Vatican’s top court rejects prosecutor’s appeal to reopen the Becciu case, reaffirming limits on the Holy See’s financial crime prosecutions.
Newsroom (13/01/2026 Gaudium Press ) In a move underscoring the limits of Vatican judicial authority, the Holy See’s highest appellate court has rejected a final bid from Vatican City’s chief prosecutor to reopen the sprawling financial case against Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu and other defendants. The decision, announced Monday through a terse communique from the Vatican press office, leaves in place earlier rulings that curtailed prosecutor Alessandro Diddi’s efforts to expand his case beyond the convictions already secured.
The ruling represents the latest chapter in a legal saga that began with a failed $400 million real estate venture in London’s Chelsea district—a scheme originally intended to turn a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments. Instead, the Holy See’s Secretariat of State suffered a staggering $163 million loss after offloading the property to disentangle itself from the disastrous investment.
At the time, Cardinal Becciu served as sostituto, or deputy secretary of state, effectively acting as Pope Francis’s chief of staff. Prosecutors alleged Becciu and his advisors orchestrated a deliberate swindle, diverting Vatican funds through a web of financiers and consultants. The defense countered by pointing to senior Vatican officials, including Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra—Becciu’s successor—arguing that the debacle stemmed not from corruption, but from a chain of poor, if reckless, business choices.
Despite convicting nine defendants on various financial crime charges in 2023, Diddi pressed the Vatican Court of Cassation to revisit a “central tenet” of his theory: that the complex transactions formed part of a larger, unified conspiracy. Lower courts had already dismissed his request, and Monday’s ruling by the high court reaffirmed that decision, marking a significant blow to the prosecution’s ambitions.
Observers say the outcome eases pressure on Becciu and the other appellants while intensifying scrutiny of Diddi himself. Throughout the years-long proceedings, critics have questioned the prosecutor’s conduct and strategy, describing the case as labyrinthine and politically fraught.
A three-judge panel chaired by Spanish Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo—dean of the Roman Rota, the Church’s top canonical tribunal—is now presiding over the appeals of Becciu and six co-defendants. Arellano, a member of the Mexican-founded society of apostolic life known as the Workers of the Kingdom of Christ, leads the court that will decide whether to modify, reduce, or overturn the existing convictions.
For Cardinal Becciu, who continues to proclaim his innocence, the appeal process offers both risk and vindication. The charges now center on “embezzlement” and “fraud,” though the original trial judges acknowledged that Becciu did not personally profit from the transactions. Additional accusations had linked him to funds sent from the Secretariat of State to a Sardinian charity managed by his brother, and payments to self-styled security consultant Cecilia Marogna—funds allegedly intended to aid the release of a kidnapped missionary but later traced to luxury purchases.
Both the Secretariat of State and APSA, the Holy See’s sovereign asset manager, joined the original case as civil parties and remain nominal participants in the appeal. However, neither entity challenged the first-instance verdicts, suggesting a measure of exhaustion with one of the most complex financial proceedings in modern Vatican history.
As the appellate judges deliberate, the Vatican’s experiment in financial transparency and reform faces renewed questions. The rejection of Diddi’s appeal may close one legal door, but the shadows cast by the London property affair—and the institutional struggles it revealed—continue to linger over the Vatican’s promise of accountability.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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