“There was resistance at the Secretariat of State. But if the auditor or one of us at the Secretary of the Economy had been able to intervene upstream, we could have saved all that money spent on the purchase of the London Palace.

In his apartment located a stone’s throw from the Vatican Basilica, Australian Cardinal George Pell, 88, received journalists on November 3, 2021, in order to present the Italian version of his book, Prison Journal, in which the high prelate described in detail his thirteen months spent behind bars.

The opportunity to clarify certain information relating to the financial scandal for which, among other defendants, Cardinal Angelo Maria Becciu, former Deputy Secretary of State, is accused of having played a key role in a dubious real estate transaction in London.

Cardinal Pell repeats it: if he ended up in prison, it was because of his ideas, which made him hate progressives. “In the Anglo-Saxon world, we are witnessing a real cultural war: I am a conservative, but the strongest opposition to secularization comes from the conservatives, which has not worked in my favor.

The high prelate evokes a possible link between his prison sentence and his role as Mr. Clean of the Vatican: “we are talking about a possible link between my legal problems and financial problems: we know that $ 2.23 million has disappeared in Australia, but in the end, no one is able to explain why, ”wonders the cardinal.

Asked about the situation of Roman finances when he took the head of the Secretariat for the Economy, Bishop Pell paints a rather gloomy picture:

“It was still the old world. We had a monitoring and verification solution in place that everyone is now using. We discovered 300,000 euros scattered between the various offices. And, for the first time, we had established an annual provisional budget: the essentials in short.

When we evoke the role played in all this by the Secretary of State, the high prelate does not mince his words: “it is public now. Becciu proclaimed loud and clear that the auditor did not have the power to cross the doors of the secretary of state: which was not true, of course.We had the authority, but we were prevented from doing so.

On the former substitute, pursued by the Vatican justice: “Cardinal Becciu has the right to a fair trial, we will see the rest,” comments the cardinal who has never hidden his opposition head-on to the former number two of the secretary of state. .
When asked if he could have spared the Holy See the colossal losses of recent years, the Australian porporato qualifies: “in some cases no, because ‘things’ had started before, in others, yes, ”he says.

And to recall the support of Pope Francis: “the Holy Father told me, moreover, that I had told him a lot of things which turned out to be correct afterwards.

On the issue of financial transparency, Cardinal Pell concluded the interview with a smile: “We are moving slowly. I don’t know how it will end, but we already know where we are. It has been established how the Vatican saw sterling treasure escape with this London property. It’s just progress.