Corrupt cardinal demands to be in conclave choosing new pope

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu was a powerful figure at the Vatican before he was convicted of financial crimes there and ordered by Pope Francis to resign. Now the old man's dead, Becciu expects to be among those choosing Francis's replacement as Pope—he was never removed from the College of Cardinals, after all.

Becciu was convicted of embezzlement and fraud in 2023 and handed a five-and-a-half-year jail sentence. He is the first cardinal to be convicted by the Vatican's criminal court. But the cardinal, who has always maintained his innocence, launched an appeal that's currently still under consideration. He's allowed to continue to live in a Vatican apartment while this process is underway. While the Holy See press office has listed him as a "non-elector," Becciu told a Sardinian newspaper on Tuesday that "there was no explicit will to exclude me from the conclave nor a request for my explicit renunciation in writing."

Everyone is watching the middlebrow hit The Conclave, which fictionalizes a papal election along contemporary lines, but I'd recommend instead The Two Popes, a less spectacular but much better film about Francis and his predecessor, Pope Benedict, starring Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins.

Previously: Faced with excommunication threat, Irish PM explains separation of church and state to Cardinal