An Italian cardinal convicted of embezzlement and fraud said on Monday he would not take part in the secret conclave to elect a new pope, Reuters reported.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the highest-ranking Catholic Church official ever to be tried before a Vatican criminal court, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in December 2023. He denies all wrongdoing and is free pending a decision on his appeal.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88, dismissed Becciu from his high position in the Vatican in 2020, before the trial.
The pope allowed Becciu to keep his ecclesiastical title and his Vatican apartment, but stripped him of what the Vatican said at the time were "rights associated with the cardinalate," leaving it unclear whether he would be able to join the conclave, according to Reuters.
"Having the good of the Church at heart... I have decided to comply, as always, with the will of Pope Francis and not to enter the conclave, still convinced of my innocence," the cardinal said.
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The resurgence of the Becciu issue could deal a blow to Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a senior Vatican official seen as a leading candidate to succeed Francis, Reuters reports.
The Becciu case centered on the controversial $200 million purchase of a London building by the Secretariat of State, the Vatican's key administrative and diplomatic department, headed by Parolin, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
"As for the conclave, that has been resolved. As for (Beciu's) personality, my personal opinion is that he was not treated well," German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a conservative who has clashed with Francis, told Reuters, according to Reuters.
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