A telephonic conversation between Pope Francis and a senior cardinal, who is currently on trial for fraud, has been apparently taped secretly. It emerged that during the conversation, Pope was asked to confirm whether or not he had authorised payments to help free a kidnapped nun in Africa.

Just days before the trial of Cardinal Angelo Becciu began, the recording, which was actually done in July 2021, emerged at a hearing on Thursday (November 24).

A transcript of the same was later published by the Italian news agency Adnkronos. And the journalists were not given permission to listen to the recording.

The court was told that the recording was made without the Pope's knowledge by someone in a room with Becciu. The conversation was secretly taped just days before the trial began.

All of this started when Becciu hired co-defendant Cecilia Marogna in 2018. He was the third most powerful person in the Vatican. And Marogna was a security analyst.

Becciu was removed from office and stripped of his cardinal privileges in September 2020 because of the scandal involving the Vatican's loss-making purchase of a posh London house and also the misappropriation of church funds.

Becciu strongly denies any wrongdoing, but together with nine other defendants, he went on trial in July last year. He faces charges ranging from fraud to money laundering and extortion.

Among the defendants is a woman named Cecilia Marogna. She is accused of misspending $667,000 she received from the Vatican. The money was given allegedly to freeing captive priests and nuns abroad. Marogna has been hired as a security consultant by Becciu.

The transcript published by Italian media read: "Did you or not give me the authorisation to start the operations to free the nun?"

It added, "For the ransom, we had fixed 500,000, we said no more because it seemed immoral to give more money... that would go into the pockets of the terrorists... I think I had informed you about all this... do you remember?" (CNN)

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