The cardinal was also welcomed as a “guest of honor” at a celebratory dinner with the poor after the Mass by Bishop Corrado Melis of Ozieri, who vehemently defended Becciu in a letter to his diocese after he was found guilty by a Vatican tribunal.
In addition to finding Becciu guilty of embezzlement of funds from the Vatican property deal in London, judges in the Vatican trial also convicted the cardinal for using Vatican money to pay Cecilia Marogna, a Sardinian woman who was employed by Becciu as a security consultant, and of embezzlement for sending 125,000 euros of Vatican money to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia.
Becciu has denied all wrongdoing and his lawyers have announced that the cardinal will appeal the ruling in the Vatican’s yearslong finance trial.
Due to the appeal, the cardinal remains free as he awaits the appeal process for his case per Italian incarceration procedures for convicted criminals who have not committed violent crimes or are a flight risk.
None of the other five people who received jail sentences at the end of the Vatican’s finance trial are currently behind bars, and it is expected that the appeals process could take at least a year for a new trial to conclude.
Becciu told the Sardinian television station TGR Sardinia after presiding over Christmas Mass at the parish church of Santa Sabina in his hometown of Pattada, Sardinia, that he felt “an affectionate welcome” on the island after his conviction.
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