Vatican superiors to declare their finances are clean, and\u00a0set a $48 cap on work-related personal gifts<\/a>\u00a0received by any Vatican employee. The gift cap was seen as a way to cut down on the rampant practice of financial gift-giving to Holy See clerics and the chance that such money could grease favors.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s reform follows Francis\u2019 decision last year to\u00a0strip a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Becciu<\/a>, of his rights and privileges as a cardinal in a move seen as laying the groundwork for Becciu to possibly be put on trial.<\/p>\n

The allegations against him aren\u2019t clear, however, and Becciu hasn\u2019t been charged with any crime.<\/p>\n

Becciu has said Francis cited a 100,000-euro donation he made using Holy See funds to a charity run by his brother. Becciu has denied wrongdoing, noting that he had full authority to disburse the funds, the money was destined for the charity, not his brother, and the money never left the diocesan bank account into which it was sent.<\/p>\n

Becciu was also involved initially in\u00a0a London real estate venture that is now the subject of a Vatican corruption investigation.<\/a>\u00a0But the key transaction under scrutiny occurred after he was promoted to the Vatican\u2019s saint-making office.<\/p>\n

The new procedural law Friday would presumably make unnecessary any move to strip<\/a> any other cardinal of his privileges before an indictment is even handed down.<\/p>\n

In an introduction to the law, Francis said it was necessary to hold everyone equal under the law.<\/p>\n

\"Pope
Pope Francis listens to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, standing at left with back to camera, as he delivers his speech on the occasion of the pontiff\u2019s Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia, in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe understanding of such values and principles, which have progressively matured in the ecclesial community, today require the Vatican code to more adequately conform\u201d to international standards, he wrote.<\/p>\n

Within the church\u2019s in-house canon law system for church crimes, cardinals and bishops are judged only by the pope, who is an absolute monarch with exclusive legislative, executive and judicial power in the Vatican. That privilege extended also to the criminal code of the city-state\u2019s tribunal in ways that led to some anomalies in recent years.<\/p>\n

In one famous case, prosecutors decided to not even investigate the cardinal whose Vatican apartment was renovated using a half-million dollars in donations intended for the pope\u2019s children\u2019s hospital. The hospital president who diverted the funds to the renovation project was convicted by the Vatican tribunal, but the cardinal who benefitted from the crime wasn\u2019t even called to testify, much less be placed under investigation.<\/p>\n

More recently,\u00a0a British judge expressed perplexity\u00a0<\/a>that the current Vatican hierarchy had seemingly been spared investigation in the London real estate corruption case. The judge commented in a ruling about a related asset seizure for one of the Vatican\u2019s prime suspects. The judge questioned why the Vatican secretary of state and his No. 2 hadn\u2019t even provided witness statements about their knowledge of the deal, when documents and evidence indicated they had authorized it.<\/p>\n

\"Cardinals
Cardinals listens to Cardinal Angelo Sodano delivering his speech as they attend a Eucharistic concelebration at the Vatican, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. <\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Pope facilitates Vatican prosecutions for cardinals, bishops” ROME \u2014 Pope Francis has sent another message to Vatican-based cardinals and bishops about his intent to hold them accountable for criminal misconduct: He removed the procedural obstacles that had spared them from being prosecuted by the Vatican\u2019s criminal tribunal. A new law published Friday makes clear that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/Pope-Francis-007.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[103964,70673,4998,18981,71750,72678],"class_list":["post-240425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-4-30-21","tag-corruption","tag-crime","tag-london","tag-pope-francis","tag-vatican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}