When more than 130 cardinals solemnly file into the Sistine Chapel on May 7 to begin voting on who among them will lead the Roman Catholic Church as the next pope, there will be one cardinal left out in the cold.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu — a former power player before his involvement in a Vatican financial scandal led him to resign his positions and renounce some of the privileges of being a cardinal — said on Tuesday that he would sit this one out.
For the good of the church, he said in a statement sent by his lawyer, he vowed to obey “the will of Pope Francis to not enter into the conclave, even though I remain convinced of my innocence.”
But in the days after Francis’ death last week, it was unclear whether the pope had actually stripped the cardinal of his voting rights, or whether he had perhaps reinstituted them. Cardinal Becciu, who in 2023 received a guilty sentence from a Vatican tribunal for fraud and embezzlement, saw the migration of cardinals to Rome for the conclaveand wanted in.
The cardinal, a former papal chief of staff who had also led the church’s saint-making office, flew from his native Sardinia to Rome. He insisted on joining his fellow cardinals in pre-conclave meetings behind closed doors where they discussed the great challenges to the church. But also him.
The prospect of Swiss Guards bouncing a 76-year-old cardinal from the Sistine Chapel led to gossip and speculation at restaurants around the Vatican. Italian television reporters ran after cardinals around St. Peter’s Square, shouting, “Will Becciu be at the conclave?” The issue hijacked Vatican press briefings, where reporters asked whether the Becciu case would postpone the conclave’s start date. (“In the sense,” one asked, “that no Becciu, no conclave?”)
