This article was updated on April 29.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was stripped of his cardinal privileges and convicted of embezzlement, will not vote in the papal conclave, despite his efforts to appeal the conviction. Cardinal Becciu issued a statement the morning of April 29 saying, “I have decided to obey—as I have always done—the will of Pope Francis not to enter the conclave, while remaining convinced of my innocence.”
The Becciu case has been a dramatic, if distracting, event on the sidelines of the upcoming papal conclave, which Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni confirmed April 28 will begin on May 7.
Cardinal Becciu gave up his cardinal privileges, including the right to vote in a conclave and to be tried by the pope alone, in September 2020 after being accused of embezzlement and nepotism. At that time, he also resigned from his post as prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. His trial opened in 2021, where he faced charges of embezzlement, money laundering, fraud, extortion and abuse of office. Nine others were also indicted.
The Vatican trial ended with a guilty verdict in 2023, with the judge sentencing Cardinal Becciu to five and a half years in prison, an 8,000-euro fine and disqualification from holding public office in the Vatican. Cardinal Becciu appealed the trial, and the appeal request was under review when Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025.
Shortly afterward, in the cardinals’ general congregations—the meetings held between papacies in which the College of Cardinals makes plans for the funeral and conclave—Cardinal Becciu argued that he should be permitted to vote because, he claimed, Pope Francis had told him in a private conversation in January 2025, “I think I have a found a solution,” Cardinal Becciu told Reuters. He added that it would be his “brother cardinals” who decide whether he would be allowed to vote.
The Italian newspaper Domani reported on Friday, April 25, that opinions were mixed among the cardinals, with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, saying that Cardinal Becciu could participate, and Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, saying that Pope Francis had wanted Cardinal Becciu excluded. Domani reporter John Mary Vian revealed that on Thursday night, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin confronted Cardinal Becciu, claiming he had two letters signed by Pope Francis that excluded him from voting in the conclave. One was dated 2023, and the other, Cardinal Parolin said, was from March 2025, during the pope’s illness. Both letters, reports said, were signed “F”—the signature Francis used near the end of his pontificate as he grew more feeble.
Roman newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Cardinal Becciu did not see the letters, but that Cardinal Parolin only alluded to them and that they would not have any value under canon law.
In any case, according to Italian news reports, on Monday, April 28, Cardinal Becciu withdrew from the conclave during the cardinals’ morning general congregation and thus will not participate in the conclave. The April 29 statement from Cardinal Becciu confirmed this, and the statement was republished on Vatican News.
Cardinal Becciu’s case is the most high-profile among several other cases in which the ability of a cardinal to participate in a conclave has been in question.
For example, Hendro Munstermann of the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad reported in March that Burkina Faso’s Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo had legally changed his birth date on the eve of his 80th birthday. (Cardinals over 80 are not permitted to vote in the conclave.) The cardinal had for many years celebrated his birthday on Jan. 25, while, he says, his passport said his birthday was Dec. 31, the date the Burkinese government assigns to people whose birth dates are unknown. His Vatican passport likewise said Dec. 31, while the Annuario Pontificio, the “Vatican yearbook” of information, had the cardinal’s birthday listed as Jan. 25 until this year, when it was changed.
Jan. 25, the cardinal said, was chosen arbitrarily when he applied for health insurance around the time of his ordination in 1973. When asked why he requested the change only when he was approaching, or perhaps past, his 80th birthday, the cardinal remained silent, Munstermann writes.
Meanwhile, the participation of Peruvian Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, 81, in the general congregations this week has been criticized by some victim advocates because the cardinal was reportedly sanctioned for sexual abuse in 2019. The sanctions, which were revealed in January by Spanish newspaper El País and later confirmed by the Vatican, included not wearing a cardinal’s robes or participating in a future conclave. The cardinal has been seen exiting this week’s general congregations in his cardinal’s robes.
Also in the last week, a Croatian cardinal and a Spanish cardinal, both 79, have said they will not participate in the conclave for health reasons. The Vatican has yet to give a final number of how many cardinal-electors will vote in the conclave, or their names.
