ROME – Last Tuesday, the Vatican’s civil tribunal finally released what are known in Italian as the motivazioni, or “motivations,” for its December 2023 findings in the so-called “Trial of the Century” which pivoted on a disastrous $400 million purchase of a London property by the Secretariat of State, and which ended with guilty verdicts for nine defendants, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
The motivazioni represent the detailed reasoning, both in fact and law, behind the court’s findings. Given the complexities of the London affair, it’s perhaps no surprise they came almost 11 months after the fact and run to a robust 819 pages. Their real significance is that they allow appeals finally to move forward, since they were frozen so long as prosecutors and defence attorneys had no way of knowing what, precisely, they were appealing.
