23 “Sindona Loses in Court in Banco di Roma Case,” The New York Times, July 7, 1976, 66.
24 Raw, The Moneychangers, 205; Andreotti, who had resigned as Prime Minister—the fifty-ninth since World War I—was back as the country’s sixty-second Prime Minister in July 1976.
25 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It, 18–20.
26 Raw, The Moneychangers, 205.
27 Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 123–24.
28 Raw, The Moneychangers, 207.
29 See generally Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It, 151–59.
30 Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 125–26.
31 The names of the accounts were Ehrenkreuz and Rolrov. Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 38–39; see also Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 125; and Raw, The Moneychangers, 205–6.
32 Robert Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997), 246.
33 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 83–84; see also Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 37–38; Tosches, Power on Earth, 184; and DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 228.
34 See Tosches, Power on Earth, 184, 193–93.
35 Cavallo letter to Calvi, December 1977, quoted in part in Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 126–27; and Raw, The Moneychangers, 206. Sindona’s squeeze was a tremendous distraction for Calvi, who was in the middle of an ambitious expansion into Nicaragua. Bosco Matamoros, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the Vatican, had encouraged Calvi to buy property in the country, obtain Nicaraguan passports for himself and his wife, and open a new subsidiary, Ambrosiano Groupo Banco Comercial, in Managua. Calvi hit it off so well with Anastasio Somoza, the country’s right-wing strongman, that Somoza soon used him to suggest changes to the country’s offshore banking laws. And in return for the warm reception, Calvi arranged for several million dollars in loans on favorable terms to Somoza-affiliated companies (Calvi’s loans into Nicaragua totaled about $8 million, and half of that went to firms linked to Somoza). Marcinkus for once urged caution about the expansion into Nicaragua. He told Calvi that it seemed risky since left-wing guerrillas, the Sandinistas, were giving Somoza’s army a tough fight. Mexico, Marcinkus suggested, might be a better investment because of its proximity to America. But Calvi was not dissuaded. He also launched a Peruvian-based firm, Central American Service, which bought large tracts of land for oil and precious metals speculation and also acted as an agent in arranging Italian armaments sales to the Peruvian military.
36 Galli, Finanza bianca, 83–84; Willan, The Last Supper, 54; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 38–39.
37 Calvi met with Sindona’s attorney, Rodolfo Guzzi, at the popular Caffè Greco in central Rome. Guzzi passed him a scrap of paper with a handwritten notation of the bank and account number to which Calvi should wire the money. Calvi put that paper into his safe, and after his death prosecutors retrieved it and analyzed the handwriting. It belonged to Sindona. As for using United Trading, Calvi did not mention a word to Marcinkus. United Trading was already responsible for $15 million annually to the IOR just in interest payments servicing its loans. See generally The Sunday Times (London), February 13, 1983.
38 Raw, The Moneychangers, 218–20.
39 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 114–15; see also, Raw, The Moneychangers, 213, 308–9.
40 Raw, The Moneychangers, 215.
41 Raw, The Moneychangers, 362–66.
42 The Bank of Italy had dispatched a remarkable quarter of all its inspectors for the Ambrosiano probe. See generally Cornwell, God’s Banker, 90.
43 See generally Tosches, Power on Earth, 235.
44 Raw, The Moneychangers, 207, 259.
45 Sindona had hired Luigi Cavallo to send Bank of Italy inspectors about 30 pages of copies of some of Calvi’s Swiss bank accounts, see Willan, The Last Supper, 55; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 82.
46 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 53.
47 “Sidona’s [sic] Extradition Tentatively Approved,” The New York Times, November 12, 1977, F32; Arnold H. Lubasch, “Sindona’s Extradition to Italy Is Granted by Court,” The New York Times, May 19, 1978, D11.
48 Arnold H. Lubasch, “3 Franklin Indictments,” The New York Times, July 14, 1978, D3.
1 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 148.
2 Paul Hoffman, “Speculation on Pope: Will He Resign at 80?,” The New York Times, August 29, 1977, 6.
3 Henry Tanner, “Election to Be Held,” The New York Times, August 7, 978, A1.
4 Hoffman, “Speculation on Pope: Will He Resign at 80?,” 6; Paul had told some colleagues that he “saw the end of my life approaching.” William Claiborne, “Thousands Mourn Pope’s Death; Cardinals Gather for Rites, Election,” The Washington Post, August 8, 1978, A1.
5 Hoffman, “Speculation on Pope: Will He Resign at 80?,” 6.
6 For a few Vaticanologists, the question of whether Paul VI would be the first modern Pope to resign arose first in 1967, only four years into his Papacy. That was when he made an unscripted visit to Fumone Castle, an isolated mountaintop retreat between Rome and Naples. There he spoke about feeling resigned to life. His words were interpreted to be a cloaked allusion to his own desire to step down from the Papacy. Fumone Castle was famous as the place where the so-called hermit Pope, Celestine V, spent the last five months of his life after resigning from the Papacy in 1296. Hoffman, “Speculation on Pope: Will He Resign at 80?,” 6; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 37; “Rumors Pope May Retire Laid to Vatican Rifts,” The New York Times, September 1, 1977, 5; “Pontiff Turns 80; He Shows No Sign of Wanting to Quit,” The New York Times, September 27, 1977, 13.
7 Martin, The Final Conclave, 86.
8 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 32.
9 John Deedy, “The Clergy’s Revolution in Sexual Mores,” The New York Times, February 6, 1977, E16.
10 Martin, The Final Conclave, 49. Martin, a former Jesuit, wrote several nonfiction books about the Vatican. The Final Conclave is an unusual hybrid because the first 112 pages are nonfiction, and Martin writes that in the account of the conclave that took place upon the death of Paul VI, beginning on page 113, “the participants are fictional.” In an “Author’s Note” he claims that the fictional portion is based on “accurate knowledge of the issues and factions at work in the choice of Pope Paul’s successor.” Still, the author has restricted any information and citation of The Final Conclave to only the first 112 pages, the nonfiction portion.
11 “Pope Paul Distressed over Defection of Priests,” The Boston Globe, February 11, 1978, 7.
12 “Murdered Congo Cardinal Is Buried in Brazzaville,” The New York Times, March 28, 1977, 5.
13 This offer was especially risky since the Pope was on a Red Brigades short list for assassination. Tanner, “Election to Be Held,” A1.
14 A coincidental footnote to the Moro assassination is that the priest who had heard Moro’s final confession was Father Antonio Mennini, one of the sons of Luigi Mennini, the Vatican Bank director. Peter Hebblethwaite, Pope John Paul II and the Church (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995), 108.
15 There were unconfirmed reports that the Pope refused to forgive the sin of the killers, something that would have gone against Catholic teaching that every sin, no matter how grievous, can be forgiven through confession and penance. See generally Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 25.
16 Tanner, “Election to Be Held,” A1.
17 “Bitter Family Buries Moro Privately,” The Boston Globe, May 11, 1978, 1.
18 “General and Aide Are Killed in Spain,” The New York Times, July 22, 1978, 3.
19 Michael T. Kaufman, “12 White Teachers and Children Killed by Guerillas in Rhodesia,” The New York Times, June 25, 1978, 1.
20 Jonathan Kandell, “2 Slain at Terrorist Siege in Paris Embassy,” The New York Times, August 1, 1978, A1.
21 “Bomb Kills Five on Jerusalem Bus,” The Boston Globe, June 3, 1978, 24.
22 See generally about fighting in the Curia, Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 93.
23 James L. Franklin, “Catholic Scholar Says Vatican Is Tilting to the Left,” The Boston Globe, March 2, 1978, 1. In a 1975 decree that modified the conclave, Paul VI had expressly rejected expanding the voting for a new Pontiff to patriarchs of the Eastern Rite, or any other non-Catholic clerics. Conservatives, however, did not trust him. They believed he had adopted that position because he did not yet have broad-based enough support to push a more liberal agenda.
24 Robert D. McFadden, “Cardinals to Meet to Elect Successor,” The New York Times, August 7, 1978, A14; see Martin, The Final Conclave, 57, 73.
25 Franklin, “Catholic Scholar Says Vatican Is Tilting to the Left,” Boston Globe, 1. Martin gave his Boston Globe interview to promote his just published book, The Final Conclave.
26 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 140. An unidentified Monsignor interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 90. The gossip intended to undermine clerics with power such as Marcinkus and Macchi often centered on secret sex lives. Much dismissed stories of a too-close relationship between Macchi and the Pope continued making the rounds. As for Marcinkus, the tales were instead that he was having an affair with a former Miss France, who was married to a Marcinkus friend, Steve Barclay, a former B-grade Hollywood actor who had become a star in Italian cinema. Over a stretch of several years in the mid-1970s, Marcinkus was at the couple’s house a few times a week. That set off the Curia rumor mill. Evidence, as was the case with most innuendos and aspersions inside the Vatican, was not necessary. See Biamonte interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 173–74.
Ex–Italian intelligence agent Francesco Pazienza, who later investigated Marcinkus in order to turn up dirt at the request of the Secretary of State, did not believe the IOR chief had any sexual weaknesses. “He was in love with power and la dolce vita, not women or men,” Pazienza told the author. Marcinkus himself had commented about it once. “You don’t play with fire if you don’t want to get burned. If you want to take on the priesthood you have to know it’s a celibate life.” Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 2a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
27 Galli, Finanza bianca, 64.
28 Peter Steinfels, “Andrew M. Greeley, Priest, Scholar and Scold, Is Dead at 85,” The New York Times, May 30, 2013.
29 Greeley had founded the U.S.-based group the Committee for the Responsible Election of the Pope (CREP) in which he urged that all priests worldwide vote for successor Pontiffs.
30 Andrew M. Greeley, Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2000), Google ebook edition 2011: 88–89.
31 Ibid., 88.
32 Kenneth A. Briggs, “Center of Strife Under Cody: All Charges Denied,” The New York Times, September 20, 1981, 20.
33 Clements, Mustain & Larson, “Federal Grand Jury probes Cardinal Cody’s Use of Church Funds,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 10, 1981, 1; D. Winston, “Chicago Archbishop Under US Inquiry on Funds,” The New York Times, September 11, 1981, 16. See also Andrew M. Greeley, Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2000), Google ebook edition 2011, 88–89; Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 64; Alexander L. Taylor III, “God and Mammon in Chicago,” Time, September 21, 1981; Linda Witt and John McGuire, “A Deepening Scandal Over Church Funds Rocks a Cardinal and His Controversial Cousin,” People, September 28, 1981.
34 Ibid.; Barry W. Taylor, “Diversion of Church Funds to Personal Use: State, Federal and Private Sanctions,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 73, no. 3, Article 16, 1205–06. See also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 28–29, 71, 109.
35 Greeley, recounting his talk with Cardinal Baggio, May 11, 2007. Marcinkus heard the rumors, but did not give his opinion. He hoped Cody would not have to leave his post since he thought his friend had “been maligned, very much so. . . . The picture they paint of him in Chicago is, I think, unreal, too brutal.” Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 9b, 10a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
36 Greeley, Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest, 88–89. Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 71–72; see generally Peter Hebblethwaite, “Obituary: Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio,” The Independent (London), March 23, 1993.
37 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 71. Greeley, Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest, 544–45.
38 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 67–68.
39 Moshe Brilliant, “Israeli Jets Strike Lebanon to Avenge Bombing in Tel Aviv,” The New York Times, August 4, 1978, 1.
40 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 67.
41 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 1-2.
42 Ibid., 72–73. Later, when the Pope died, some noted doctors broke with the tradition of not publicly criticizing physicians in other cases. South African heart transplant pioneer Dr. Christiaan Barnard told Salve, an Italian health magazine, that Pope Paul VI’s life might have been saved. “An acutely sick patient is given intensive therapy. If this was not done for Pope Paul VI, I must say the doctor’s behavior was unacceptable.” See also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 72–73.
43 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 2. The Pope’s brother was Ludovico Montini, an Italian senator, and the nephew was Marco Martini.
44 See generally regarding the traditional use of the silver hammer to confirm the death of the Pope, Russell Watson, Loren Jenkins, Paul Martin, and Elaine Sciolino, “A Death in Rome,” Newsweek, October 9, 1978, 70.
45 Associated Press, Rome, P.M. cycle, August 7, 1978.
46 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 2-3.
47 Dennis Redmont, no title, Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, August 6, 1978.
48 Villot quoted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 78.
49 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 78.
50 Claiborne, “Thousands Mourn Pope’s Death,” The Washington Post, August 8, 1978, A1.
51 Telegram cited in full in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 81. See also “Cardinal Villot Takes the Reins,” Boston Globe, August 7, 1978.
1 See generally Stephen Schloesser, “Against Forgetting: Memory, History, Vatican II,” Theological Studies 67, no. 2 (June 1, 2006).
2 Romano Pontifici Eligendo was Pope Paul VI’s 1975 reform of the way the church elected Popes. Besides banning voting by cardinals over the age of eighty, it instituted other rules that governed the pre-conclave gathering (cardinals should not do any politicking but were allowed to get together for permissible “consultations”). Eligendo also set new features for the conclave itself, such as boarding up all windows in the Sistine Chapel (John Paul II abolished that unpopular change in 1996). And although Paul VI had given away the Pope’s triple tiara crown, Eligendo left it up to the successor Popes as to whether they wanted a coronation. John Paul II also eliminated that option in 1996, saying that it was “wrong” since it was “a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes.” See http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19751001_romano-pontifici-eligendo_it.html. See also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 4–5.
3 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 97. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 326.
4 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 106. Sometimes it appeared the extra time might be necessary just to educate cardinals who had never before participated in a conclave. Traditionalists grimaced when St. Louis’s Cardinal John Carberry told American reporters, “This is my first conclave. I don’t have a clue as to how we go about it. I don’t even know if we have roundtable discussions or not. I don’t know now, and when I come out I’ll have taken an oath of secrecy so I won’t be able to tell you.” Adding to the irritation of some in Rome, Carberry also was widely quoted for speculating it might be time for an American Pope. “The Italians have been at this job for years.” “Cardinal Unsure on Rules,” The Boston Globe, August 10, 1978, 18.
5 Pope Paul VI had modified the conclave election rules in 1975. They had been established by Pope Alexander III in 1179, then amended for modern elections first by Pius XII (December 1945), and then John XXIII (October 1962). See also “115 Cardinals to Vote for Pope,” Boston Globe, August 7, 1978.
6 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 41.
7 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 104; see also Victor L. Simpson, “Today’s Topic: Inside the Conclave,” Associated Press, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, August 8, 1978. By the time the conclave got under way, Monsignor Macchi had left the Vatican for a small seminary, taking with him “several truckloads” of personal effects accumulated over the years, including “works of art” he had acquired. See generally Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 149.
8 Cibin’s official title was Inspector General of the Corpo della Gendarmeria.
9 See generally about security concerns in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 134, 173.
10 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 134, 172–73; see also Aidan Lewis and Jim Krane, “New Challenge for Papal Conclave: Feast of Spy Technology for Prying Eyes and Ears,” International News, Vatican City, Associated Press, April 11, 2005.
11 Harry F. Waters and Loren Jenkins, “Cardinal Candidates,” Newsweek, August 21, 1978, 50. See also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 45–46.
12 Waters and Jenkins “Cardinal Candidates.” The Secretariat for Non-Christians was subsequently renamed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
13 Tammy Oaks, “Bookmakers Lay Odds on New Pope,” CNN, April 19, 2005, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/18/pope.betting.
14 Henry Tanner, “Election to Be Held,” The New York Times, August 7, 1978, A1.
15 Associated Press, Vatican City, The Boston Globe, October 13, 1978, 2.
16 David Browne, “Ladbrokes Regret but Carry On Taking Bets,” Catholic Herald (UK), August 11, 1978, 5.
17 When a Labour MP, Simon Mahon, publicly condemned the betting and asked Ladbrokes to stop, a spokesman for the London-based bookmakers refused: “There are a number of precedents for this sort of betting. We opened books on the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1974 and on the Archbishop of Westminster in 1976 without any trouble. And this week the newspapers are full of speculation about ‘frontrunners,’ ‘contenders,’ ‘outsiders’ and so on. All that we are doing is putting prices to the prospects in a sporting way. . . . I am sorry if we have given any offense.” Ladbrokes has continued the tradition unabated since introducing it in 1978.
18 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 149.
19 For a detailed breakdown of the votes by ballots, based on a number of sources that subsequently spoke to reporters, see Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 81–82.
20 Among the changes that Paul VI instituted for the eighty-second conclave was a rule that if the cardinals did not come to an agreement in three days, they would be forced to take a day off for prayer and contemplation before voting again.
21 In 2012, on the anniversary of what would have been the one hundredth birthday of Luciani, his former priest secretary, Father Diego Lorenzi, gave an hour radio interview on Sat2000, the network of Italian bishops. Lorenzi tried downplaying that Luciani was such a long shot, claiming instead that the cardinal himself knew there was much talk about him before the vote. But no matter what Luciani thought his odds, it is clear his colleagues did not expect him to be a contender. See generally John L. Allen, Jr., “Debunking Four Myths About John Paul I, the ‘Smiling Pope,’ ” National Catholic Reporter, November 2, 2012.
22 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 63–64, 79–80.
23 Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 325. Although he had some minor health issues, including occasional bouts of asthma, and was hobbled by phlebitis, a painful circulatory condition, those were not an obstacle to his election. None of the cardinals, especially the older ones, were free of health problems. Luciani’s blood pressure was not made better by the fact that he was a constant worrier. “Pope Had a History of Minor Illnesses,” The Milwaukee Journal, September 29, 1988, 1. A month into his Papacy, at a public blessing of the infirm, the Pope offered them some solace by talking about his own health: “I wish you to know that your Pope understands and loves you very much. You perhaps do not know that your Pope has been eight times to the hospital and has undergone four operations.” The hospital visits had been twice for gallstones, once for an eye infection, and another time to set a broken nose. Watson, Loren, et al., “A Death in Rome,” 70.
24 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, citing the pastoral letter of Cardinal Joseph Höffner, 77.
25 The Roman numerals that are part of any modern Pope’s name were used for the first time by Gregory III in 731, and didn’t become a firm rule until the eleventh century. Before Gregory, if a Pope took the same name as a predecessor, the appellation junior was used. If a name was used a third time, it became secundus junior. See Philippe Levillain, The Papacy: An Encyclopedia (Oxford: Routledge, 2002), 1065. As for the first original name in one thousand years, see Associated Press, Vatican City, The Boston Globe, August 27, 1978, 1; Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 121.
26 William Tuohy, “The 263d Pope: John Paul I: The Man A Career Shaped by Simplicity,” The Boston Globe, August 27, 1978, 1; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 217.
27 His father’s first wife had died, leaving him with two young daughters, both deaf mutes. “Whence Albino Luciani,” Reuters, The Boston Globe, August 28, 1978, 11; Raymond and Lauretta Seabeck, The Smiling Pope: The Life and Teachings of John Paul I (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 1988), 11.
28 “Whence Albino Luciani,” Reuters, The Boston Globe, 11. See also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 89–90.
29 Luciani’s first seminary rector was later interviewed by Kay Withers, a Chicago Tribune reporter. When she asked if the youngster showed any interest in girls, the rector told her none at all since he was enrolled in the seminary. “Well, did he have any interest in boys?” Withers asked. “Well, the priest almost died,” Marcinkus later recalled. Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 11a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
30 Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 20; “Whence Albino Luciani,” Reuters, Boston Globe, 11; Official Vatican summary, “Highlights of the Life of His Holiness John Paul I,” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/biography/documents/hf_jp-i_bio_01021997_biography_en.html.
31 His thesis was “The Origin of the Human Soul According to Antonio Rosmini-Serbati” (a nineteenth-century priest and philosopher). Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 91–92.
32 Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 22; “A Product of Italy’s Countryside,” Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, August 27, 1978.
33 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 97–99.
34 “A Product of Italy’s Countryside,” Associated Press.
35 Tuohy, “The 263d Pope: John Paul I: The Man A Career Shaped by Simplicity,” 1; see also Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 325.
36 Bernard Nossiter, “The Election: Cardinal Luciani, Patriarch of Venice,” The Boston Globe, August 27, 1978, 1.
37 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 112–13.
38 Watson, et al., “A Death in Rome,” 70.
39 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 42; see also Waters and Jenkins, “Cardinal Candidates.”
40 Marcinkus quoted in Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 20, 21.
41 The date is determined as seventy-five years from the death of John Paul I.
42 “Pope’s Popularity Helps Improve Financial Situation at Vatican,” Vatican City, Associated Press, August 25, 1979, citing a peak of $15 million in Peter’s Pence at end of John XXIII’s Papacy to only $4 million by the time Paul VI died fifteen years later. In contrast, more than halfway through the Papacy of the popular John Paul II, Peter’s Pence was a robust $67 million in 1992. Reese, Inside the Vatican, 225.
43 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 231, 233–34.
44 The charter is cited at Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 8 (1942), Chirographus, 1.
45 “Russian Prelate Dies During Papal Audience,” The Boston Globe, September 6, 1978, 66; “Deaths,” Newsweek, September 18, 1978, 93; Edward Magri, “Today’s Focus: The 34 Days,” Associated Press, A.M. cycle, September 29, 1978. Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 236–37.
46 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 126–27.
47 There was nothing sinister about the decision not to perform an autopsy since it was a firm policy in the Russian Orthodox faith. Italian law requires a postmortem in the case of a sudden unexplained death in which the deceased person had not recently seen a physician. But the sovereign Vatican had no such rule, and avoided at all times autopsies of its own prelates who died inside the confines of the city-state. For a general discussion of how autopsies are treated differently by various religions, see Walter E. Finkbeiner, Philip C. Ursell, and Richard L. Davis, Autopsy Pathology: A Manual and Atlas (Philadelphia: Saunders, 2009), 21. As for the number of Nikodim’s previous heart attacks, it ranges in published accounts from two to five (Hilmi Toros, Associated Press, A.M. cycle, September 5, 1978).
48 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 35.
49 Michael Dobbs, “Ukraine Prelate Predicts Legalization of Church; Gorbachev, Pope Expected to Find Accord,” The Washington Post, November 29, 1989, A31. See generally John Koehler, Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union’s Cold War Against the Catholic Church (New York: Pegasus, 2009).
50 Magri, “Today’s Focus.”
51 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 334.
52 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 131–32.
53 Ibid., 138–39.
54 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 254.
55 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 85.
56 Marcinkus interviewed in ibid., 85, 138.
57 Shortly before Pope Paul’s death, Canadian archbishop Édouard Gagnon had led a commission that tried to determine which parts of the Curia were redundant or in other cases were bloated and could be trimmed. That report was also waiting for the new Pope. See Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 24–25, 42.
58 See generally Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 251.
59 Watson, et. al., “A Death in Rome,” 70.
60 Luciani quoted in Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 127.
61 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 79.
62 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 103–04.
63 Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 70. In a way similar to how Pascalina and Pope Pius XII had been the subject of rumors, so were Luciani and Sister Vincenza. She not only had regular access to the new Pontiff, but he had told his aides that in the case of an emergency, she was the one who had permission to first enter his room. Curialists spent hours dissecting what she said, whether or not she helped write his finely honed speeches, and how he included her in discussions he held over meals. During her first weeks at the Vatican she had set about bringing color into the monotonous beige and gray that was the trademark of Paul’s contemporary decor. There was little doubt that Vincenza had influence with Luciani. The question was how much and how best she could be dealt with.
64 “Pope Had a History of Minor Illnesses,” 1; see also Paul Hoffman, The Vatican’s Women: Female Influence at the Holy See (New York: St. Martin’s, 2002), Kindle edition, location 2091 of 2992; see also Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 187.
65 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 234–35. Lorenzi, a member of the Sons of Divine Providence (Orione Fathers), served as Luciani’s private secretary for two years in Venice before moving with him to Rome after the conclave.
66 Sister Irma interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 215.
67 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 110; recounted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 258–59.
68 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 247–48; Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come, 253–54; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 259.
69 Buzzonetti and Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 220, 247; see also Christopher Hudson, “20 years ago this week John Paul I died after 33 days as Pope. Now even one of his own cardinals says he may have been poisoned,” Daily Mail (London), August 27, 1998, 11. Also Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 70.
70 Recounted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 258–60. Sister Vincenza only was interviewed twice, once by a fellow nun, Sister Irma, and another time by author David Yallop. She died on June 28, 1983.
71 Magee later recalled two other nuns coming to get him, but it was evidently Vincenza, with the other nuns arriving moments later. See Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 247.
72 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 248.
73 Ibid.; see also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 260. The death of John Paul, on his thirty-fourth day, marked his Papacy as the seventh shortest in church history. Pope Stephen II died only three days after his selection in 752; both Marcellus II, in 1555, and Urban VII, in 1590, died after thirteen days as Pope; Boniface VI’s Papacy was fifteen days in 896; Leo XI served seventeen days in 1605; and Theodore II twenty days in 897.
74 “He [Villot] used to take a walk every day with John Paul I,” Marcinkus later recalled. “He was destroyed [by the Pope’s death].” Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 10b, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
75 “Cardinal Villot, Holder of Vatican’s Second Highest Post,” The Boston Globe, March 10, 1979, 15; Buzzonetti interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 219.
76 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 104.
77 John Julius Norwich, “Was Pope John Paul I Murdered?,” The Daily Mail, May 7, 2011. Aside from that, and an interview with the Associated Press a few days later, Dr. da Ros later declined all interviews, citing doctor-patient confidentiality. As a result, it is not clear what type of exam he had conducted with Luciani just a week before his death. The question asked most often by other doctors—and still unanswered—was if da Ros had performed an electrocardiogram, which would have given a good snapshot of the state of the Pontiff’s heart. See generally “Doctor Warned John Paul of Stress,” Associated Press, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, October 4, 1978. See also “Pope Had a History of Minor Illnesses,” The Milwaukee Journal, 1.
78 Da Ros quoted in Untitled, Hilmi Toros, dateline Vatican City, A.M. cycle, Associated Press, October 16, 1978.
79 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 249.
80 Norwich, “Was Pope John Paul I Murdered?”; see also John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History (London: Chatto & Windus, 2011).
81 Victor L. Simpson, Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, September 29, 1978.
82 Russell Watson, Loren Jenkins, Paul Martin, and Elaine Sciolino, “A Death in Rome,” Newsweek, October 9, 1978, 70; Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 244; Untitled, dateline Canale D’Agordo, Italy, P.M. cycle, Associated Press, September 29, 1978; Untitled, Dennis Redmont, dateline Vatican City, P.M. cycle, Associated Press, September 29, 1978; “The Original Engelbert,” Irish Daily Mail, October 19, 2012, 38.
83 Buzzonetti interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 218.
84 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 111.
85 Claiborne, “Thousands Mourn Pope’s Death,” A1.
86 Villot quoted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 263; see also Hoffman, The Vatican’s Women, Kindle edition, location 2091 of 2992; and Sister Irma interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 215.
87 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 249.
88 Hoffman, The Vatican’s Women, Kindle edition, location 2077 of 2992; see also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 263.
89 In a two-page “Vatican Memorandum Supplied to Episcopal Conference, dated 1984,” the Vatican played down the significance of who first found the Pope. “While it makes no difference whether the Pope was found dead by a sister, or, as the Vatican communiqué said, by the private secretary of the Pontiff, in fact, the secretary instantly ran to the bedside of Pope John Paul I when he was summoned by the sister who suspected that something might be wrong.” The 1984 Vatican memo is reprinted in English in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 347–48.
90 Ibid., 196, 201.
91 Pope Paul VI was an avid fan of British novelist Graham Greene, and even arranged a meeting with him. Marcinkus recalled that Greene “almost dropped dead” when the Pope told him he had read “every one of your books.” The Vatican ensured that the news of Paul VI’s popular cultural preferences was never publicized. Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, January 15, 1988, 1a, provided to author courtesy of Willan. See also Farusi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 202–3; in the “Vatican Memorandum Supplied to Episcopal Conference, dated 1984,” it was emphasized that “No official document ever mentioned it [the Imitation of Christ].” Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 347–48. For an example of how the story ran internationally, see “Book a 15-Century Work,” The Boston Globe, September 30, 1978, 9.
Twenty-five years after the event, Lorenzi told the National Catholic Reporter’s John L. Allen Jr. that the papers in John Paul’s hand were some notes from his days as the Patriarch of Venice, which he was reviewing in preparation for the next Sunday sermon. “I’d like to know how anyone can say anything different,” Lorenzi told Allen. “Who else was there? Only we [Lorenzi, Magee, and Vincenza] were there.” John L. Allen Jr., “Lessons from a 33-Day Pontificate: John Paul I’s Secretary Reminisces on the Man and His Life,” National Catholic Reporter, September 5, 2003.
92 Arnaldo Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 271. The Signoraccis, who claimed to use their own secret formula based on formaldehyde, considered John XXIII their finest work. His coffin was opened in 2001, thirty-eight years after his death, in order to move his remains from the crowded crypt in St. Peter’s to a new tomb in the basilica above. The body was still perfectly preserved. The Signoracci business was closed in 2002 after the death of the last brother, Renato. At the time, La Repubblica noted it was ironic that John Paul II, then eighty-one and in the twenty-fourth year of his Papacy, had outlived the Papal embalmers.
93 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 283–85.
94 Arnaldo and Ernesto Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 272–73, 275.
95 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 263; unidentified Curial monsignor quoted in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 52.
96 Although Vatican entry logs show the morticians arrived that morning, the eyewitnesses to the traumatic event do not always recall it correctly. A decade later, Monsignor Lorenzi told John Cornwell that he did not remember the Signoracci brothers arriving until the evening. He then recounted that he, Villot and Dr. Buzzonetti had laid out the body. In fact, the morticians did that. As for the Signoraccis, when Cornwell interviewed them a decade later, they could not remember precisely when they got to the Vatican. Ernesto said, “It could have been at seven in the morning . . . it could have been ten in the morning . . . or at three in the afternoon, I don’t know.”
97 Arnaldo Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 278; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 263.
98 Ernesto Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 275–77.
99 Evan Whitton, “The Road to Rome,” Sydney Morning Herald, November 22, 1986, 41; Norwich, “Was Pope John Paul I Murdered?” The medication that was later confirmed as having been in the room was Effortil, an analeptic used to stabilize blood pressure, and often prescribed in instances of persistent low blood pressure. See also Watson, et. al., “A Death in Rome,” 70. As for the missing pages in the records of the Vatican pharmacy, see Cornwell’s interview with Brothers Fabian and Augusto in A Thief in the Night, 312–13.
“He [Pope John] had no medical attention throughout his brief pontificate.” Peter Hebblethwaite, “Death of a Rumour,” The Spectator, June 16, 1989, 30.
100 Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, September 29, 1978. For the way the press release by the Vatican was placed into full news coverage, see generally “Pope John Paul Dies in Sleep: Succumbs to Heart Attack After Month in Office,” Associated Press, The Boston Globe, September 29, 1978, 1.
101 Paul Hoffman, “Bungling and Surmises,” The New York Times, July 8, 1984, BR32. When Villot died of “acute bronchial pneumonia” at age seventy-three the following March, he was in Gemelli Hospital. He had been admitted two days earlier. But that did not stop his own death from being the subject of false speculation inside the Curia. An unnamed monsignor told John Cornwell that the “real” story was that Villot “collapsed outside the Vatican and got taken to the Gemelli. The Vatican people rushed around and snatched the body. . . . They pretended the corpse was still alive, took it back to the Vatican, and said he died holily in bed.” Unnamed monsignor interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 96.
102 “Catholic Group Calls for Inquest into John Paul’s Sudden Death,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), October 4, 1978.
103 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 269.
104 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 251, 253.
105 Ibid., 253.
106 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 269; see generally Sandra Miesel, “A Quiet Death in Rome: Was Pope John Paul I Murdered,” Crisis Magazine, April 1, 2009.
107 Obituary: “Archbishop Romeo Panciroli: Ponderous Vatican Press Officer,” The Independent (London), March 21, 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/archbishop-romeo-panciroli-470769.html.
108 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 270.
109 Cardinal Felici spent the next two days combing through the Secret Archives to see if he might find any precedent for a postmortem exam. He discovered that in the diary of Agostino Chigi, heir to a Renaissance banking family, there was an entry that a secret autopsy had been conducted on Pius VIII, a day after his November 30, 1816, death. Pius died at the age of sixty-nine, after eighteen months as Pope. The purpose had been to see if his organs showed any evidence he had been poisoned (he had not). Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 271, 277–79.
110 Whitton, “The Road to Rome,” 41; see also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 272.
111 Article 17 of Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution implicitly ruled out any autopsy since the only official method approved for certifying the death of a Pontiff is for the Camerlengo to confirm the death in the presence of witnesses and to then draw a death certificate. Some news accounts incorrectly reported that an autopsy was explicitly banned. See for instance, Watson, et al., “A Death in Rome,” 70: “[t]he papal constitution forbids autopsies for popes.”
112 Sari Gilbert, “Some Wonder Why No Autopsy on Pope,” The Boston Globe, October 2, 1978, 2. One of Italy’s preeminent surgeons, Dr. Pier Luigi Prati, told reporters for La Stampa and the Associated Press that it was possible that Pope John Paul died of a heart attack. “But it also could have been a cerebral hemorrhage. . . . In order to ascertain this, an autopsy would be necessary.” Dennis Redmont, Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, September 30, 1978.
113 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 111–12.
114 Ernesto Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 277. The Signoraccis were not paid for their services. “Absolutely nothing, only medals,” Arnaldo later recalled. “They made us [a] Knight of Gregory, with a diploma and that sort of thing,” confirmed Ernesto. Arnaldo and Ernesto Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 279.
115 Hilmi Toros, Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, October 2, 1978.
116 Signoracci interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 272.
117 Jose Torres, Associated Press, Rome, P.M. cycle, October 6, 1978. For Pope Paul VI and his comment on Satan entering the Vatican, see Donald R. McCleary, “Pope Paul VI and the Smoke of Satan,” An American Catholic, December 4, 2011.
118 Gilbert, “Some Wonder Why No Autopsy on Pope,” 2.
119 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 283.
120 The Vatican decided at that point not to make records related to John Paul’s death available for any independent review. Author John Cornwell was refused in 1988 access to any documentation about the Pope’s passing, from his death certificate to medical records to his will. The author’s own requests for such materials twenty-five years later went unanswered.
As for In God’s Name, by David Yallop, the book that later claimed the Pope was poisoned, the fact that many critics trashed it did not prevent it from becoming a bestseller. Steve Weinberg, the editor of Investigative Reporters and Editors, wrote in the Balitmore Sun, “The shame of publishing: truth is of no concern; neither factual accuracy nor overall truthfulness is taken seriously by many book publishers” (Steve Weinberg, “The Shame of Publishing,” Baltimore Sun, August 2, 1998, p. 11F). In a meticulous deconstruction in the Columbia Journalism Review, Weinberg called it “the Kitty Kelley syndrome,” and noted that Yallop’s book “proved none of its fantastic claims,” and had no source notes or bibliography (Steve Weinberg, “The Kitty Kelley Syndrome; Why You Can’t Always Trust What You Read in Books,” Columbia Journalism Review 30, no. 2 [July/August 1991]: 36). The Chicago Tribune said In God’s Name “was so conspiratorial that it bordered on the ludicrous,” and that although Yallop “fudged his sources,” and that “despite savage reviews, repeated Vatican denunciations and bewilderment and outrage by people Yallop claimed to have interviewed,” book sales had soared (Peter Former and John Blades, “Fiction Passing as Fact Fuels a Crisis in Print,” Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1985, p. C1].
121 David Yallop, In God’s Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, 240–42, 289–92; Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 313–25. See also George Rush and Joanna Molloy, for church comments regarding In God’s Name, see generally Untitled, dateline Vatican City, International News, A.M. cycle, Associated Press, June 12, 1984. “Elton John’s Movie Plans Provoke Vatican’s Wrath,” The Toronto Star, February 17, 1999.
In 2014, a successful play about foul play in John Paul’s death titled The Last Confession kicked off an international tour in Toronto. “The Last Confession Probes Papal Death, Vatican Intrigue,” CBC News, April 19, 2014.
122 Martin, Final Conclave; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 295.
123 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 309.
124 They included Madrid’s Vicente Enrique y Tarancón, Samoa’s Pio Taofinu’u, Holland’s Johannes Willebrands, England’s Basil Hume, and São Paulo’s Paulo Evaristo Arns.
125 Malula quoted in “A Foreign Pope,” Time, October 30, 1978.
126 Günther Simmermacher, “Electing a Pope: The Conclave of October 1978,” The Southern Cross, March 7, 2013; see also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 152.
127 König interviewed in George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: Cliff Street, 1999), 253.
128 Author interview with Andrew Greeley, May 11, 2007.
129 Simmermacher, “Electing a Pope: The Conclave of October 1978”; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 313–14.
130 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 153.
131 Whitton, “The Road to Rome,” 41; see also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 314–16.
132 Wojtyla quoted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 319.
133 Simmermacher, “Electing a Pope: The Conclave of October 1978”; Whitton, “The Road to Rome,” 41.
134 Cardinal Hume quoted in Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 156.
135 He was a moderate by the standards of the church’s six Eastern European cardinals, but considered somewhat of a conservative by Western standards.
136 Ronald Koven, “Cardinal Wojtyla of Poland Breaks Line of Italian Popes,” The Washington Post, October 17, 1978, A1.
137 Weigel, Witness to Hope, 254.
1 Weigel, Witness to Hope,16, 23. His mother’s family came from Silesia, and his father served in the Austro-Hungarian army. That meant Wojtyla’s second language at home was German. Hebblethwaite, Pope John Paul II and the Church, 260.
2 Edward Stourton, John Paul II: Man of History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006), 25; Weigel, Witness to Hope; see also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 157–60.
3 Official biography [short] of John Paul II, Holy See Press Office, last updated June 30, 2005.
4 Weigel, Witness to Hope, 44.
5 Years later he bemoaned that he had not been present for the death of either of his parents or for a brother who died during the war. “At twenty, I had already lost all the people I loved.” See generally Stourton, John Paul II: Man of History, 60. As for Kraków’s Black Sunday, see generally Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw (London: Viking, 2004), 253–55.
6 See “When Karol Wojtyla Refused to Baptize an Orphan,” Zenit, January 18, 2005, online at http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/when-karol-wojtyla-refused-to-baptize-an-orphan.
7 Patricia Rice, “They Call Him ‘Wujek,’ ” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 24, 1999, 18.
8 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 165-66.
9 Whitton, “The Road to Rome,” 41.
10 Ibid., citing National Foreign Assessment Center report for the CIA, 59.
11 Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 257.
12 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 347.
13 See Lai, Finanze vaticane, 149.
14 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 348.
15 Marcinkus was raised in a household in which Lithuanian was his first language. His parents spoke it exclusively at home. He also studied it at school. Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, January 15, 1988, 1b, provided to author courtesy of Willan. “Marcinkus spoke good Polish”: Curzio Maltese, in collaboration with Carlo Pontesilli and Maurizio Turco, “Scandal, Intrigue and Mystery; The Secrets of the Vatican Bank,” translated by Graeme A. Hunter, La Repubblica, January 26, 2008.
16 The shrine was located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a suburb about thirty miles from Philadelphia; in the U.S. the monastic order is referred to as the Pauline Fathers, but in Poland the 770-year-old sect is known officially as the Order of St. Paul the First Hermit.
17 Gannett was awarded a 1980 Pulitzer for Public Service for its investigative series. It also resulted in a $110 million libel suit by the former father superior of the Pauline shrine. That lawsuit was dismissed.
18 The first signs of something amiss came up after a routine 1972 audit conducted by the Philadelphia diocese. See generally Ben A. Franklin, “Cover-Up Alleged in Monastic Scandal,” The New York Times, September 21, 1979, 14; “Pope Reportedly Blocked Investigation of Pauline Father’s Financial Dealings,” The Washington Post, September 10, 1979, A3.
19 Vatican report cited in “Pope Reportedly Blocked Investigation of Pauline Father’s Financial Dealings,” The Washington Post, A3. See also “Vatican Refuses to Comment,” Observer-Reporter (Pennsylvania), September 11, 1979, A7.
20 “Gannett Sued for $110 Million,” Associated Press, Domestic News, New York, P.M. cycle, September 16, 1980; see also “Catholic Order’s Squandering of Millions in Contributions, Loan, Investments Alleged,” The Blade (Ohio), September 10, 1979, 8.
21 “Pope Reportedly Blocked Investigation of Pauline Father’s Financial Dealings,” The Washington Post.
22 Untitled, Associated Press, Washington, A.M. cycle, September 10, 1979.
23 Franklin, “Cover-Up Alleged in Monastic Scandal,” 14.
24 Untitled, Associated Press, Washington, A.M. cycle, September 10, 1979; see also Franklin, “Cover-Up Alleged in Monastic Scandal.”
25 “Probe of Monks Cites Kickbacks,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 11, 1979, 3; Untitled, Associated Press, Washington, A.M. cycle, September 10, 1979.
26 Untitled, Associated Press, Washington, A.M. cycle, September 10, 1979.
27 Untitled, Associated Press, Washington, A.M. cycle, September 9, 1979; see also “Pope Reportedly Blocked Investigation of Pauline Father’s Financial Dealings,” The Washington Post.
28 “Pope Reportedly Blocked Investigation of Pauline Father’s Financial Dealings,” The Washington Post.
29 Franklin, “Cover-Up Alleged in Monastic Scandal”; untitled, Associated Press, Washington, P.M. cycle, September 10, 1979.
30 Untitled, Associated Press, Washington, A.M. cycle, September 11, 1979.
31 Cardinal Krol personally oversaw the distribution of the funds through his own diocese so the source of the money appeared to be from Philadelphia as opposed to Rome. The order of payments was determined with the assistance of attorneys from the Philadelphia law firm of Eastburn & Gray. A fundraising drive among the faithful—“to honor their Polish ancestors”—to pay some of the Pauline debts raised some $2 million. The author could not determine if that money was returned to Marcinkus and the IOR. Francesco Pazienza recounting contemporaneous conversations with Marcinkus, interview with author, September 18, 2013. See also Untitled, Associated Press, Domestic News, Camden, NJ, A.M. cycle, September 12, 1979. “When Marcinkus made it go away quickly he had earned the immediate loyalty of John Paul,” said Francesco Pazienza.
32 Willan, The Last Supper, 177-78, citing in part Pazienza’s autobiography, Il Disubbidient (Milan: Longanesi, 1990).
33 See generally Roy Larson, “In the 1980’s, a Chicago Newspaper Investigated Cardinal Cody,” Niemen Reports, The Niemen Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, spring 2003; John Conroy, “Cardinal Sins,” Chicago Reader, June 4, 1987.
34 See generally about Vienna’s Cardinal König aware of the KGB’s Department D; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 265–66.
35 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 22, 2013.
36 Willey, God’s Politicians, 234.
37 The letter is undated except that on page 1 it has a time stamp “March 23, 1979.” It was passed to Marcinkus on March 26, 1979, by P. Peter Sarros, a Deputy Presidential Envoy to the Vatican. See Letter from P. Peter Sarros, Deputy Presidential Envoy, to Bishop Marcinkus, March 26, 1979, with handwritten notation in the upper-right-hand corner of the one-page cover note “Rcd 26-3-79 BM.” The Sarros letter included a three-page attached telex. That attachment is the same as the contents of the letter from Benjamin R. Civiletti, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, to Bishop Paul C. Marcinkus, President, Institute of Religious Works, date-stamped March 23, 1979, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
38 The accounts were opened in 1974 by Howard Mitnick, through a power of attorney of Ellis Shore, chairman of ATS. One account with $3.6 million was held in the name of RAE Advertising, a wholly owned ATS subsidiary, while the other, with $4.1 million, was in the name of another ATS subsidiary, Analysis and Research Associates. Letter from Benjamin R. Civiletti, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, to Bishop Paul C. Marcinkus, President, Institute of Religious Works, date-stamped March 23, 1979, William A. Wilson Papers, William A. Wilson Papers: Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
39 Marcinkus incorrectly told Civiletti that the IOR was “an organization established by Pope Leo XIII to husband monies destined for religious works of the Church, all over the world.” Leo XIII had began what was a generic predecessor organization, the Administration of Religious Works, but the IOR to which Marcinkus referred was started by Bernardino Nogara and Pope Pius XII in June 1942. See Letter from Paul C. Marcinkus to Benjamin R. Civiletti, April 3, 1979, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
40 Letter from Paul C. Marcinkus to Benjamin R. Civiletti, April 3, 1979, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C., 2.
41 The Vatican refused to allow the author to have access to any of the records of the IOR.
42 Letter from Paul C. Marcinkus to Benjamin R. Civiletti, April 24, 1979, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
43 Ibid.
44 Author interview with William Aronwald, February 16, 2007.
1 Galli, Finanza bianca, 83–84.
2 In discussing how the Bank of Italy uncovered that foreign corporations of unknown ownership, based primarily in Panama and Liechtenstein, had purchased large blocks of the Ambrosiano, the report concluded, “It cannot be excluded that the above mentioned purchasers could be part of the ‘Ambrosiano group,’ given the wide and uncontrollable possibilities for maneuver by banks and foreign financial affiliates, or of IOR.”
3 This report was the culmination of the investigation that began in April 1978 when Bank of Italy inspectors had shown up unannounced at the Ambrosiano’s headquarters. It was a probe kicked off by tips provided to the inspectors by Sindona. Neither Padalino, the chief inspector, nor anyone on his team was a P2 member. So when Calvi asked Licio Gelli for help, the P2 chief was of no assistance. See Cornwell, God’s Banker, 91; Tosches, Power on Earth, 191.
4 Since the IOR was the central bank of a sovereign nation, the Bank of Italy had no jurisdiction over it. Instead, its investigation started and stopped with the Ambrosiano. Almost all questions about the Vatican’s role were left unanswered. See Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 41–43.
5 Sergio Bocconi, “Quelle missioni da Berlinguer e Craxi per i crediti del vecchio Ambrosiano,” Corriere della Sera, October 26, 2007, 35.
6 Padalino Report excerpt quoted in Cornwell, God’s Banker, 91.
7 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 41.
8 It is part of the Italian armed forces and is a policing authority under the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
9 See Cornwell, God’s Banker, 96.
10 L’Espresso cited in Cornwell, God’s Banker, 96; Raw, The Moneychangers, 272.
11 Henry Tanner, “Italian Prime Minister Defends Government’s Record as Terrorism Rises: Communists Withdrew Support,” The New York Times, January 30, 1979, A2.
12 “Parliament Is Cool to Andreotti Plea,” The Boston Globe, January 30, 1979, 4; Henry Tanner, “Andreotti Resigns, Bringing Fears of Rise in Italian Terrorist Activity: Murder Is Linked to Politics,” The New York Times, February 1, 1979, A3; Raw, The Moneychangers, 255.
The fact that Calvi was not involved in Alessandrini’s death has not stopped some writers from reporting it as if it were somehow connected to a larger conspiracy: “Alessandrini could not be bought,” wrote David Yallop in In God’s Name. The investigating magistrate posed “a very serious threat . . . for Calvi, Marcinkus, Gelli and Sindona. . . . Something had to be done.”
13 Tanner, “Andreotti Resigns, Bringing Fears of Rise in Italian Terrorist Activity: Murder Is Linked to Politics.”
14 Raw, The Moneychangers, 255.
15 Ibid., 138, 272.
16 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 56.
17 Calvi ultimately completed the transfer of all his Latin American operations to Banco Ambrosiano Andino only four months after the Sandinistas defeated Somoza’s army. See Raw, The Moneychangers, 265.
18 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 56, 58.
19 Marcinkus later claimed in a written submission to an Italian government investigating committee about the Ambrosiano that the transfer of the loans from United Trading to Andino had been “ordered and executed without the knowledge of the IOR.” But the government investigators doubted that was true. Calvi had sent letters to Marcinkus on December 17, 1979, stating that the obligations of the IOR had been extended to Andino. Marcinkus later contended that letter was not sufficient notice to the Vatican Bank, but never to the complete satisfaction of the government probe. The Joint Investigating Committee submission by Marcinkus, cited in Raw, The Moneychangers, 266–67.
20 Raw, The Moneychangers, 263.
21 Sindona quoted in Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 209.
22 Raw, The Moneychangers, 282, 284, 323.
23 Ibid., 214–16, 227–28, 261–62, 306–9.
24 Arnold H. Lubasch, “A Nixon Treasury Secretary Queried on $200,000 He Got from Sindona,” The New York Times, January 23, 1979, B7. Kennedy eventually testified before the grand jury without a grant of immunity. There were questions as to whether Kennedy had broken the law by taking and not disclosing the short-term $200,000 loan from Sindona in 1974. Kennedy said he had used the money for a land development in Arizona, to which Sindona had no connection. Prosecutors also asked Kennedy about his service as a director at Sindona’s Fasco holding company. No charges were filed against Kennedy. As for the Kennedy-Marcinkus friendship, see Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 34, 37. Also, Marcinkus talked to author John Cornwell about some “friends” in Chicago that introduced him to “people at Continental Bank.” Kennedy became the chairman of that bank the same year Pope Paul VI appointed Marcinkus as the chief prelate of the IOR. The two men were good friends. See Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 83; also Robert D. Hershey, Jr., “David Kennedy, Ex-Treasury Chief, Dies at 90,” The New York Times, May 3, 1996.
25 Arnold H. Lubasch, “3 Former Officials of Franklin Bank Convicted of Fraud,” The New York Times, January 24, 1979, A1. Harold Gleason had been the chairman, Paul Luftig the president, and J. Michael Carter the senior vice president.
26 Paul Serafini, Associated Press, Business News, New York, A.M. cycle, March 19, 1979; DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 237.
27 “U.S. Indicts Sindona on Bank Role: U.S. Accuses Sindona of Fund Misappropriation,” The New York Times, March 20, 1979, D1. The banks cited in the indictment were Banca Unione and Banca Finanziaria, which failed in 1974 but were merged into Sindona’s new Banca Privata Italiana. See also “Gunshots and Persons Unknown,” The Economist, October 6, 1979, 114; Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It, 63–77.
28 Robert Fiske Jr. quoted in “U.S. Indicts Sindona on Bank Role: U.S. Accuses Sindona of Fund Misappropriation,” The New York Times. Robert Fiske, the U.S. Attorney, told the press within hours of filing the indictment that the case would not stop the extradition proceedings against Sindona. If the government prevailed in its effort to send him back to Italy, that deportation would be stayed pending an outcome on the American criminal charges.
29 Paul Serafini, Associated Press, Business News, New York, A.M. cycle, March 19, 1979. Eight days after the indictment, Thomas C. Platt Jr., the federal judge who had overseen each of the Franklin trials and was familiar with the facts of the different cases, disqualified himself from Sindona’s case as the result of an uproar by defense lawyers over a joke he made in open court. The joke had actually been made the previous Halloween, but Sindona’s attorneys did not use it as the basis for a recusal until their client was formally indicted. It was not possible to tell precisely what the joke was since Judge Platt sealed the transcript that contained it, but leaks from defense counsel indicated that it referred to the defenses by key Franklin executives as a “fairy tale.” One of the most distinguished justices in the New York district courts, Jack B. Weinstein, took over the Sindona trial. See Robert J. Cole, “Judge Out in Sindona Bank Suit,” The New York Times, March 29, 1979, D1.
30 Marcinkus interviewed in Cromwell, A Thief in the Night, 132.
31 Robert Suro, “Sindona Gets Life Term in Murder Case in Italy,” The New York Times, March 19, 1986, D17.
32 Luigi DiFonzo, “Justifiable Homicide,” New York, April 11, 1983, 31–32.
33 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It, 37–40, 44.
34 Raw, The Moneychangers, 86. Ambrosoli demonstrated that Sindona did not use any of his own money to buy Franklin, but instead improperly used the proceeds of the Zitropo/Pachetti deal.
35 “Gunshots and Persons Unknown,” The Economist, 114.
36 Ambrosoli Report cited in Raw, The Moneychangers, 87. See also Galli, Finanza bianca, 84; and Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 45.
37 Alexander L. Taylor III, “Scandal at the Pope’s Bank; Outside Experts Are Called in to Investigate Some Shady Financial Dealings,” Time, July 26, 1982, 34; “Official Italian sources later confirmed that Ambrosoli was referring to Marcinkus and Calvi.” Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 187. Jennifer Parmelee, Untitled, Associated Press, International News, Rome, BC cycle, May 18, 1986. Sindona told Newsweek in 1982 that he had paid half that amount to Calvi’s wife, but not any money to Marcinkus. It is doubtful Sindona told the truth. He was in prison in the U.S. at the time awaiting extradition to Italy. Sindona also denied to Newsweek that he had anything to do with the death of an Italian prosecuting magistrate, a case in which he was eventually convicted of ordering the murder. Harry Anderson with Rich Thomas in London and Rome and Hope Lamfert in New York, “Inside the Vatican Bank,” Newsweek, September 13, 1982, 62.
38 Giacomo Vitale, the brother-in-law of Mafia don Stefano Bontade, was later identified as the caller; see judicial hearings, Palermo, December 18, 1997, and February 24, 1998, on the basis of the declarations made by collaborators of justice Angelo Tullio Siino and Cinnamon (Palermo Court, judgment of 23 October 1999 Andreotti, ch. VI, § 1, p. 1845ss).
39 Tosches, Power on Earth, 192.
40 Andrew Gumbel, “Obscure Magistrate Began Downfall of a Corrupt Generation,” The Independent (London), March 23, 1995, p. 11; see Raw, The Moneychangers, 258; and Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 45.
41 Sindona’s U.S. trial was scheduled to start in September 1979 and the U.S. Attorney’s Office hoped that Ambrosoli might have uncovered additional information to assist them. Raw, The Moneychangers, 258.
42 “Gunshots and Persons Unknown,” 114.
43 Henry Tanner, “A Sindona Inquiry by Italian Parliament Gets Support,” The New York Times, August 10, 1979, B3.
44 Joseph P. Fried, “U.S. Bids to Send Sindona to Italy,” The New York Times, December 18, 1983, 49.
45 Tosches, Power on Earth, 196; DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 240.
46 Luigi DiFonzo, “Justifiable Homicide,” 30; see Raw, The Moneychangers, 87.
47 Ibid., Di Fonzo, St. Peter’s Banker; Raw, The Moneychangers, 259.
48 See generally Claire Sterling, The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism (New York: Henry Holt, 1981).
49 Tanner, “A Sindona Inquiry by Italian Parliament Gets Support,” B3.
50 Ibid.; DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 241.
51 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 44, 46.
52 “Execution Deadline for Sindona Passes,” The Boston Globe, August 12, 1979, 18; “Indicted Italian Financier Reported Kidnapped in US,” The Boston Globe, August 7, 1979, 11.
53 Arnold H. Lubasch, “Sindona Missing; Suspect in Fraud at Franklin Bank,” The New York Times, August 7, 1979, A1; “Disappearance of Italian Financier Indicted in Fraud Is Still a Mystery,” The New York Times, August 8, 1979, B3; “A Letter from Missing Financier Reported by Lawyer,” The New York Times, August 16, 1979, B3.
54 Arnold H. Lubasch, “Family Awaits News of Fate of Sindona,” The New York Times, August 12, 1979, 35.
55 “Death Threat for Sindona,” The Boston Globe, August 11, 1979, 11.
56 Arnold H. Lubasch, “Caller Asserts Missing Sindona Is to Be Shot ‘at Dawn,’ ” The New York Times, August 11, 1979, 1; “Family Awaits News of Fate of Sindona,” The New York Times, August 12, 1979, 35; “Death Threat for Sindona,” 11.
57 Lubasch, “A Letter from Missing Financier Reported by Lawyer,” B3; Arnold H. Lubasch, “A Letter in Sindona’s Handwriting Says Captors Do Not Seek Ransom,” The New York Times, August 22, 1979, A21.
58 “Message Reported in Sindona Case,” The New York Times, September 1, 1979, 23.
59 “Key Sindona Witness Gets Protection,” The Boston Globe, August 10, 1979, 10; “The City: Public Aid Sought in Finding Sindona,” The New York Times, August 15, 1979, B4.
60 “The City: Search for Financier,” The New York Times, August 9, 1979, B3. In Italy, Sindona’s disappearance dominated the headlines and caused an uproar in Parliament. Italian lawmakers—many of whom were suspicious that Sindona had merely fled to avoid the start of his criminal trial in New York—responded by establishing a new parliamentary committee with greater powers to investigate possible links between Sindona and leading government ministers and Christian Democrats. Tanner, “A Sindona Inquiry by Italian Parliament Gets Support,” B3.
61 “Banker Sindona’s Family Asks Help,” The Boston Globe, August 22, 1979, 16.
62 Nicholas Gage, “Sindona Photo Received; Kidnap Report Bolstered,” The New York Times, September 24, 1979, B1.
63 Ibid.; see also Paul Hoffman, “Sindona Lawyer Receives a Photo,” The New York Times, September 15, 1979, 22; “Photo of Sindona Reported,” The Boston Globe, September 15, 1979, 19.
64 DiFonzi, St. Peter’s Banker, 249.
65 “2 Suspects Arrested in Sicily,” The New York Times, October 18, 1979, A19; Tosches, Power on Earth, 199.
66 DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 256–57.
67 Ibid., 215–16, 221–22.
68 Joseph B. Treaster, “Sindona Enters a Hospital Here with a Wound,” The New York Times, October 17, 1979, A1.
69 “Sindona Account Blames ‘Leftists,’ ” The Boston Globe, October 21, 1979, 83; Selwyn Raab, “Sindona Gives Account of 10-Week Disappearance,” The New York Times, October 21, 1979, 1.
70 Joseph B. Treaster, “Sindona in U.S. Court, Recounts Abduction Ordeal,” The New York Times, October 25, 1979, A1.
71 DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 256–57.
72 Joseph B. Treaster, “Judge Orders Silence on the Sindona Case,” The New York Times, October 20, 1979, A1.
73 Paul Serafini, “How Federal Agents Discovered Sindona Was Not Kidnapped,” Associated Press, New York, A.M. cycle, April 3, 1980.
74 Raab, “Sindona Gives Account of 10-Week Disappearance”; see also Joseph B. Treaster, “Italian Suspect Said to Have Been in City at Time Sindona Vanished,” The New York Times, October 22, 1978, B3.
75 Serafini, “How Federal Agents Discovered Sindona Was Not Kidnapped”; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 45, 64–65.
76 Raw, The Moneychangers, 261.
77 Marjorie Hyer, “U.S. Catholic Budget Set,” The Washington Post, November 16, 1979, C1; Theodora Luriealso, “$20 Million in Debt, Says the Vatican in Its First-Ever Public Disclosure,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), November 10, 1979; correspondent Leslie Childe for The Telegraph, cited in Raw, The Moneychangers, 274.
78 Luriealso, “$20 Million in Debt, Says the Vatican in Its First-Ever Public Disclosure.” There was also speculation that John Paul II was considering streamlining the Curia—seemingly a favorite theme of every newly elected Pope since Pius XII—and that reform of the IOR might be in the offing. John Paul II did not tackle any change at the Vatican Bank. See generally Joseph McLellan, “The Vatican: John Paul II May Make the Bureaucracy That Runs the Church Change,” The Washington Post, October 7, 1979, 22.
79 Victor Simpson, Associated Press, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, November 9, 1979.
80 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 59–60.
81 Marcinkus set the meeting with Garner for the day after a Cisalpine board meeting in Geneva. Raw, The Moneychangers, 274–75.
82 Garner made several pages of written notes about the meeting five days later, on December 10. They are the basis for this brief reconstruction of what happened at their discussion. In 1985, Cisalpine’s liquidators sued Coopers & Lybrand, alleging it had been grossly negligent in its accounting. Coopers & Lybrand in turn countersued Marcinkus and the IOR, charging that Marcinkus had “by reason of misrepresentations made fraudulently or otherwise wrongfully” caused the accountants to rely on the wrong information. As part of its answer, the IOR did not admit that Garner’s version of the December 5 meeting was correct. But it also did not provide an alternative version. See generally Raw, The Moneychangers, 276.
83 Ibid., 279.
84 Ibid., 279–80.
85 The IOR had reduced the amount owed by Cisalpine by $90 million during 1978–79. As for the promissory notes bought by the IOR in 1980, they were issued by Andino and BAH. Raw, The Moneychangers, 279–80, 310.
86 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 193.
87 Tosches, Power on Earth, 217.
88 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 193; Tosches, Power on Earth, 217.
89 Raw, The Moneychangers, 279. Pope John Paul II had promoted Casaroli to the Secretary of State position on April 30, 1979.
90 Tosches, Power on Earth, 218.
91 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 46.
92 A few years later, author Nick Tosches wrote to Cardinal Guerri about Sindona. The cardinal wrote a reply: “I must attest that in all negotiations Avvocato Sindona behaved in an extremely correct manner and with the greatest fairness.” Tosches, Power on Earth, 218–19.
93 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 20, 22, 2013. Archbishop Celata did not respond to a request for an interview. Over half a dozen interviews with the author, Pazienza reiterated and expanded on much of the information he had provided to journalists in earlier years, especially his 1986 talk, while he was incarcerated in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center awaiting extradition to Italy, with author Charles Raw. See also Pazienza interviewed in Raw, The Moneychangers, 323.
In some published accounts, Santovito and Pazienza are described as relatives (see Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 180). “That is completely false,” Pazienza told the author. “Our families come from the same town in Italy, that’s all.” Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 20, 2013.
94 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 21, 2013.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Tosches, Power on Earth, 219.
98 Sindona actually left the U.S. on August 2, the day he was reported missing, on a TWA flight to Vienna, traveling as Bonamico. He was met by Masonic friends of Gelli, who drove him to Sicily. In 1985, Sindona proved himself a creative fabulist when he gave author Nick Tosches a convoluted explanation for the motive behind his fake kidnapping. According to Sindona, communists in Sicily had plotted to steal nuclear missiles from an American military base. Sindona told Tosches that “my reputation in the region was powerful enough to attract huge numbers of Sicilians.” Just by being there, he was certain he could assist Gelli’s Masons in thwarting the communist plot. See Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 14, n. 2; Tosches, Power on Earth, 203–9; DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 243–57.
99 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It, 163–74; see also statement made by Francesco Di Carlo at the hearing on October 30, 1996, of the Andreotti trial (Palermo Court, Judgment of October 23, 1999, cap. VI, § 1, p. 1910).
100 “Financier Indicted in Mafia Drug Investigation,” Associated Press, International News, Palermo, A.M. cycle, December 11, 1981.
101 DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 254–56.
102 Paul Serafini, “Financier’s Bail Revoked Before His Trial Begins,” Associated Press, Domestic News, New York, A.M. cycle, February 6, 1980.
103 Arnold H. Lubasch, “Ex-Associate Heard at Sindona’s Trial,” The New York Times, February 8, 1980, D3. In return for his testimony, Bordoni served only five months of a seven-year sentence at Danbury, Connecticut’s minimum-security camp. Allowed to remain free on bail while preparing to testify against Massimo Spada and others in Italy, he vanished. He was eventually run to ground and tried and convicted of financial crimes in Italy. See Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It.
104 “Govt. Set to Rest Case on Sindona with Charge of Faked Kidnapping,” The American Banker, March 6, 1980. Four and a half years after Sindona’s trial, the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey charged Rosario Gambino, a foot soldier in the Gambino crime family, with having facilitated Sindona’s fake kidnapping. That count was subsumed under heroin trafficking for which he was subsequently indicted and convicted.
105 Ann Crittenden, “Sindona Faces a Lifetime in Jail, Here and Abroad,” The New York Times, March 30, 1980, E6.
106 The original ninety-nine-count indictment had been replaced with a superseding indictment of sixty-nine counts on January 11, 1980. Sindona was found guilty of sixty-five counts. Arnold H. Lubasch, “Sindona Is Convicted by U.S. Jury of Fraud in Franklin Bank Failure,” The New York Times, March 28, 1980, A1; “Michele Sindona: Convicted,” The Economist, April 5, 1980, 78. See also Harry Anderson and Rich Thomas, “Inside the Vatican Bank,” Newsweek, September 13, 1982, 62.
107 Sindona interviewed in Tosches, Power on Earth, 229–30; DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 258.
108 “Sindona Back in Jail,” The New York Times, June 11, 1980, B5.
109 Lee A. Daniels, “Sindona Is Given a 25-Year Term, Fined $207,000,” The New York Times, June 14, 1980, 25. The U.S. Attorney indicted Sindona again on October 7, five months after his conviction of fraud for misappropriating millions from Franklin National. The new charges were for jumping bail and perjury related to his kidnapping fairy tale. He was convicted in April 1981, and two and a half years were added to his twenty-five-year Franklin sentence. See generally DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 258–59.
110 Hill had provided critical information to the FBI regarding the $6 million Lufthansa cargo heist at JFK Airport as well as about a mob ring that fixed college basketball games. Joseph P. Fried, “U.S. Bids to Send Sindona to Italy,” The New York Times, December 18, 1983, 49.
111 Ibid.; see also Gregg Hill, On the Run: A Mafia Childhood (New York: Warner, 2004).
112 DiFonzo, “Justifiable Homicide,” 32.
113 Hill independently told the FBI that Sindona, and his son, Nino, had invested in a food import company that was a front for importing heroin. Notwithstanding many suspicions, the FBI never developed enough evidence to prove Ace Pizza was a front for an illegal business.
114 Nino Sindona interviewed in DiFonzo, “Justifiable Homicide,” 33. DiFonzo wrote in his 1983 New York magazine article, “U.S. government sources say they expect that Nino Sindona will be arrested and charged with obstruction of justice and being an accessory after-the-fact.” Federal prosecutors, wrote DiFonzo, were confident that they could leverage Sindona with an indictment against his son. But Nino was never charged.
115 DiFonzo, “Justifiable Homicide,” New York Magazine.
116 “Italian Police Charge Sindona with Ordering Murder,” Associated Press, Milan, International News, A.M. cycle, July 17, 1981.
117 “Alleged Sindona Hit Man Dies in Escape Attempt,” Associated Press, New York, Domestic News, A.M. cycle, February 20, 1984.
118 Months before Arcio was to be extradited to Italy in 1984 to stand trial as the Ambrosoli gunman, he fell to his death while trying to escape from Manhattan’s Metropolitan Detention Center. Police claimed he fell five floors after cutting through the bars of his ninth-floor cell and then losing his grip on a makeshift rope cobbled together from bedsheets. “Alleged Sindona Hit Man Dies in Escape Attempt,” Associated Press.
As for Italian efforts behind the scenes to get Sindona brought back to Italy for trial, see generally Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the Case Sindona and Responsibilities both Political and Administrative related to it, VIII legislature, Doc No. XXIII, 2-series, Final Report of the majority, Report of Joseph Azzaro, Rome, March 24, 1982.
119 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 125–26; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 63.
120 “Police Arrest Two Suspected Accomplices of Michele Sindona,” International News, Rome, A.M cycle, Feburary 5, 1981.
121 “Vatican Banker Linked to Sindona Is Arrested,” The New York Times, February 6, 1981, A3; Raw, The Moneychangers, 316.
122 John Hooper, “Luigi Mennini: Shadow over the Vatican,” The Guardian, August 14, 1997, 14.
123 Forty days in jail according to Paul Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 195; Raw, The Moneychangers, 316; As for Mennini released without any charges, see “Vatican Banker to Stand Trial in Sindona Case,” International News, Rome, P.M. cycle, July 22, 1982.
124 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 64.
125 Gelli maintained an office at the Arezzo office of the textile firm, Giole, in Castiglion Fibocchi, Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 130.
126 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 51.
127 Rupert Cornwell, God’s Banker, 134.
128 Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 179; Craig Unger, “The War They Wanted, the Lies They Needed,” Vanity Fair, July 2006; see also Tosches, Power on Earth, 238.
129 Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 130, citing Massimo Teodori, Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul caso Sindona, Relazione di minoranza (Minority Report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the Case and Sindona Report), Rome, April 15, 1982, 550ss.
130 Warrant subsequently executed on Michele Sindona, cited in Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 67; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 134.
131 A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into P2 was established on September 23, 1981, and finished its work on July 12, 1984. Its final report was published as Dossier P2 in 2008 by Kaos Publishing in Milan.
132 See generally A. Barbieri, E. Scalfari, G.Turani, and N. Pagani, L’Italia della P2 (Milan: Mondadori Editore, 1981); Gianfranco Piazzesi, Gelli: La carriere di un eroe di questa Italia (Milan: Garzanti, 1983).
133 Vanni Nisticò quoted in L’Espresso, July 6, 1981, cited in Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 51. Father Lorenzo Zorza, a New York priest with whom the author spoke, was a close friend of Francesco Pazienza, an Italian intelligence agent and Calvi confidant. Zorza had seen and was familiar with the photo of the naked Pontiff. “It was obtained by Gelli,” Zorza told the author. “In part to show his power.” Interview with Father Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013.
134 Raw, The Moneychangers, 299, 320–21.
135 Ortolani was also a Catholic nobleman who once served as the Knights of Malta ambassador to Uruguay. The Grand Military Order of the Knights of Malta is a Catholic order and recognizes the Pope’s authority over all its members. It also has sovereign diplomatic relations with over one hundred countries, including, among others, Spain, Italy, Russia, Austria, Egypt, Brazil. The Knights of Malta has a fully accredited ambassador to the European Union. Since 1994 it is a permanent observer at the United Nations. Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected To It, 16. See also ww.orderofmalta.int
136 Philip Pullella, “Italian Government Collapses over Masonic Scandal,” UPI, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, May 26, 1981; see also Cornwell, God’s Banker, 46–47.
137 Louise Branson, “Italian Masonic Leader Arrested at Swiss Bank,” UPI, International News, Geneva, P.M. cycle, September 14, 1982; Tanner, “Italian Elite Embroiled in a Scandal.”
138 Also included on the list besides Marcinkus was an IOR monsignor, Donato de Bonis, and also Secretary of State Villot and Foreign Minister Casaroli. See Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 17; Willan, The Last Supper, 121; Raw, The Moneychangers, 145. As for Freemasonry inside the Vatican, Marcinkus said, “there is no such thing. Promise. I swear it.” Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 8b, 9a, provided to author courtesy of Willan. Pope John Paul II later eliminated excommunication as a punishment for being a Freemason, although technically membership remained incompatible with church dogma. See Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 26 and 29, n. 14.
139 Paddy Agnew, “Andreotti Verdict Welcomed by Right and the Vatican,” The Irish Times, October 25, 1999, 9.
1 Henry Tanner, “2 Bullets Hit Pontiff,” The New York Times, May 14, 1981, A1.
2 The Pope believed that the Virgin Mary had interceded to save him, part of what he later called a “divine call.” Hebblethwaite, Pope John Paul II and the Church, 94.
3 “Bulgaria and the Pope,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, transcript, January 5, 1983. The day after Ağca had killed the Turkish editor, he mailed letters to the dead man’s newspaper warning that if the Pope visited Turkey, he would kill the “Crusader Commander.” Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 115. See generally Paul Henze, The Plot to Kill the Pope (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983).
4 Wendy Owen, “Agca Wasn’t the Only One Who Said There Was a Plot,” Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, March 29, 1986.
5 “Bulgaria and the Pope,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.
6 Owen, “Agca Wasn’t the Only One Who Said There Was a Plot.” Two years later the Bulgarian government, still stinging from the charges it was behind the plot to kill the Pope, published a report that concluded it was highly likely that John Paul I had been poisoned in 1978. The Bulgarians said John Paul had been murdered by Vatican insiders intent on preventing him from overhauling the Curia. “Bulgaria Suggests John Paul I was Poisoned,” UPI, International News, A.M. cycle, Vienna, February 4, 1983.
7 “Bulgaria and the Pope,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.
8 Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 117–19, 127.
9 See Willan, The Last Supper, 279–81; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 331; Abdul Alim, “Khomeni himself asked me to kill the Pope,” The Muslim Times, February 2, 2013.
10 Vladimir Zhirinovsky quoted in “Russia’s Zhirinovskiy Tries to Justify Attempt on Polish Pope’s Life,” BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union—Political, Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, January 12, 2006; see also Matthew Day, “CIA ‘Framed Bulgaria’ for Shooting Pope John Paul II,” The Daily Telegraph, April 22, 2011, Edition 3, 20.
11 Victor L. Simpson, “Close Encounters with St. Peter’s Successors on Papal Plane and Behind Vatican’s Bronze Doors,” Postmedia Breaking News, Associated Press, February 27, 2013.
12 George Brodzki, “Strikers Reportedly Form Unified Committee,” International News, A.M. cycle, Gdańsk, Poland, Associated Press, August 17, 1980.
13 Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time (New York: Penguin, 1996), 231, 244–47. See generally Jack M. Bloom, “The Solidarity Revolution in Poland, 1980–1981,” The Oral History Review 33, no. 1 (Winter/Spring, 2006), published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oral History Association, 33–64; Gregory F. Domber, “The AFL-CIO, the Reagan Administration and Solidarność,” The Polish Review 52, no. 3 (2007), published by the University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America, 277–304.
14 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 406–7.
15 Owen, “Agca Wasn’t the Only One Who Said There Was a Plot”; “Bulgaria and the Pope,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.
16 Wojciech Adamiecki, the editor of the underground Solidarity newspapers, interviewed by Carl Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance,” Time, February 24, 1992. “We were told the Pope had warned the Soviets that if they entered Poland he would fly to Poland and stay with the Polish people. The church was of primary assistance.”
17 Agostino Bono, “Officials Say Pope, Reagan Shared Cold War Data, but Lacked Alliance,” Catholic News Service, November 17, 2004, 31.
18 Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, 267. The KGB was aware of the White House relationship with Krol. See generally Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 97–98.
19 Laghi always used a southwest gate so he could avoid reporters. “By keeping in such close touch, we did not cross lines. My role was primarily to facilitate meetings between Walters and the Holy Father. The Holy Father knew his people. It was a very complex situation.” Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance.”
20 Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, 269; see also Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 188, n. 6.
21 Author interview with Michael Hornblow, January 28, 2014.
22 Ibid.
23 Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 187.
24 Ronald Reagan interviewed in Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance.”
25 Author interview with William P. Clark, September 15, 2005. That same year, 1984, the Reagan administration announced at the World Conference on Population in Mexico City that it was reversing America’s many years of commitment to international family planning and withdrew funding from the United Nations Fund for Population Activities as well as the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The quid pro quo between the U.S. and the Vatican seemed to continue when Reagan introduced a new generation of more powerful cruise missiles into Europe, and the normally pacifist Papacy did not object. Domestically, the president had proposed tuition tax credits for private schools, introducing the idea in a speech before the National Catholic Educational Association. That led to decades of mostly unsuccessful court challenges by opponents who argued it violated the Constitution’s separation of church and state.
26 Richard Allen interviewed in Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance.”
27 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 237.
28 Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance.” According to Bernstein, “Lech Walesa and other leaders of Solidarity received strategic advice—often conveyed by priests or American and European labor experts working undercover in Poland—that reflected the thinking of the Vatican and the Reagan Administration.”
29 Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 177–79, citing a document in the Archive of the former East Germany Ministry for State Security [Stasi], 1083/81 BSTU Nr. 00008, translated from the Russian.
30 Ibid., citing a document in the Archive of the former East Germany Ministry for State Security [Stasi], HA XX/4-233 BSTU Nr. 000058.
31 Ibid., citing a document in the Archive of the former East Germany Ministry for State Security [Stasi], HA XX/4-8751 BSTU Nr. 000197.
32 “The information from the Vatican was sometimes better than we obtained,” recalls the State Department’s Hornblow: author interview with Michael Hornblow, January 28, 2014.
33 A month after martial law was imposed, General Jaruzelski said that the “counterrevolution was crushed.” But Brezhnev felt the imposition of martial law would ultimately “only ruin things.” Koehler, Spies in the Vatican, 203.
34 See generally Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance;” William A. Wilson Papers, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C. Also Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come, 359.
35 Laura Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” The Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1987, 1.
36 Galli, Finanza bianca, 84–85; see also Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 212. Marcinkus denied any higher ambitions. “None, whatsoever. . . . I don’t see any reason why they should make me a cardinal. Nobody has a right to be made a cardinal.” Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 11a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
37 Raw, The Moneychangers, 277–78.
38 Calvi quoted in Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 103; handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 8a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
39 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 2013. According to Pazienza, $3.5 million of the money came from the Vatican while $500,000 came from the Ambrosiano.
40 See generally Hebblethwaite, Pope John Paul II and the Church, “Pope Repudiates Liberation Theology,” 113-19, 264-65; Willey, God’s Politician, “Salvation Politics,” 113–37.
41 In Guatemala in May 1981, General Vernon Walters visited the country as goodwill ambassador-at-large for the Reagan administration. Walters was also representing a Luxembourg-based company, Basic Resources International SA (BRISA). British tycoon Sir James Goldsmith owned BRISA, and Antonio Tonello was a director. In addition to having executive positions in Calvi’s La Centrale and Toro Assicuranzioni, Tonello was a close associate of P2’s Licio Gelli. And Tonello was also a director of Cisalpine, serving with Marcinkus on the board. During Walters’s visit, the Guatemalan military government signed a multiyear oil export deal with BRISA. Some of that revenue passed through the Ambrosiano subsidiaries in which the IOR owned stakes. See generally Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 194; Lawrence Minard, “I Don’t Give a Damn What Anybody Says!,” Forbes, September 18, 1979, 41.
The money flow from the Vatican continued in 1980 despite the conviction of members of the right-wing Salvadoran army for murdering four Maryknoll sisters.
42 Francis Rooney, The Global Vatican: An Inside Look at the Catholic Church, World Politics, and the Extraordinary Relationship between the United States and the Holy See (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 268–70; Willey, God’s Politician, 191; “Vatican Blasts U.S.: Calls It ‘Occupying Power’ and Urges Noriega to Leave,” Los Angeles Times, December 29, 1989, 1.
43 “Marcinkus—Pope Is Not Commission’s Formal President,” UPI, International News, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, September 29, 1981; “American in Key Vatican Job,” The New York Times, September 30, 1981, A12.
44 “Marcinkus—Pope Is Not Commission’s Formal President,” UPI, International News, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, September 29, 1981; “Pope Names American Bishop as Top Vatican Manager,” Associated Press, International News, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, September 29, 1981; “American in Key Vatican Job,” The New York Times.
1 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 67. In April, while prosecutors assembled their case against Calvi, he tried rehabilitating his damaged reputation by making a successful bid to buy Rizzoli, one of Italy’s most prestigious publishing houses. Calvi managed to raise $200 million from investors because of Rizzoli’s sterling name, but he paid a significant premium for the shares, and an enormous commission. Investigators later concluded that the premium was in part a theft of funds from some of Calvi’s offshore banks. See generally Raw, The Moneychangers, 286–87, 290–91.
2 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 138; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 71.
3 “7 Arrested in Italy on Lire Outflow,” The New York Times, May 21, 1981, D14; “Italian Financiers Arrested over Alleged Illegal Funds Transfers,” Associated Press, Business News, Milan, A.M. cycle, May 20, 1981. As for currency regulation discussion, see generally Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Case of Sindona and Responsibilities and the Political and Administrative Connected to It, 110–11.
4 United Press International, Milan, Financial, BC cycle, May 29, 1981; the sell-off culminated in a 20 percent dip in the indexes on July 8, when the Treasury Ministry suspended stock trading to restore order. “Financier Attempts Suicide,” Associated Press, International News, Milan, P.M. cycle, July 8, 1981.
5 Paul Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” The New York Times, July 28, 1982, A1; “3 Named by Vatican to Study Bank Ties,” The New York Times, July 14, 1982, D1.
6 Author interviews with Carlo Calvi, September 27, 2005, and September 10, 2006.
7 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 123–24; see generally Benten E. Gup, Bank Failures in the Major Trading Countries of the World: Causes and Remedies (Westport, CT: Quorum, 1998), 31–33. In 1973, when Manic was founded in Luxembourg, the IOR subscribed to a $40 million bond issue from the new company (the money made available from a loan from the Ambrosiano to Manic). And the Vatican Bank bought control of Manic at the same time for a price listed in documents as only $5 million. In 1979, the IOR was repaid its $45 million, plus an agreed upon 10 percent interest. But it retained the physical shares of Manic, representing controlling ownership. After the entire web of companies collapsed, Marcinkus tried putting some distance between the IOR and the offshore subsidiaries. In a 1982 statement to an Italian parliamentary investigating committee, Marcinkus said that he only learned about the extent of the IOR’s ownership in Manic earlier that year, and proof of that was the failure of the IOR to receive a balance sheet after 1997. Few believed that to be true, since Manic had seven subsidiaries managed by the Nassau-based Cisalpine, of which Marcinkus was a director. One typewritten letter dated March 6, 1980, to Cisalpine, and signed simply “Manic S.A.,” is about “our various Panamanian subsidiaries which you are managing on our behalf.” That would not stop Marcinkus from later claiming, “These companies and stuff, I never even heard of them. . . . I say that with all honesty.” See generally Laura Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” The Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1987, 1; “Memo prepared by IOR’s lawyers re Laura Colby’s article,” reproduced in its entirety in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 354–58; Raw, The Moneychangers, 347–49; see also Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 132.
8 Raw, The Moneychangers, 352.
9 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 72–73.
10 Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 135–36.
11 Clara Calvi account recounted in Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 199; see also Cornwell, God’s Banker, 143; and Raw, The Moneychangers, 338.
12 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 69–70; see also Willan, The Last Supper, 147.
13 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 140; Tosches, Powers on Earth, 242–43; Raw, The Moneychangers, 322–23.
14 See generally, Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 216–17.
15 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 2013.
16 Tosches, Power on Earth, 236.
17 Ralph Blumenthal, “Italian Ex-Agent Ordered Extradited from U.S.,” The New York Times, September 12, 1985, A12.
18 Author interviews with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 20, and 21, 2013. See also Loren Jenkins, “Italian Judge Said to Drop Probe of Agca Being Coached,” The Washington Post, December 19, 1985, A31; “Rome Inquiry: Was Agca Coached?,” The New York Times, October 8, 1985, A3; Blumenthal, “Italian Ex-Agent Ordered Extradited from U.S.”
19 Author interviews with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 20, 21, 2013; Ralph Blumenthal, “Italian Ex-Agent Ordered Extradited From U.S.,” The New York Times, September 12, 1985, A12; Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 216–17; Tosches; Power on Earth, 242–43, 260–61.
20 Author interview with Carlo Calvi, September 10, 2006. Even the State Department, in some 350 pages of documents released pursuant to a Freedom of Information request, referred in contemporaneous documents to Pazienza as a “fixer.” Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 2013.
21 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 2013.
22 One of those Pazienza puts at the center of his efforts to sell the Ambrosiano was Roberto Armao, the president of a private Vatican lay foundation that raised donations from the faithful. Armao had worked for the Shah of Iran, and was close to David Rockefeller and senior executives at Chase Manhattan. Armao’s connections later fueled conspiracy theories tying the Ambrosiano to a much broader and more complicated global intelligence and business scheme. Author interviews with Francesco Pazienza, September 18 and 19, 2013. See generally Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 216. Also see Cornwell, God’s Banker, 170–73; and Raw, The Moneychangers, 323–25, 377–78, 382–84, 413.
23 Carlo Calvi recalled the bank as a branch of the elite private British bank Coutts. But documents in subsequent government investigations reveal that the senior Calvi kept about 1,500 pages of documents and journal entries at Roywest.
24 Author interview with Carlo Calvi, September 10, 2006.
25 Ibid.
26 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 18, 2013.
27 Author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 20, 2013; Raw, The Moneychangers, 339.
28 Raw, The Moneychangers, 352.
29 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 70. Cheli was himself somewhat controversial, having sent more than $100,000 of church money in donations to Palestine. It was Cheli who made the Pontifical Mission for Palestine a diplomatic priority for the Vatican, and behind the scenes at the United Nations he was known for his often biting criticism of Israel. See generally “Vatican Gives $10,000 to Refugees,” Associated Press, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, November 27, 1981.
30 “Report Archbishop Marcinkus Has Resigned,” United Press International, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, July 7, 1982.
31 Raw, The Moneychangers, 58.
32 Author interview with Father Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013. See “Association Between the Families of Victims, the Massacre at the Station of Bologna,” August 2, 1980, 5th Assize Court, Rome, http://www.uonna.it/bologna-strage-1980-sentenza.htm; author interview with Francesco Pazienza, September 19, 2013.
33 Zorza was “in residence” at St. Agnes, a situation in which a priest is on special assignment—as Zorza was with UN staff—and allowed to reside in a local parish without any pastoral duties. Author interview with Father Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013; William G. Blair, “Priest Arrested in Smuggling of Art Is Suspended from his U.N. Duties,” The New York Times, March 3, 1982, B3.
34 Author interviews with Carlo Calvi, September 27, 2005, and September 10, 2006.
35 Prior published accounts have reported that Zorza, Pazienza, and another Italian businessman had offered $4.5 million for a small island near Antigua, in the hope of creating their own state with an independent currency, a central bank, and liberal tax laws. But according to those reports, the deal fell through when Antigua refused to cede sovereignty over the island. See generally Rick Hampson and Larry McShane, “Accusations of Drug, Art Smuggling; Odyssey Takes Priest Outside Law, the Church,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1988, Part 2, 7. However, Father Zorza told this author that he was not involved with Pazienza’s deal for a sovereign state. Zorza claims that the Knights of Malta were behind Pazienza’s attempt to create a tiny nation from an island belonging to Belize, not Antigua. The price, several million dollars’ worth of construction equipment required by Belize to build roads, was never delivered and the deal was not completed. Author interview with Father Zorza, September 6, 2013. As for Zorza’s claim about his Ambrosiano application for a $5 million loan, and the required 50 percent kickback of the principal, it is from a ten-page undated document titled, “Subject: My Life: Some explanations . . .” written by Father Zorza, and provided to the author on September 6, 2013.
36 William G. Blair, “Priest Arrested in Smuggling of Art Is Suspended from his U.N. Duties,” The New York Times, March 3, 1982, B3; “Priest Held in Theft,” The New York Times, August 21, 1987, A8; Ralph Blumenthal, “U.S. and Italy Join in Breaking a Vast Drug Ring,” The New York Times, April 1, 1988, A1; “Priest Arrested in Italy On U.S. Drug Charges,” The New York Times, April 7, 1998; Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come, 324; Assorted author email and interviews with Father Zorza, 2013 and 2014.
37 Author interviews with Carlo Calvi, September 10, 2006; and Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013.
38 Author interviews with Carlo Calvi, September 27, 2005, and September 10, 2006.
39 Author interview with Carlo Calvi, September 10, 2006.
40 “Financier on Trial Dies,” Associated Press, International News, Milan, A.M. cycle, June 15, 1981; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 143–44.
41 Raw, The Moneychangers, 345–46.
42 “Financier Attempts Suicide,” Associated Press, International News, Milan, P.M. cycle, July 8, 1981; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 145.
43 “Financier Attempts Suicide,” Associated Press; as for the warden, see Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 75.
44 Author interview with Carlo Calvi, September 10, 2006.
45 Raw, The Moneychangers, 349–50.
46 Ibid., 355.
47 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 145.
48 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 76.
49 Willan, The Last Supper, 58–59.
50 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 148–49; Raw, The Moneychangers, 353.
51 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 134.
52 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 79.
53 Raw, The Moneychangers, 353.
54 Viviane Hewitt, “Lawmen: Mobster May Help Destroy Mafia for First Time Since Middle Ages, Italians Speak of Ending Mob Rule,” The Miami Herald, October 7, 1984, 1. Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 80.
55 Raw, The Moneychangers, 264, 266.
56 Ibid., 197–98. The IOR at this point had $205 million at stake, all with no collateral other than Calvi’s promise to make good on the debt.
57 Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 133.
58 Calvi was with Pazienza, meeting and entertaining potential investors for the Ambrosiano. Raw, The Moneychangers, 355, 358.
59 The companies were those at the heart of the Ambrosiano-Vatican business relationship. They were from Panama (Astolfine, Bellatrix, Belrosa, Erin, Laramie, Starfield, United Trading, and Worldwide Trading), Liechtenstein (Nordeurop), and Luxembourg (Manic). Money was shuffled between them at sometimes dizzying speeds. In the spring of 1980, for instance, Nordeurop owed nothing to the Ambrosiano. By September Nordeurop’s debts to the Ambrosiano were $400 million. Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” 1.
The companies later proved a mystery to most reporters, who were unfamiliar with them. The New York Times said of the companies: “Most of this money was then lent to a series of Panamanian companies with names such as Bellatrix Inc., Manic Inc., and Astrolfine Inc., most of which are thought to have no more than mail addresses.” Paul Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” The New York Times, July 28, 1982, A1. The stationery on which the letters of patronage were written was headed Istituto per le Opere di Religione, Città del Vaticano. See also Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 83.
60 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 151; Raw, The Moneychangers, 358.
61 As for Alessandro Mennini’s influence at the Ambrosiano, see generally Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 69; see also author interview with Father Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013.
62 Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” 1; Raw, The Moneychangers, 358.
63 De Strobel had also reviewed the Gottardo numbers on July 3 in Lugano, so he knew the numbers on the attachment to the patronage letters were wrong. When de Strobel and Mennini signed the patronage letters, they also initialed each of the eight pages of the balance sheet attachments. Raw, The Moneychangers, 358, 361, 367; also Willan, The Last Supper, 191.
64 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 83.
65 The IOR had the contractual right to call its loans due at any time on fifteen days’ notice. But Marcinkus knew Calvi did not have the money to repay the church, so it would only cause a creditors’ crisis. Raw, The Moneychangers, 363–65.
66 Raw, The Moneychangers, 359; Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 136. The indemnity letter also extended the Vatican’s exit to four companies not listed in the patronage letters; these were Inparfin, Intermax, Suprafin, and Intermax. See also Assize Court of Rome, 6 June 2007, Calõ + 4, cit., 22; referring to April 22, 1998, interview with Orazio Bagnasco by the magistrate.
67 Calvi gave the patronage letters to the Banca del Gottardo and the Ambrosiano Services holding company, among others. Harry Anderson, Rich Thomas, and Hope Lamfert, “Inside the Vatican Bank,” Newsweek, September 13, 1982, 62; Raw, The Moneychangers, 372–73.
68 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 133. Even when Marcinkus’s staunchest defenders acknowledge those facts they still invariably excuse him. Typical is Pope John Paul II’s biographer, George Weigel: “It looked to some like fraud, but to those who knew Marcinkus, it was indicative of his naïveté.” Weigel, Witness to Hope, 747.
69 Sindona interviewed in Tosches, Power on Earth, 247–48.
70 Calvi eventually sent more than $8.8 million to Pazienza-controlled accounts at two of the ghost companies, Realfin and Finanzco. Some of that was traced later to Carboni, who evidently used it mostly to buy cars and jewelry. Pazienza spent $2.5 million on two yachts.
71 Galli, Finanza bianca, 85–86.
72 Italian investigators concluded that the patronage letters were prima facie evidence of high-level collusion between Calvi and Marcinkus. See Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” 1. As for the October 26, 1981, letters, signed by de Strobel and Mennini, they are cited in Raw, The Moneychangers, 373–74. (The Wall Street Journal reported the power of attorney letter as being dated October 16.)
73 “Memo prepared by IOR’s lawyers re Laura Colby’s article,” reproduced in its entirety in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 354–58.
74 It was Marcinkus’s nineteenth board meeting for Cisalpine since becoming a director in 1971.
75 Henry Kamm, “Pope Vows to Assist Bank Study,” The New York Times, November 27, 1982, 35.
76 George Cornell, “Church Plans to Open Books on Troubled Vatican Finances,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), September 19, 1981.
77 Benny Lai interview of Cardinal Palazzini, in Lai, Finanze vaticane, 141.
78 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 58–59.
79 Paul Lewis, “Sharing Ambrosiano’s Losses,” The New York Times, December 18, 1982, 35.
80 Assize Court of Rome, 6 June 2007, cit., 4; Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona, 137. Carboni was also partners with Italy’s future three-time Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who then owned a television station and had wide-ranging real estate interests. They shared the same grand villa, Villa Certosa, on Sardinia’s northern coast. See generally Philip Willan, The Vatican at War: From Blackfriars Bridge to Buenos Aires (iUniverse LLC: Bloomington, IN, 2013), Kindle edition, locations 5132, 5080 of 6371.
81 Raw, The Moneychangers, 356–57; Willan, The Last Supper, 184.
82 Calvi knew, for instance, that Carboni was close to Giovanni Spadolini, head of the Republican Party and the current Prime Minister. Calvi overlooked, as did Carboni’s other political acquaintances, that the Sardinian was also friends with the mobster Domenico Balducci.
83 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 174–75.
84 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 85–86.
85 “Carlo de Benedetti; Yesterday Italy, Today Europe, Tomorrow the World?,” The Economist, February 22, 1986, 70 (U.S. edition, p. 68).
86 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 153–54; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 87–91.
87 Galli, Finanza bianca, 85.
88 Author interview with Carlo Calvi, September 10, 2006.
89 Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” A1. See also Cornwell, God’s Banker, 155–62.
90 “Banco Ambrosiano: Exit de Benedetti,” The Economist, January 30, 1982, 83 (U.S. edition, p. 77); Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 91. Eleven years later, in 1992, De Benedetti was convicted of a fraud in the Ambrosiano’s collapse. He had been the bank’s deputy chairman for only sixty-five days. An appeals court upheld the conviction in 1996, but in 1998 the equivalent of the Italian Supreme Court reversed it. Alan Riding, “Olivetti’s Chief Convicted in Collapse of Bank in 1982,” The New York Times, April 17, 1982; “High Court Overturns Conviction of Olivetti Chairman in Bank Collapse,” Associated Press, Business News, Rome, April 22, 1998; Raw, The Moneychangers, 380–82, 388–91.
91 Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” 1. The unidentified official in Colby’s article was later identified by Benedetti as Cardinal Casaroli. Calvi and De Benedetti turned to the media to spin their own versions of who was to blame for the fast divorce. “Why I Married De Benedetti” was Calvi’s take in L’Espresso in December 1981. De Benedetti followed three months later with “My 65 Days with Calvi” in Italy’s Panorama.
92 Raw, The Moneychangers, 385.
93 “Banco Ambrosiano; Calvinism,” The Economist, June 19, 1982, 103 (U.S. edition, p. 93); Raw, The Moneychangers, 392–93; see also Galli, Finanza bianca, 85.
94 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 163.
95 Typical was the Financial Times: “Banco Ambrosiano Is Doing Fine.” Raw, The Moneychangers, 402. See also Gurwin. The Calvi Affair, 93.
96 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 168–69.
97 Gurwin. The Calvi Affair, 93.
98 Ibid., 79.
99 Calvi quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 408.
100 Anna Calvi gave this statement in a sworn deposition before the Court of Assizes of Rome, Assize Court of Rome, 6 June 2007, cit. 86.
101 Raw, The Moneychangers, 403.
102 “Banco Ambrosiano; Liquidated,” The Economist, August 28, 1982, 59 (U.S. edition, p. 61); see also Cornwell, God’s Banker, 175; and Raw, The Moneychangers, 403–4.
103 Author’s written inquiries to Vatican Press Office, 2006.
104 Calvi quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 403.
105 “Banco Ambrosiano; Liquidated,” The Economist, 59 (U.S. edition, p. 61).
106 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 170.
107 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 102.
108 Letter, Calvi to Palazzini, quoted in Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona,139–40.
109 Carboni interviewed in Raw, The Moneychangers, 400.
110 Raw, The Moneychangers, 389.
111 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 103.
112 Raw, The Moneychangers, 406.
113 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 214, 230–31, 270; see also Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona,139.
114 Willan, The Last Supper, 46–48; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 177. For his long-shot deal with Opus Dei, Calvi likely relied on his business and personal connections at Madrid’s Banco Occidental. Gregorio de Diego, that bank’s owner, and most of its top executives, were Opus Dei members. Calvi had done business with the bank since the mid-1970s. Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come, 264-66, 282-84.
115 Letters, possibly forged, found after Calvi’s death are cited sometimes to show that the troubled financier was in touch with Opus Dei through Carboni and Monsignor Hilary Franco, who held the honorary title of Prelate of the Pope. Franco’s name was on a scrap of paper, along with several others, found in one of Calvi’s suit pockets when his corpse was recovered under Blackfriars Bridge. Monsignor Franco was charged in 1986 over the illegal currency export of $13.2 million. In his defense, he said that his three co-conspirators were generous contributors to church charities and that he believed in their “good and pious intentions.” Franco was acquitted. Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 215–16; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 102–3; Raw, The Moneychangers, 406, 421; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 198.
116 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 127–29, 166; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 100–101; Raw, The Moneychangers, 386–87.
117 Raw, The Moneychangers, 410.
118 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 105; Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 197–98, 218.
119 Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” A1; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 180.
120 Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” A1; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 179; Raw, The Moneychangers, 408.
121 Richard Owen, “Plea to Pope from ‘God’s Banker’ Revealed as Murder Trial Begins,” The Times (London), October 6, 2005.
122 Andrea Perry, Mark Watts, and Elena Cosentino, “Help Me. Murdered Banker Calvi’s Last Desperate Plea to the Pope,” Sunday Express (London), April 16, 2006, 39.
123 Owen, “Plea to Pope from ‘God’s Banker’ Revealed as Murder Trial Begins.”
124 For a full copy of the June 5, 1982, letter, see Simoni and Turone, Il caffè di Sindona,141–43.
125 Raw, The Moneychangers, 410–11.
126 Ibid., 419, 440; Cornwell, in God’s Banker, 185–86, has Calvi calling Luigi Mennini within forty-eight hours, but in fact it was two of Calvi’s Rome attorneys who got the call.
127 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 108. Calvi was anything but calm. On June 5, Luciano Rossi, a lieutenant colonel in a special criminal financial investigative unit was found shot to death in his Rome office. Rossi had been at the center of a probe into law enforcement corruption relating to P2 and some offshore Licio Gelli accounts. The death was listed as suicide, even though there was no note and some conflicting forensics evidence. Calvi was convinced that Rossi had been murdered, the same as he believed another financial inspector, Lieutenant Colonel Salvatore Florio, had been killed in a single car accident a couple of years earlier. See generally Charles Ridley, “Colonel Linked to Scandal Commits Suicide,” United Press International, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, June 5, 1981.
128 According to Father Lorenzo Zorza, Pazienza helped obtain the passport through the Knights of Malta. “Back then,” Zorza told me, “a Knights of Malta passport was good for entry into England.” Author interview with Father Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013.
129 Raw, The Moneychangers, 424.
130 The loans totaled 123,965,000 Swiss francs, then trading at 2.03 to the dollar.
131 Raw, The Moneychangers, 424.
132 Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 7a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
133 See generally Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 201–2.
134 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 61.
135 Ibid., 64.
136 Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 9a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.
137 Willan, The Last Supper, 247-48; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 188.
138 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 109–10, 171; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 188.
139 Raw, The Moneychangers, 430–31.
140 Rosone quoted in Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 110.
141 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 188.
142 Leemans and Marcinkus quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 436–37; see also Cornwell, God’s Banker, 189; and Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 119–20.
143 Some journalists report it as fifth floor window. Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 199.
144 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 191; “Italy Banker Linked to Scandal Found Hanged,” Miami Herald, June 20, 1982, A6. In some published accounts, the note is quoted as saying, “Curse him for all the wrong he is doing to all of us from the bank and the group of whose image we were once so proud.” See generally Mark S. Smith, untitled, Associated Press, International News, London, A.M. cycle, June 19, 1982.
145 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 186.
146 Author interview with Father Lorenzo Zorza, September 6, 2013.
147 Sindona was certain Calvi had been murdered: “Calvi’s death was certainly not suicide . . . he was terrified of heights. He would never have climbed over a bridge on the high scaffolding. . . . Calvi was murdered, and those who killed him made it appear to be some sort of ritual Masonic execution.” Sindona interviewed in Tosches, Power on Earth, 245.
1 Michael Sheridan, “Loss of Face—and Funds—Worries Church,” Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1982, A5.
2 “Archbishop Quit Bank, Paper Says,” The Miami Herald, July 8, 1982, A2, cited in Cornwell, God’s Banker, 207.
3 Clara Calvi, the banker’s wife, was outspoken, offering her testimony to the parliamentary investigating committee as well as the prosecutors looking into the Ambrosiano’s collapse. “I could be very upset about what she has said,” Marcinkus later told author John Cornwell. “She called me all kinds of names and accused me of a lot of things. That’s something she’ll have to answer for, not me.” Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 132.
4 Beniamino Andreatta quoted in “Italian Bank Probe Faces Wall of Silence,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), July 24, 1982; Daniela Iacono, “Official Links Vatican to Scandal-Ridden Bank,” United Press International, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, July 3, 1982; Kay Withers, “Marcinkus Says He’ll Stay, Denies Tie to Bank Scandal,” Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1982, 1.
5 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 210.
6 Beniamino Andreatta quoted in John Winn Miller, “Says Pope Should Order Bank Liable for $1.2 Billion,” Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, October 8, 1982. The Treasury Ministry was also furiously trying to determine how much the IOR owned of the Ambrosiano. The Vatican said it was 1.58 percent, but some press reports put the share much higher, at 16 percent. See “Special Commission to Probe Dealings of Vatican Bank,” United Press International, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, December 24, 1982. Calvi’s son, Carlo, claimed that with a 16 percent share, the Vatican was the effective owner of the Ambrosiano. See Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 172. Investigators had difficulty determining an accurate number because the Vatican Bank likely held some of its shares through Calvi’s offshore proxies, accounts to which Italian investigators could not get access. There was evidence suggesting that the IOR controlled an additional 7.5 percent of the Ambrosiano through its Luxembourg holding company, Manic.
Marcinkus had no incentive to reveal that the church had a larger stake in the parent company under attack for improper and illegal behavior. He knew that any equity stake, whether 2 percent or16 percent, would be worthless once Italian regulators dissolved the bank. Vatican attorneys later admitted that the shell companies “had de facto control” of the Ambrosiano, but emphasized that the shells “were never owned by the IOR.” See generally Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” 1; and “Memo prepared by IOR’s lawyers re Laura Colby’s article,” reproduced in its entirety in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 354–58.
7 They were Giovanni Arduino and Antonio Occhiuto, two veteran bankers.
8 “Italian Bank Probe Faces Wall of Silence,” The Globe and Mail (Canada); Cornwell, God’s Banker, 208–9.
9 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 208–9.
10 Sheridan, “Loss of Face—and Funds—Worries Church,” A5.
11 Franco Calamandrei quoted in “Financier Linked to Arms Deal,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), July 8, 1982. This story developed into one in which MI6, British secret service, had targeted the Ambrosiano because Calvi’s bank financed Argentine purchases of $200 million to buy Exocet missiles during the Falklands War between the two countries. Although a handful of ex-intelligence agents made some sensational claims, there was ultimately no hard proof that the Ambrosiano played such a role. When Marcinkus was asked about whether some of the money from the IOR-Ambrosiano ventures ended up in Argentine deals, he said, “I never saw it.” See generally Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” A1; Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 207; Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 134.
12 “Vatican Bank’s Head Is Reported Resigning,” The New York Times, July 8, 1982, A4; “Report Archbishop Marcinkus Has Resigned,” United Press International, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, July 7, 1982.
13 Withers, “Marcinkus Says He’ll Stay, Denies Tie to Bank Scandal,” 1; “Vatican City Bank Chief’s Job on Line,” Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1982, 1; “Report Archbishop Marcinkus Has Resigned,” United Press International. When reporters called Father Romeo Panciroli, the Vatican’s press spokesman, and asked if Marcinkus was about to become a cardinal, he offered no comment. John Winn Miller, Untitled, Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, July 7, 1982.
14 “Archbishop Quit Bank, Paper Says,” The Miami Herald, A2; Kay Withers, “Marcinkus Says He’ll Stay, Denies Tie to Bank Scandal,” Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1982, 1.
15 Hornblow returned to the Vatican for six months of additional service in 1989.
16 Author interview with Michael Hornblow, January 28, 2014.
17 “Pope Reportedly Asked to Remove Marcinkus,” Chicago Tribune, July 9, 1982, 8, citing The Daily American, reporting from Rome.
18 Marcinkus interviewed in Withers, “Marcinkus Says He’ll Stay, Denies Tie to Bank Scandal.”
19 “Marcinkus Link Seen in Choice of Bernardin,” Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1982, A5.
20 Marcinkus quoted in “Marcinkus Vows to See Scandal ‘Through to End,’ ” United Press International, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, November 27, 1982.
21 “Banco Ambrosiano; Enter God’s Sleuths,” The Economist, July 17, 1982, 76 (U.S. edition, p. 80); Paul Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” The New York Times, July 28, 1982, A1.
22 John Winn Miller, “Under Pressure, Vatican Calls in Bank Consultants,” Associated Press, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, July 13, 1982.
23 “3 Named by Vatican to Study Bank Ties,” The New York Times, July 14, 1982, D1. Cerutti had been a financial advisor to every Pope since Pius XII: Cornwell, God’s Banker, 209.
24 “Some Italian bankers and officials feel that, with the exception of Mr. de Wech [sic], the commission is an ineffective group that may not make much of an impact on the Vatican’s ponderous administrative machinery”: Lewis, “Italy’s Mysterious, Deepening Bank Scandal,” A1.
25 Miller, “Under Pressure, Vatican Calls in Bank Consultants.”
26 Untitled from LexisNexis, The Wall Street Journal, July 16, 1982, 20.
27 Paul Lewis, “Italy Bank’s Subsidiary Defaults,” The New York Times, July 17, 1982, 25.
28 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 210.
29 Robert Trigaux, “The Ambrosiano Affair: ‘Gang of 88’ Wants Its Money Back,” The American Banker, July 12, 1983.
30 “Italy liquidates Ailing Banco Ambrosiano,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), August 10, 1982.
31 “Rome Suicide Widens Freemason Scandal,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), June 6, 1981.
32 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 136.
33 “Vatican Banker to Stand Trial in Sindona Case,” United Press International, International News, Milan, July 22, 1982; Tosches, Power on Earth, 246.
34 Since Mennini had refused to return for the trial, he was convicted in absentia. Mennini’s attorneys appealed, which forestalled any immediate crisis between the church and Italy.
35 Hebblethwaite, Pope John Paul II and the Church, 108–9.
36 The notice was not a subpoena. Still it caused concern inside the IOR. “Says Italy Investigating American Archbishop,” Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, July 29, 1982; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 225.
37 As for Wilson’s devout faith, author interview with Michael Hornblow, January 28, 2014.
38 See Substitution of Co-Trustees, June 11, 1985, William A. Wilson Papers, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
39 Wilson had been the president’s personal envoy at the Vatican since February 1981, before the mission was upgraded to an ambassador’s post with full diplomatic recognition of the Holy See. Author interview with Peter K. Murphy, Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) at the embassy, 1984–89, January 31, 2014. The Vatican embassy consisted of only three consular officers: the ambassador, the DCM, and a political officer. It also employed three full-time secretaries, and relied on support from the much larger American embassy in Rome. See also the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Peter K. Murphy, interviewed by William D. Morgan, Initial Interview Date, April 4, 1998, Copyright 1998 ADST, 84–85.
40 Letter, William Wilson to Robert H. McBride, July 30, 1982, Box 1, Series 2, Correspondence 1982, William A. Wilson Papers, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
41 Author interview with Michael Hornblow, January 28, 2014.
42 Cable from Michael Hornblow, U.S. Embassy, Rome, to Secretary of State, Washington, DC, Secret, Section 01, October 1, 1980, part of the Department of State Freedom of Information request by the author. Also see the collected 1982–84 correspondence of William A. Wilson, William A. Wilson Papers, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, D.C.
43 Cable from Michael Hornblow, U.S. Embassy, Rome, to Secretary of State, Washington, DC, Secret, Section 01, October 1, 1980, part of the Department of State Freedom of Information request by the author.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., point 8.
46 Author interview with Peter K. Murphy, Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy, 1984–89, January 31, 2014.
47 See generally letter, William Wilson to Robert H. McBride, July 30, 1982, Box 1, Series 2, Correspondence 1982, William A. Wilson Papers, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC.
48 Richard Hammer, The Vatican Connection: The Astonishing Account of a Billion-Dollar Counterfeit Stock Deal Between the Mafia and the Church (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982).
49 Letter from William Wilson to William French Smith, July 15, 1982, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Letter from John G. Roberts Jr. to William A. Wilson, August 9, 1982, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC.
53 Robert Wagner to Stanley Frank, August 20, 1982, Correspondence Files, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC.
54 Letter from William A. Wilson to His Excellency, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, August 12, 1982, William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC. The letter from Roberts was time-stamped as received by Wilson on August 11; hence Wilson was writing to Marcinkus only a day later.
55 Ibid.
56 In an August 30 letter from Marcinkus to Wilson, the archbishop indicated he had spoken to Wagner and his aides and “it seems that there is very little we really can do without getting involved in a long process of litigation.” William A. Wilson Papers, Box 2, Folder 66, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC
57 Susan Dentzer and Hope Lambert, “A Book of Revelations,” Newsweek, September 13, 1982, 69.
58 Letter, William Wilson to Robert H. McBride, July 30, 1982, Box 1, Series 2, Correspondence 1982, William A. Wilson Papers, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Washington, DC.
1 Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 162.
2 Louise Branson, “Italian Masonic Leader Arrested at Swiss Bank,” United Press International, International News, Geneva, P.M. cycle, September 14, 1982; “Gelli Deported Back to Italy,” BBC News, October 16, 1998.
3 Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 209; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 165–66; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 239–40; DiFonzo, St. Peter’s Banker, 259.
4 Henry Kamm, “Pope Vows to Assist Bank Study,” The New York Times, November 27, 1982, 35.
5 Henry Kamm, “Cardinals Discuss Tie to Bank,” The New York Times, November 26, 1982, 25; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 170.
6 Gurwin, ibid., 170–71; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 213–14.
7 Marcinkus quoted in Cornwell, God’s Banker, 233.
8 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 66, in particular Lai interview with Cardinal Giuseppe Caprio, December 4, 1982, 135.
9 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 204.
10 See Laura Colby, “Vatican Bank Played a Central Role in Fall of Banco Ambrosiano,” Wall Street Journal, April 27, 1987, 1.
11 Untitled, Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, December 5, 1982; Raw, The Moneychangers, 34–49.
12 Clara Calvi quoted in Willey, God’s Politician, 213–14; “Bank President’s Wife Says Husband Killed, Not Suicide,” International News, A.M. cycle, Turin, United Press International, October 7, 1982; Untitled, dateline Rome, International News, A.M. cycle, Associated Press, December 5, 1982 (referring to Clara mistakenly as Carla).
13 “Special Commission to Probe Dealings of Vatican Bank,” United Press International, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, December 24, 1982.
14 Joan Goulding, “Jewish Groups Protest Sparks Vatican Probe,” United Press International, Domestic News, Los Angeles, BC cycle, January 5, 1983.
15 “Vatican Said Investigating Banker’s Alleged Ties to Nazis,” Associated Press, Domestic News, Los Angeles, P.M. cycle, January 6, 1983.
16 Jay Arnold, “Jews Ask Pope to Rescind Appointment of Alleged Nazi Collaborator,” Associated Press, Domestic News, Los Angeles, A.M. cycle, December 29, 1982.
17 “Vatican Said Investigating Banker’s Alleged Ties to Nazis,” Associated Press.
18 Pawlikowski quoted in Joan Goulding, “Catholic Theologian Calls for Probe of Papal Appointee,” United Press International, Domestic News, Los Angeles, A.M. cycle, January 7, 1983.
19 The company was Deutsche Solvay-Werke A.G., a Belgian conglomerate controlled by the Nazis after Belgium fell to German troops in 1940. “Records Show Papal Appointee Helped Run Nazi Camp Where Pope Worked,” United Press International, Domestic News, Los Angeles, P.M. cycle, January 11, 1983. Author Charles Higham added to the pressure by calling Abs “Hitler’s Banker.” In his 1983 book (Trading with the Enemy), about how Allied and German companies clandestinely did business throughout the war, he contended that Abs was part of “Hitler’s immediate circle” (p. 240).
20 John Paul quoted in “Pope Cautions Faithful Against News Reports,” Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, February 27, 1983.
21 Author interview with Rabbi Marvin Heir, June 24, 2006.
22 Sergio Itzhak Minerbi, “Pope John Paul II and the Jews: An Evaluation,” Jewish Political Studies Review 18: 1, 2 (Spring 2006).
23 Heir quoted in Untitled, United Press International, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, April 25, 1983.
24 Michael Day, “Vatican Turns to Fox News Man Greg Burke for Image Makeover,” The Independent (London), June 25, 2012.
1 “Red Hats for Six Continents,” Time, January 17, 1983.
2 In keeping with the shift since Pope Paul VI to reduce the influence of Italians in the College of Cardinal, only three of the eighteen new appointees were Italian. “Pontiff Names Bernardin and Glemp Cardinals,” Chicago Tribune, January 6, 1983, 1; “Josef Glemp Is Among 18 New Cardinals,” The Boston Globe, January 5, 1983, 1; see also Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 206.
3 “Pontiff Names Bernardin and Glemp Cardinals,” Chicago Tribune, 1.
4 “Answers to Quiz,” The New York Times, January 8, 1983, 12; see Henry Kamm, “Inside the College of Cardinals,” The New York Times, January 9, 1983: “Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus, the head of the Vatican Bank, did not receive the accolade that before the bank scandal was assumed to be a certainty.” And “18 Become Cardinals Today: Family and Friends Gather in Vatican City for Ceremonies,” The Boston Globe, February 2, 1983, 1: “Archbishop Marcinkus had been expected to be named a cardinal but was not.”
5 Henry Kamm, “Vatican-Italy Study Set on Ambrosiano Links,” The New York Times, December 25, 1982, 29; see also Nancy Frazier, “Vatican, Italy Form Ambrosiano Commission,” Catholic Courier Journal (New York), January 5, 1983, 18. Charles Raw says that all three Vatican appointees were lawyers. The Moneychangers, 47.
6 Raw, The Moneychangers, 43, 47. See formation order of the commission in Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 19.
7 “Vatican Pact Reported on Banco Ambrosiano,” The New York Times, May 11, 1984, D1.
8 The long-standing rule for a full Papal indulgence for Jubilees was a requirement that a Catholic visit Rome’s four basilicas fifteen times during a single year. Romans had to make thirty visits. John Paul lowered the bar, requiring only that each of the basilicas be visited once. That ensured that millions would travel to Rome for the easier-to-target indulgence.
9 Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 19.
10 Boniface VIII called the first Holy Year in 1300, and subsequent ones were held every fifty years. But by 1425, they were so popular and lucrative that they were scheduled every twenty-five years. John Paul cited the crucifixion of Jesus as the reason to mark the 1950th anniversary of his death and resurrection. James L. Franklin, “Unusual Holy Years Starts This Weekend,” The Boston Globe, March 27, 1983, 1; see also Sari Gilbert, “Rome Expects Millions for the Holy Year,” The Boston Globe, February 27, 1983, 1; Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 176–77.
11 It was a seven-year (1973–80) gasoline-tax-evasion scheme, involving Italian customs agents conspiring with oil company employees who shuffled customs documents that passed off premium fuel as lower-taxed heating oil. “Petroleum Scandal Touches Vatican Bank Official,” Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, February 10, 1983; see also “3 Priests Implicated in Rome Tax Scandal,” The New York Times, February 11, 1983; and “Vatican Bank Officials Linked to a Major Financial Scandal,” The New York Times, February 3, 1983, A17. See generally John Winn Miller, “Career of Once Powerful American Prelate in Decline,” Associated Press, International News, Vatican City, BC cycle, August 26, 1984. Prosecutors notified two other priests, Monsignor Mario Pimpo, secretary for the confidential affairs of the Vicariate of Rome, and a Roman parish priest, Giacomo Ceretto, they were also under investigation.
12 See generally Untitled, The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 1983, 21.
13 See generally Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come, 290.
14 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 87.
15 Massimo Spada, who had spent decades at the bank, said De Bonis had avoided being a target in the Ambrosiano case because he “had only been a clerk then.” Benny Lai interview of Massimo Spada, January 14, 1998, and June 7, 1989, in Lai, Finanze vaticane, 145; and see also Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 62, citing Giancarlo Zizola,“Banchiere di san Francescon,” Panorama.
16 Raw, The Moneychangers, 62, 126, 134.
17 John Corry, “TV Reviews Based on Early Tapes,” The New York Times, February 16, 1983, C31.
18 Raw, The Moneychangers, 42.
19 “New Inquest Set in Calvi’s Death,” The New York Times, March 30, 1983, D5.
20 Raw, The Moneychangers, 9.
21 Ibid., 42–43.
22 In its published final report, the joint commission stated simply that the three men had been “unavailable for interview.” An independent magistrate, Antonio Pizzi, who investigated the IOR’s role in the Ambrosiano collapse, later complained to the press, “They have always refused to be questioned in the case.” The Italian Court of Cassation, which handles issues of legal procedure, upheld the right of Pizzi to investigate the Vatican officials, but no one could force them to make themselves available for questioning. “Arrest Warrant Issued for Marcinkus in Bank Collapse,” Associated Press, International News, Milan, A.M. cycle, February 25, 1987.
23 Some resorted to arguing their case in the press, such as when Cologne’s Cardinal Joseph Höffner took a not so subtle swipe at Marcinkus by telling reporters that he favored only “competent” financial laymen to run the Vatican Bank. “Shift Is Urged at Vatican Bank,” The New York Times, March 8, 1983, D4. In 1986 Höffner asked John Paul to replace Marcinkus with a noncleric as the IOR’s chief.
24 IOR/Marcinkus memorandum, July 1, 1983, quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 45.
25 Andrew Malone and Nick Pisa, “Was This Girl Murdered After Being Snatched for Vatican Sex Parties? Police Try and Solve the Mystery of the 15-Year-Old Who Vanished in 1983,” Mail Online, May 30, 2012; See Willan, The Last Supper, 283–84.
26 Uli Schmetzer, “Extradition Cloaked in Intrigue,” Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1988, 18; Cornwell, God’s Banker, 246–47. The Joint Commission also wanted to get the assistance of Gelli’s right-hand man, Umberto Ortolani, but he was in Brazil fighting extradition.
27 “Gelli, Fugitive Italian Financier, Gives Himself Up in Switzerland,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 22, 1987; “Top Italian Fugitive Licio Gelli Arrested in France,” International News, Rome, Associated Press, September 10, 1998; “Gelli Deported Back to Italy,” BBC, October 16, 1998; Raw, The Moneychangers, 9, 158, 484.
28 Final Report of the Joint Commission, October 1983, in Raw, The Moneychangers, 45.
29 Memo to Cardinal Secretary of State, from Agostino Gamboni, Pellegrino Capaldo, and Renato Dardozzi, Vatican City, August 17, 1983, reproduced in Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 23–24.
30 Statements of Santa Maria and Cattaneo in Final Report of the Joint Commission, October 1983, quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 47.
31 Statement of Chiomenti in Final Report of the Joint Commission, October 1983, quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 31–32.
32 “Vatican Bank Is Target,” The New York Times, March 28, 1983, D2.
33 Raw, The Moneychangers, 32–34.
34 Draft document, “The Spirit of Luca,” dated August 10, 1983, quoted in Raw, The Moneychangers, 33.
35 All Marcinkus statements about his views and what he said regarding whether the Vatican should settle with the Ambrosiano’s creditors are from interviews by John Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 136–37. That interview with Cornwell was the first public evidence of the heated debate that had taken place inside the Vatican.
36 Raw, The Moneychangers, 35.
37 John Winn Miller, Untitled, Associated Press, International News, Rome, A.M. cycle, April 1, 1984. Italmobiliare had controlling interests in the insurance conglomerate RAS, as well as the country’s largest cement maker, Italcementi.
38 Miller, “Career of Once Powerful American Prelate in Decline.”
39 “Vatican Bank Inquiry in Italy,” The New York Times, April 2, 1984, D5.
40 “U.S. Archbishop Says He Has Nothing to Hide in Vatican Loan Probe,” Associated Press, Business News, Rome, P.M. cycle, April 3, 1984. “His foes in the Curia were delighted when he got indicted,” says Peter Murphy, later the Deputy Chief of Mission for U.S. embassy at the Vatican. “They barely hid their glee.” Author interview with Peter K. Murphy, Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy, 1984–89, January 31, 2014.
41 “John Paul Completes His Team,” Time, April 23, 1984.
42 The appointment that got the most attention was of Benin’s Cardinal Bernardin Gantin to become the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. It made Gantin the first non-Italian with the power of appointing—with the Pope’s approval—the church’s bishops. Gantin also later served on a committee of five cardinals that had some general oversight over financial matters in the wake of Marcinkus’s departure.
43 “John Paul Completes His Team,” Time. Although Marcinkus kept the same title, the changes by John Paul meant that his authority was no longer unchecked when it came to the Vatican City administration.
44 Marcinkus interviewed by John Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 136–37.
45 Marcinkus statements from interviews in ibid.
46 Raw, The Moneychangers, 36–37.
47 The first reports were that the accord included 109 creditor banks, but the final agreement covered 120. Paul Lewis, “Vatican Pact Reported on Banco Ambrosiano,” The New York Times, May 11, 1984, D1; “A Moral Duty,” Time, May 21, 1984. Also, initially, the Vatican planned to pay $250 million in three installments over twelve months, but the banks gave the church a $6 million discount if it made a single payment by June 30, 1984. “Vatican to Pay in Bank Failure,” Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1984, B3. In fact, based on fluctuations in currency exchange, the Vatican paid $240.9 million on Monday, July 2, since June 30 was a Saturday. Lewis, “Vatican Pact Reported on Banco Ambrosiano,” D1. See also “Tentative Agreement Reportedly Reached on Banco Ambrosiano,” Associated Press, Business News, Rome, P.M. cycle, May 21, 1984; “Payment by Vatican,” The New York Times, July 4, 1984, D14. See also Galli, Finanza bianca, 88.
48 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 69.
49 The Vatican payment was 60 percent of a $406 million settlement agreed to by the creditors, about two thirds of their claims against the Ambrosiano group. Italy arranged other payments from cash recovered after the Ambrosiano’s collapse as well as from the fire sale of some of its assets, including Banca del Gottardo, which Japan’s Sumitomo Bank bought for $144 million. Also, $53 million was seized from Licio Gelli’s Swiss bank account. “Vatican Pact Reported on Banco Ambrosiano,” D1. See also “Payment by Vatican,” The New York Times, July 4, 1984, D14; “Vatican Payment Reported,” The New York Times, May 26, 1984, 42.
The execution of the agreement was cloaked in secrecy. Bankers and Vatican representatives gathered at Geneva’s grand luxe Hotel des Bergues, but when reporters arrived the group moved to the nondescript European Free Trade Association building.
50 “Vatican Pact Reported on Banco Ambrosiano,” The New York Times, D1.
51 Charles Raw, a London Sunday Times reporter who investigated the matter for nine years, and wrote what many consider the definitive book on the financial details of the crisis—The Moneychangers—believes the Vatican lost about $250 million in its dealings with the Ambrosiano and Calvi. See The Moneychangers, 39.
52 “A Moral Duty,” Time; see also “Vatican Pact Reported on Banco Ambrosiano,” The New York Times, D1.
53 Stella Shamoon, “Untangling the Banco Ambrosiano Scandal; Shadowy Web of Financial Dealings Spreads,” United Press International, Financial, London, BC cycle, May 6, 1984. For a full copy of the 1984 changes, see the articles reproduced as Accordo tra la Repubblica italiana e la Santa Sede che apporta modificazioni al Concordato lateranense, Massimo Teodori, Vaticano rapace: Lo scandaloso finanziamento dell’Italia alla Chiesa (Venice: Marsilio Editiori, 2013), 145–71. See also “New Concordat with Vatican Is Approved by Italian Senate,” The New York Times, August 4, 1984.
54 Henry Kamm, “Italy Abolishes State Religion in Vatican Pact,” The New York Times, February 19, 1984.
55 In 2010, the tax yielded about $900 million to the church.
56 How to break the news of the “murder plot” was coordinated by Jonathan Cape, the U.K. publisher, and Bantam, the U.S. distributor. It was considered a coup to have kept the book’s explosive charge secret during months of presales of rights to book clubs and the scheduling of the author on television shows for the day after publication. Curt Suplee, “How the Book Industry Kept Its Pope Story Secret,” The Washington Post, June 14, 1984, B1.
57 “Envoy’s Plea Was Opposed,” The New York Times, July 10, 1984, A10.
58 Adding to the pressure on Wilson were disclosures that he had received a special exemption from the State Department to continue to serve on the board of two companies, Earle M. Jorgensen, a California-based steel firm, and Pennzoil. Ambassadors usually resign their corporate director’s positions to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Mary Thornton, “U.S. Envoy to Vatican Got Special Exemption,” The Washington Post, July 13, 1984, A2; “Ambassador from Pennzoil?,” Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1984, 22.
59 Loren Jenkins, “Envoy to Vatican Denies Wrongdoing; Wilson Refuses to Discuss Controversial Ties, Travel to Libya,” The Washington Post, May 22, 1986.
60 Miller, “Career of Once Powerful American Prelate in Decline.”
61 When the AP reporter caught up with Marcinkus, the IOR chief said, “I’d say that 99.9 percent of my life has been an open book. Perhaps that’s my problem. Maybe I’m too frank.” Ibid.
62 “Italian Financier Suspected in Vatican Bank Collapse Was 77,” United Press International, International News, Milan, A.M. cycle, September 21, 1984.
63 It had been made possible by a new treaty between Rome and Washington that was aimed at fighting Mafia drug syndicates. “Financier Sent to Italy to Face Charges,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), September 26, 1984.
64 “No one [at the Vatican] wanted anything at all to do with the subject [of Sindona],” recalls Peter Murphy, the Deputy Chief of the U.S. embassy at the time, “and [they] pushed everything off on Marcinkus.” Email from Peter K. Murphy to author, January 30, 2014.
65 “Italian Financier Jailed for Fraud,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), March 16, 1985.
66 “Ex-Adviser to Vatican Gets Life for Murder,” United Press International, Milan, A.M. cycle, March 18, 1987.
67 Uli Schmetzer, “ ‘I’ve Been Poisoned,’ Stricken Financier Sindona Told Jailers,” Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1986, 6.
68 “Italian Bank Swindler Rushed to Hospital in Coma,” United Press International, International News, Voghera, Italy, P.M. cycle, March 20, 1986; “Jailed Italian Financier Dies of Cyanide Poisoning,” The Washington Post, March 23, 1986, A18.
69 E. J. Dionne Jr., “Italy Says It Found Cyanide in Sindona,” The New York Times, March 22, 1986, 3; “Cyanide Was in Sindona’s Coffee, Investigators Say,” Associated Press, International News, Milan, A.M. cycle, April 1, 1986.
70 Uli Schmetzer, “Jailed Italian Financier in Coma After Poisoning,” Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1986, 6; “Poisoning Baffles Jail Officials,” The Globe and Mail (Canada), March 22, 1986, A15.
71 “Magistrate Rules Financier Killed Himself,” United Press International, International News, Milan, A.M. cycle, November 3, 1986.
72 Author interview with Ivan Fisher, June 19, 2013.
73 Piero Valsecchi, “Arrest Warrant Reportedly Issued for American Archbishop,” Associated Press International News, Milan, BC cycle, February 25, 1987; “Arrest Warrant Issued for Marcinkus in Bank Collapse,” Associated Press, International News, Milan, A.M. cycle, February 25, 1987.
74 Uli Schmetzer, “Vatican Bank Official Can Be Arrested, Italy Says,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1987, 27.
75 Valsecchi, “Arrest Warrant for American Prelate in Bank Scandal.”
76 See for example Uli Schmetzer, “Italy Trying to Arrest Bishop,” Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1987, 5. U.S. government officials, in classified cables, had long referred to Marcinkus as “the Pope’s Banker.” See generally cable from U.S. Embassy, Rome, to Secretary of State, Washington, DC, Secret, Section 01, October 1, 1980, part of the Department of State Freedom of Information request by the Author, August 15, 2007, 15 of 162.
77 Uli Schmetzer, “Marcinkus Among 23 Sought by Italy,” Chicago Tribune, February 27, 1987, 14.
78 St. Martha Hospice was built in 1891 because of fear that a deadly cholera epidemic might reach Rome. It served mostly as a hospital for pilgrims before it was converted into residential housing for clerics inside the city-state. In 1996, a new structure was built at the site, Casa Santa Marta. It is not only a guesthouse for clergy, but it is where Pope Francis moved his residence in 2013, a much simpler affair than the grander Papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace.
79 Frances D’Emilio, “Independence of Holy See Complicates Scandal Probe,” Associated Press, International News, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, February 28, 1987.
80 John Tagliabue, “Vatican Prelate Said to Face Arrest in Milan Bank Collapse,” The New York Times, February 26, 1987, A1; John Tagliabue, “Warrants for Vatican Bankers Raise Legal Problem for Italy,” The New York Times, February 27, 1987, A6.
81 Schmetzer, “Marcinkus Among 23 Sought by Italy.”
82 Cornwell, God’s Banker, 226; Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 203.
83 “ ‘Astonished’ by Warrants for 3 Bank Officials: Vatican,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1987, 2.
84 D’Emilio, “Independence of Holy See Complicates Scandal Probe,” Associated Press.
85 John Tagliabue, “Vatican Denounces Attempt by Italy to Arrest Bank Chief,” The New York Times, February 28, 1987, 2.
86 Loren Jenkins, “Vatican Issues Defense of Top Bank Officials; American, 2 Aides Charged in Fraud Case,” The Washington Post, February 28, 1987, A17; see also Lai, Finanze vaticane, 72–73, 139.
87 Author interview with Peter K. Murphy, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy, 1984–89, January 31, 2014.
88 Uli Schmetzer, “Vatican Bank Official Can Be Arrested, Italy Says,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1987, 27.
89 The original estimate for 1987 was a $63 million deficit, but it came in at $80 million. Ruth Gruber, “Vatican Faces ‘Radical Insufficiency’ of Funds; Appeal for Money Goes to Catholics Worldwide,” The Toronto Star, March 29, 1987, H5; William Scobie, “Secrets of the Holy See,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 20, 1987, 17; see also “Vatican Expects Record Deficit, Appeals to Local Churches,” Chicago Tribune, March 27, 1987, 1.
90 Benny Lai interview with Cardinal Giuseppe Caprio, December 11, 1988, reflecting that donations had dropped from a high of 30 billion lire to “around 6 billion,” in Lai, Finanze vaticane, 143.
91 Shawn Tully and Marta F. Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances,” Fortune, December 21, 1987, 28–40.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid.
94 As of 2014, funding pensions was still one of the biggest problems confronting the church. Long-time workers, with forty years or more of service, retire with 80 percent of their salaries for life. And many employees start young in the city-state and stay through full retirement. Although the Vatican has moved to a smaller “fixed benefit” plan going forward, it is obligated to fund about 1,800 retirees for decades to come. An unnamed “Vatican insider” told Fortune that the church’s pension fund is short by a “few hundred million dollars.” Quoted in Shawn Tully, “This Pope Means Business,” Fortune, September 1, 2014.
95 “The global image of the Church has suffered,” Cardinal Giuseppe Caprio, head of the budget office, told Fortune: ibid.; Lai, Finanze vaticane, 70.
96 “Cardinals Tackle Vatican’s $56M Budget Shortfall,” The Telegraph, March 25, 1987.
97 Unidentified cleric quoted in Alan Riding, “U.S. Prelate Not Indicted in Italy Bank Scandal,” The New York Times, April 30, 1989, 22. Toronto’s Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter told Fortune that “We [the cardinals] fought for five years for more open accounting”: Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
98 Rocco Palmo, “God’s Bankers: Not Afraid,” Whispers in the Loggia, October 14, 2008, online at http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2008/10/gods-bankers-not-afraid.html; see also Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
99 “Italy Asks Vatican Extradition,” The New York Times, March 29, 1987, 13; Bill Scott, “Law Closes In on Wanted Vatican Bank Boss,” The Advertiser, March 27, 1987.
100 “Marcinkus Treated Brutally, Pope Says,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1987, 5; Tana De Zuleta, “Vatican Stands Firm over Calls to Extradite Marcinkus: Pope Fights to Defend His Banker in Scandal,” The Sunday Times (London), April 5, 1987.
101 Gianluigi Nuzzi, Ratzinger Was Afraid: The Secret Documents, the Money and the Scandals that Overwhelmed the Pope (Rome: Adagio, 2013), Google edition, 27.
102 Recounted by Bishop Lynch at Marcinkus’s funeral, reported by Margaret Ramirez, “A Final Farewell for ‘God’s Banker’; Family, Friends Share Their Memories of Cicero Native Who Became Archbishop,” Chicago Tribune, March 3, 2006, 1. In 1981, Italy’s public prosecutors notified Mother Teresa and seventy-four clerics and lay bankers that they were under investigation for violating the country’s tough currency exchange statutes. The suspicion was that wealthy Italians had used the IOR and some foreign Catholic charities to smuggle cash out of Italy. No formal charges were ultimately filed. Robert McCartney, “Vatican Bank, Charity Groups Face Currency Probe,” Associated Press, International, Rome, A.M. cycle, November 17, 1981.
103 Author interview with Peter K. Murphy, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy, 1984–89, January 31, 2014. By “sharks” Murphy is referring not to other prelates but to Sindona, Calvi, P2, and Gelli, and some of the lay businesspeople with whom Marcinkus dealt with at the IOR.
104 Ibid.
105 Piero Valsecchi, “Court Upholds Arrest Warrant for Marcinkus,” Associated Press, International, Milan, P.M. cycle, April 14, 1987. Some clerics were disappointed since they wanted the legal standoff over before the June feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, traditionally a time when the faithful gave large donations. They feared that otherwise generous Catholics would be put off by the daily headlines speculating about whether Italian prosecutors or the Pope would first capitulate. Clare Pedrick, “Storm Clouds at Vatican Bank: Officials Urge Sacking of Notorious President as Donation Day Looms,” The Financial Post (Toronto), May 4, 1987, 11. For general effect of how the scandals caused a drop-off in contributions, see “Poor Image Depletes Vatican Coffers,” Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1986, 5.
106 Piero Valsecchi, “More Warrants Issued in Collapse of Banco Ambrosiano,” Associated Press, International, Milan, A.M. cycle, May 6, 1987.
107 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 73.
108 “Vatican Court Reportedly Rejects Extradition of Marcinkus,” Associated Press, International, Turin, P.M. cycle, June 19, 1987.
109 George Armstrong, “The Vatican Gives Haven to a Fugitive,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1987, Part 5, 2.
110 Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 22.
111 Ibid., 37.
112 “Vatican Backs 3 in Bank Case,” The New York Times, July 14, 1987, D21.
113 “Vatican Official: Marcinkus ‘Victim’ of Bank Scandal,” Associated Press, International, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, July 13, 1987.
114 Ibid.
115 Prosecutors had argued in vain that the IOR was not a “central entity” since it was so heavily involved with secular investments and businesses. See “3 Won’t Face Charges in Vatican Bank Case,” Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1988, 23.
116 “Italy Can’t Charge Vatican Bank Archbishop—Court,” Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1987, 2.
117 Benny Lai interview with De Bonis, July 28, 1987, in Lai, Vaticane finanze, 140.
118 Marcinkus quoted in Samuel Koo, “Top Court Upholds Vatican, Rejects Arrest Warrants for Marcinkus,” Associated Press, International News, Rome, P.M. cycle, July 17, 1987; Roberto Suro, “Top Italy Court Annuls Warrants Against 3 Vatican Bank Officials,” The New York Times, July 18, 1987, 2. When author Benny Lai, Finanze vaticane, reached Marcinkus, the IOR chief told him, “I am happy with this judgment, because it gave me the proof that justice exists. I’ve always had faith in justice and I was right” (interview by Lai of Marcinkus, July 28, 1987).
119 Uli Schmetzer, “Court Bars Arrest of Marcinkus,” Chicago Tribune, July 18, 1987, C1.
120 See generally George Armstrong, “Bank Officials Free to Leave Vatican,” The Guardian, July 18, 1987.
121 Paul Marcinkus v. Nal Publishing Inc., 138 Misc.2d 256 (1987), Supreme Court, New York County, December 3, 1987, available online at http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8865799868810149066&q=138+Misc.+2d+256&hl=en&as_sdt=4,33.
122 Roberto Suro, “Italy Presses Case Against Vatican Bank Officials,” The New York Times, December 11, 1987, A8.
123 “Laywer Asking Court to Rule on Marcinkus Prosecution,” Associated Press, International, Milan, December 11, 1987. In 2008, Minister of Justice Angelino Alfano in essence copied the language of the high court in issuing a decree, the Lodo Alfano (Alfano Law). It granted immunity from prosecution to the four highest government offices, the President, two Speakers of the Houses of Parliament, and the Prime Minister. The Lodo Alfano, which was intended to end any investigations of Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was voided by the country’s Constitutional Court in October 2009.
124 Uli Schmetzer, “Bishop Gets Immunity in Bank Case,” Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1988, C6; “High Court Rules Italian Courts Can’t Prosecute American Archbishop,” Associated Press, International, Rome, June 8, 1988.
125 Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
126 The IOR had for decades never exceeded a dozen employees. Not a single employee had an MBA. By 2012, the IOR counted 100 employees, the result of a major growth spurt after the millennium. Ibid.
127 Victor L. Simpson, “Vatican Forecasts Record Deficit; Announces Bank Overhaul,” Associated Press, International, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, March 9, 1989. John Cornwell, “The Dues of the Fisherman; Burdened by Scandal and Bureaucracy, the Vatican Is Living Beyond Its Means, and the Crisis Is Undermining Its Mission. A Miracle is Needed to End the Shortage of Peter’s Pence,” The Independent (London), April 15, 1990, 10; see also Raw, The Moneychangers, 38.
128 Roberto Suro, “Vatican Expects Record ’88 Deficit,” The New York Times, March 6, 1988; “Nippon TV and the Vatican,” The New York Times, May 29, 1990. As for more specifics about the 1985 budget figures, Jason Berry obtained a General Final Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account from someone he described as a “background source.” See Berry, Render Unto Rome, 37, 367 n. 5.
129 Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
130 For years, the Vatican had subsidized the Roman diocese—for which it felt responsible—because that diocese had trouble covering its expenses. See Berry, Render Unto Rome, 39–40.
131 In the case of the German tax, for instance, large dioceses such as Cologne had 75 percent of their expenses covered by the tax. See Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.” Desmond O’Grady, “Vatican Plan for Tax on Catholics,” Sydney Morning Herald, August 28, 1987, 10. One cardinal, Joseph Höffner, sent chills through most Catholics when he suggested a worldwide tax on the faithful.
132 Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
133 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 84–85.
134 “We’re probably the only organization in Italy that takes rent control seriously,” one unnamed prelate moaned to Fortune. Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
135 Besides Krol, the commission included New York Cardinal John O’Connor. “The Pope Creates Vatican Bank Panel,” Lexis Nexis, Herald, Business Section, June 29, 1988, 21. See also Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.”
136 Shawn Tully and Marta F. Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances,” Fortune, December 21, 1987.
137 Benny Lai interview with de Caprio, July 28, 1987, in Lai, Finanze vaticane, 140.
138 APSA, the Vatican’s other chief financial department besides the IOR, was firmly under lay control by this time. Benedetto Argentieri, an ex–market analyst at Brussels’ Banque Européenne d’Investissement, directed its twenty-six lay professionals. Compared to Marcinkus and the IOR, APSA had evolved into a more accountable division. Tully and Dorion, “The Vatican’s Finances.” See also Religious News Service, “American Head of Vatican Bank May Be Ousted,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1988, Part 2, 7.
139 Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 35.
140 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 148, citing G. Zizola, “banker of St. Francis,” Panorama, March 26, 1989.
141 Benny Lai interviews of Massimo Spada, January 14, 1998, and June 7, 1989, in Lai, Finanze vaticane, 142, cited in Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A., 62, as “1 2 de julio de 1987.” Giancarlo Zizola, “Banchiere di san Francescon,” Panorama. Author interview with Lai, September 20, 2006.
1 Caloia was the group’s secretary, and other founding members included top bankers such as Giovanni Bazoli of Banca Intesa, Cesar Geronzi of Capitalia, and Banca d’Italia’s Antonio Fazio. The group also counted Bishop Attilio Nicora, the auxiliary of Milan’s Cardinal Martini; Lorenzo Ornaghi, the future rector of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; and Father Giampiero Salvini, a Jesuit intellectual and future editor of La Civiltà Cattolica. Sandro Magister, “The Pope’s Banker Speaks: ‘Here’s How I Saved the IOR,’ ” L’Espresso, No. 25, June 18–24, 2004.
2 Account provided by Caloia in Galli, Finanza bianca, 129. Caloia at times seemed interested in interviewing with this author, but ultimately declined.
3 Ibid., 129–30.
4 Caloia interviewed in Galli, Finanza bianca, 130.
5 Galli, Finanza bianca, 130.
6 Lai, Finanze vaticane, 79.
7 Caloia interviewed in Galli, Finanza bianca, 131.