Vatican’s landmark financial trial faces turmoil as prosecutor resigns, court rulings favor defense, and Pope Francis’ secret decrees face scrutiny.
Newsroom (03/02/2026 Gaudium Press ) When the Vatican’s highest court reopened the appeal hearings on Tuesday, the marble halls of its tribunal were quieter than before — but no less tense. The so-called trial of the century had returned, shadowed by controversies that now reached directly into the papal palace. What began as a financial scandal has become something far more consequential: a reflection of the Vatican’s struggle to reconcile divine authority with the demands of human justice.
Once, prosecutors sought to depict the proceedings as proof that the Pope’s courts could clean house, that even a cardinal could be held accountable under the Church’s laws. But after a series of procedural missteps, leaked messages, and a sudden resignation, it is now that very justice system — and the power that drives it — on trial.
The Rise and Fall of a Vatican Power Broker
Cardinal Angelo Becciu was no ordinary defendant. For years, he stood near the pinnacle of papal administration, handling the Vatican’s secretariat finances and sensitive missions across the globe. Then in 2021, he found himself in a defendant’s box, accused of helping orchestrate a €350 million real estate scheme gone wrong.
The property in question — a luxury development in London’s Chelsea district — became the symbol of Vatican ambition and Vatican folly. Prosecutors claimed that a web of brokers, businessmen, and clerics had stripped the Holy See of tens of millions of euros through inflated commissions and deceptive contracts, before demanding an additional payout to cede control of the property.
The investigation unraveled Becciu’s career and reputation. By the end of the trial in 2023, he had been convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to five and a half years in prison. Eight others stood convicted on charges ranging from fraud to abuse of office. Yet even the prosecution’s victory was hollow; the tribunal dismissed much of its overarching theory of grand conspiracy, leaving only fragments of a case the Vatican had once billed as historic.
A Prosecution Undone
Even that limited triumph began to crumble. This January, the Vatican’s Court of Cassation — its highest appeals body — threw out the prosecution’s appeal entirely, citing a lack of legal precision. It was a stunning technical defeat. The judges ruled that chief prosecutor Alessandro Diddi had failed to substantively justify his appeal, having merely resubmitted the same arguments already rejected at trial.
The ruling meant that defendants could hope for reduced convictions or even acquittals, while prosecutors could expect nothing but the erosion of their case.
That same day, in an act that stunned the Vatican’s tightly knit legal community, Diddi abruptly resigned. His departure followed months of scrutiny over a cache of WhatsApp messages that surfaced during the trial — exchanges suggesting behind-the-scenes maneuvering between Vatican police, prosecutors, and even the Pope himself in the early stages of the investigation.
Defense attorneys seized on the chats to argue that Diddi had lost all impartiality, driven by a personal mission rather than law. He dismissed the accusations as baseless, insisting his recusal was voluntary and meant to “prevent insinuations and falsehoods.” Yet the damage was done. The figure who had cast himself as the Vatican’s anti-corruption crusader left his role under the cloud of the very doubts he had sought to erase.
The Secret Decrees of Pope Francis
As the appeal proceeds without its chief prosecutor, a more profound question now looms over the proceedings: what role did Pope Francis himself play in shaping the outcome?
Defense lawyers argue the defendants could never have received a fair trial in an absolute monarchy where the sovereign — in this case, the Pope — wields ultimate legislative, executive, and judicial power. Between 2019 and 2020, during the opening stages of the investigation, Francis quietly issued four secret executive decrees. These documents, unseen by the public and undisclosed to the defense until shortly before trial, granted prosecutors exceptional powers: the right to wiretap without judicial oversight, to detain suspects outside established rules, and to sidestep existing legal safeguards.
The decrees had no expiration date, no stated rationale, and existed solely for this investigation. Even within the Vatican, legal scholars and officials have since acknowledged their irregularity. The secrecy, they warned, violated a fundamental principle of justice — the “equality of arms” between defense and prosecution.
The tribunal’s judges had struggled to reconcile these facts. They ultimately ruled that no breach occurred, since the Pope, as supreme lawgiver, cannot violate his own laws. Yet that circular logic left the Vatican in uncharted legal territory. For if the Pope’s decrees undermined basic due process, how could the system that enforces them claim moral authority?
The Vatican on Trial
At its heart, the “trial of the century” has come to symbolize a paradox: an institution that claims divine purity, wrestling with human failings too large to hide. Becciu and his co-defendants maintain their innocence. The Vatican insists that justice has been served. But the events of recent weeks — the Cassation’s rebuke, the prosecutor’s resignation, the whispers of papal overreach — suggest otherwise.
Inside the ancient courtrooms, gilt frames and frescoes still decorate the walls, reminders of a faith meant to outlive human error. Yet the mood is more subdued now — less triumphant, more uncertain.
The appeals will continue, and verdicts may yet change. But as this troubled legal drama unfolds, the Vatican faces a question far more perilous than any single scandal: whether a system ruled by divine authority can ever truly be held to account by the laws of men.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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