The Wounds of the Vatican
It is the afternoon of September 12, 1978. Pope John Paul I, after only eighteen days of his pontificate, discovers that a powerful Masonic lobby with 120 members is active within the Curia. The news is disconcerting. Rather than abiding by the words of the Gospel, cardinals, bishops, and senior clerics are beholden to the vows of the Brotherhood of Freemasons—an intolerable situation. So on September 19, the new Pontiff starts to draft a plan for a radical reform of the Curia.
In the late afternoon of September 28, John Paul summons the Secretary of State, the powerful Cardinal Jean-Marie Villot, to inform him of the changes he wishes to implement. He has prepared a list of senior cardinals to be dismissed. At the top of the list are Paul Casimir Marcinkus, the Monsignor who directs the IOR (short for Istituto per le Opere di Religione, the Institute for Religious Works, often referred to as the Vatican bank), and his closest collaborators: Luigi Mennini and Pellegrino de Strobel. Similar measures will be taken with the Secretary of the IOR, Monsignor Donato De Bonis. These players are too closely associated with the bankers Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi and as such, they have to be dismissed. They will be asked to leave the Curia the very next day.
Among the other prominent figures to be replaced are the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal John Patrick Cody, and the Vicar of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti. Cardinal Villot himself is also slated to be leaving.
John Paul’s talk with the Secretary of State lasts for more than two hours, until 7:30 P.M. The next day, at dawn, Sister Vincenza Taffarel finds the Pontiff’s lifeless body in his bed. John Paul I has left his last speech on his desk: he was supposed to deliver it to the Procurators of the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit Order is known, with whom he had an audience the next day, September 30.
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It is July 3, 2013, the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. As he does every morning, Pope Francis wakes at dawn in Room 201, one of the few suites in Casa Santa Marta, the guest house where he has chosen to live since his election in March. He has refused to move into the sumptuous pontifical apartments, breaking immediately with papal formality. The day seems to be proceeding with absolute normality. In his homily during the celebration of the Mass in the Santa Marta chapel, the Pope uses a powerful metaphor: “We find Jesus’s wounds in carrying out works of mercy … Let us ask of St. Thomas the grace to grant us the courage to enter into the wounds of Jesus with tenderness.”
After the Mass, he has a frugal breakfast. But this will be no ordinary day. Almost four months have gone by since the Conclave that elected him. The time has come to initiate the profound reform promised to Catholics throughout the world.
This is also the start of a war. A war that is still being waged today behind closed doors, in the secret rooms of the Vatican palaces. This book tells the story of that war—through documents that have never before been made public—offering proof of a gigantic, and seemingly relentless, malfeasance that the Pontiff is challenging with singular courage and determination.
A meeting has been called to discuss the finances of the Holy See. It is a confidential meeting attended, customarily, by the cardinals of the Council for the Study of the Organizational and Economic Problems of the Holy See, and chaired by the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Tarcisio Bertone. The Pope’s presence is generally not required at this meeting, but Francis wants to be there. He has something urgent to say to the Church hierarchy, which is assembled in its entirety. At the meeting Francis will bring to light all the wounds of the Vatican, signaling an unprecedented break between the old and the new approach—a rupture whose consequences are still unpredictable.
This Investigation
A live recording was made of the Pope’s words during that meeting. By listening to this recording, I became the first journalist ever to have access to what goes on at an insiders’ meeting at the Vatican attended by the Pontiff. The investigation begins with the more recent and undisclosed secrets of the Holy See. I will follow the Stations of the Cross as they are contemplated in silence, one at a time, by the Jesuit Pope from Argentina. This is a true battle between good and evil, in which the Pope’s men are lined up on one side, while on the other are his enemies, the defenders of the status quo, adverse to any and all change.
Seated around the table with Francis are the fifteen cardinals of the Council. Also in attendance are the leaders of the departments that control the finances of the Holy See: the Administrazione del patrimonio della sede apostolica (APSA, for short), essentially the central bank of the Vatican, which also manages the immense real estate holdings of the Holy Roman Church; the Governorate, the body in charge of the museums, commercial activities, contracts for normal and special maintenance of buildings and facilities, the post office, and telephone services; the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, which oversees all the Vatican offices; and the IOR, the bank that administers assets earmarked for religious works and charity. All the names that count are here.
My knowledge of this meeting is based both on the recording and on the testimony of some of the participants. Through their accounts I was also able to get a visual picture of the faces and expressions, the tensions and dismay. And I was able to ascertain—through this live recording—the resolute position of the Pope, so sweet and affable in public appearances, but steadfast and firm before his closest collaborators. Francis of the big smiles and kind words shows himself to be absolute in his goals and intolerant of the Curia’s “human ambition to power,” which had also been criticized by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. His words attest to a truth that is quite different from the normal state of affairs described in dry official press releases and flattering news stories—a dramatic, unmentionable sin that was supposed to be kept secret in the Apostolic Palaces.
Exclusive, Never-Before-Published Documentation
I have access to thousands of documents, the most significant of which are reproduced in this book. They show the incredible waste of money by the men who govern the Church. At their worst, these men have engaged in wrongdoing that includes practices closely tied to religious life, such as the procedures for beatification and canonization—a marketplace in which millions of dollars change hands—and the management of the Peter’s Pence, the money that is sent to Rome from every diocese in the world, and is supposed to be used to bring relief to the poor, in fulfillment of the Church’s pastoral mission and the goals of Francis. And where, you may ask, do these donations go? This book will reconstruct the facts and erase all doubt as to where the money trail ends.
The people who made this material available to me did so because they are pained by the deeply rooted hypocrisy they see in the Vatican. They cannot stand idly by as these men who know the facts, but refuse to admit the truth, go about their daily business. Every day they observe the huge gap between what Francis has promised and what is being done to hinder his reforms and undermine his credibility.
My previous books, Vaticano S.p.A. and His Holiness, helped to bring down the wall of omertà and silence that has protected the Holy Roman Church for centuries. This investigation continues to seek out the truth at the Vatican, contributing, wherever possible, to flushing out and denouncing the opponents of the revolution of Francis—a revolution which, let us not forget, was born from the unprecedented decision of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, to step down.
This book is not a defense of the Pope but rather a journalistic analysis of the serious problems afflicting the Church today, caused by an ecclesiastical leadership and power circles hostile to change. My intention, once again, is to lend transparency to an authority that has long been obfuscated by narrow, often illegal, interests at odds with evangelical principles. As before, I am not driven by anti-clericalism, but by the desire to acquaint Catholics and non-Catholics alike with the contradictions of the Church—a Church that Francis wishes to reform radically, turning it into a home that is finally open to the needy and the poor and no longer focused on its own privileges and jealous of its own indestructible power.
In May 2012, after the publication of His Holiness, the Curia reacted to the book with its traditional obscurantism, trying to hunt down my sources. Shortly after, the arrest of Joseph Ratzinger’s butler, Paolo Gabriele—my source for important documents in the book—made headlines. He would later tell friends about his detention in a cell too small for him to even spread his arms. Gabriele was found guilty of theft after a quick trial. He should have been commended for passing photocopies of documents to a journalist and letting the world know what was happening in the Vatican. Instead, he was treated as a criminal.
Paolo Gabriele lost his job and had to leave the house where he had lived with his family. He wanted to make public the incredible difficulties that the Holy Father was facing every day—the same problems that would lead to the Pope’s resignation less than one year later. Benedict XVI pardoned his butler. Today we know that he often inquires as to Gabriele’s health, whether he has a job, and how his children are doing at school. On Christmas and other occasions, Ratzinger sends presents to his family. But at the Vatican, among the cardinals and senior prelates, the precedent Gabriele created by leaking papers and documents still casts a long and frightening shadow.