MANY VILLAGES ARE much bigger. Many villages have far more people. This village is 108.7 acres and has fewer than 600 inhabitants, but it is the most powerful village on earth. Officially known as the Vatican City State, for all its grandeur and its importance as the nerve centre of Roman Catholic faith, it is still a village, inward-looking, self-absorbed, with all the concentrated virtues and vices of small community life. But with a village headman regarded worldwide as God’s representative on earth, those virtues and vices have an added edge. In theory, the people working at the heart of Catholic Christendom should derive the greatest benefit from its teachings; in practice that does not always happen. Apart from the residents there is a further mixture of priests, religious and lay employees, mainly Italians who ‘commute’ from Rome and the suburbs each day to their workplaces within the Vatican. Like any other state, it has its own laws and its own civic infrastructure complete with police force, postal service, refuse collection, pharmacy, stores and petrol station and, instead of an army, 100 members of the Swiss Guard.
Vatican residents and employees alike can avail themselves of many duty-free products. As of 1 July 2002 they could continue to buy their cigarettes at the previous low price but no longer smoke them anywhere in public while on Vatican territory, the first country in the world to introduce such a ban. Unlike the largely ceremonial Swiss Guard, the Vatican police force is kept extremely busy. More crimes are committed per inhabitant than in any other country in the world. The vast majority (98 per cent) are robberies perpetrated on tourists visiting the Sistine Chapel, the museums or the Vatican’s sole supermarket. Pickpockets and bag snatchers are rife.
The Vatican comprises two separate administrations, the Vatican City State and the Holy See. The City State is the last remnant of former glories, its 108.7 acres all that is left of the once powerful Papal States. Its government provides the municipal services mentioned above for the world’s smallest sovereign state. The Holy See rules the worldwide Church, organises the papal trips, controls the nearly 120 diplomatic missions, the radio station, the newspaper, and ensures that papal policy is implemented through forty commissions, nine congregations and a range of secretariats, councils and services. Most of the City State’s 1,300 employees are lay workers but the majority of the Holy See’s staff of 2,300 are clergy. The term Roman Curia refers to the 2,300 who assist the Pope in the governance of the Universal Church, and like civil servants everywhere they are frequently bloody-minded and immovable, particularly when ‘Papal Reform of the Curia’ is mentioned.
However, both clergy and lay workers have welcomed one aspect of curial reform: their pay. As recorded earlier, in 1979 and again in 1980 the lay workers had written directly to the Pope. Having then suffered ten years without any wage increases, they were seeking not only substantial awards but also the right to form their own version of a trade union. A threatened protest march by the workers’ association was only averted at the last moment when the Pope agreed to meet a delegation. He reminisced about his wartime work at Solvay, said that the members could form an association, delegated instructions and returned to making speeches supporting Solidarity. By May 1982 the association had grown weary of waiting for the papal promises to be honoured and held a silent protest march, the first in the history of Vatican City.
The association also threatened to call a strike on 14 June, the day prior to the Pope’s departure to Geneva where he was due to address the International Labour Organisation. The Pope, who regularly donned a hard hat and proclaimed his solidarity with workers all over the world, almost faced the embarrassment of being picketed by his own chauffeur and being unable to get to Rome airport. The issues were eventually resolved and a range of improvements implemented.
If the pay has been historically poor until recent years, the Vatican workers have one of the finest work locations in the world. In their lunch break staff can stroll in the Sistine Chapel and through the museums to stand and stare at one of the world’s finest art collections, admire the Caravaggios, the Raphael tapestries, and the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The offices might be too cold or too hot, the lifts few, the air-conditioning largely non-existent, but there are compensations.
History is omnipresent and visible throughout the Vatican. Less obvious is the way in which that history inexorably influences those who work within the Vatican, particularly the Curia Romana, the Church’s civil service. Every Pope since the early twentieth century has entered office determined to make great changes within the Curia, and each has failed in that ambition. Around the world many bishops see the Vatican as a dumping ground, somewhere to send the diocesan failures and misfits; others with an excess of ambition know that it is the best place to be talent-spotted. Quite a number from the Third World aspire to a position in the Curia simply because it offers a higher standard of living than their home country. Finally, there are those who come because they wish to serve the Faith in any way they can. This latter category is not necessarily in the majority. This curious mix of humanity frequently makes for very unchristian behaviour. The intrigues, the plotting, the struggles for greater privileges or power often have a Borgian quality.
By mid-October 2003 even the public loyalty towards those around the Holy Father was showing signs of considerable strain. Since earlier that year, the Pope could function only as a token Head of State. A cabal was formed that included the Pope’s secretary, newly promoted to Archbishop, Stanislaw Dziwisz, Vatican press officer Joaquin Navarro-Valls and the Head of the College of Cardinals and Camerlingo Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo. As Camarlingo or acting Pope, Somalo would have absolute control of the arrangements for the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of his successor. Apart from their close friendship over many years, all three men also share an allegiance to Opus Dei, as do the other members of an unelected group who by the latter months of 2003 were in effect running the Roman Catholic Church. These included Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano, Cardinal Ratzinger, the all-powerful Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, Deputy Secretary of State. A gerontocracy was in power.
On Monday, 13 October 2003 the cabal were in some disorder. The Vatican denied that the Pope’s condition had deteriorated and also denied published reports that the Holy Father needed dialysis to purge his body of the highly toxic drugs being used to relieve Parkinson’s disease. Within hours these assurances from Navarro-Valls were shown to be yet another of the Press Officer’s fantasies. The Pope had the greatest difficulty in speaking during a meeting with the Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle Ibanez and later during a meeting with the entire Uruguay delegation, including a number of reporters. The Pope ‘struggled in great pain as he attempted and failed to talk, remaining silent throughout’. Three days later came another ordeal for Karol Wojtyla – the October anniversary Mass to celebrate a papacy that had lasted a full 25 years. It was only the third time that the Church has celebrated a Pope’s silver jubilee.
A further three days and, with an increasingly ailing Pope unable to read even a line of his homily, the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta took place. Another two days and yet again his homily was read for him, this time by one of the trusted members of the cabal, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, during a consistory that added a further thirty-one new members to the College of Cardinals. Some of the older members of the College, visibly shocked by the deterioration in the Pope’s health, blurted out their concerns as they wondered aloud if, in the words of Cardinal Napier of Durban, South Africa, ‘. . . we might soon face the awesome responsibility of choosing a Pope.’ Others argued the pros and cons of papal resignation. The Curia were particularly exercised by this aspect. Cardinals José Martins and Mario Pompedda declared that ‘even if the Pope loses his ability to speak, he could still signal his wishes in writing, and thus could continue as head of the Church’. Interviewed by the Argentine daily La Nacion, the Vatican Librarian, Cardinal Jorge Mejia, disagreed. ‘If the Pope can’t speak then he can’t say Mass, which raises the questions about his capacity to provide spiritual leadership.’
When he heard this, the leader of the cabal, Archbishop Dziwisz, declaimed, ‘John Paul II will be Pope as long as God shall wish.’ The cabal was determined to prolong the illusion of a fully functioning Head of State for as long as possible. An American member of the Curia provided me with some of the background:
‘I think it was only in 1996 that they were forced to finally admit, off the record of course, that the Holy Father was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. By that time everyone in the world knew what his illness was but here the press office in particular had been flatly denying the truth for years. “The other Pope” and his friends have been running the show for much of this year but in many ways they have been in charge much longer.’
‘The other Pope’ was the name given by many to the Pope’s senior secretary and close companion since the mid-1960s, Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was ordained by the then Bishop Wojtyla in 1963 and became his second secretary in 1966. The relationship was for many years that of a father and son. In the latter years, particularly since Parkinson’s disease began to tighten its grip on a once strong, vigorous, athletic body, the roles had been inexorably reversed. The route to the Pope had for a long time been via Dziwisz:
‘When the Holy Father promoted Dziwisz to Bishop in 1998, something unheard of for a secretary, it merely confirmed an already established fact. A special request? The need for a “difficult” decision? Then don’t go through usual channels. Chances are you would never make first base. Dziwisz is the man. How do you think Opus Dei got that personal prelature or got Escriva beatified? How do you think the Legionnaires of Christ got such fast-track recognition? Come to that: who do you think got Degollado13 off the hook? It’s very useful if what you represent is reactionary or way out to the right. If it is then the other Pope is your man – even more so since his latest promotion.’
As my American companion began to recount the Vatican reaction to the subsequent career of the Pope’s secretary, his cool laconic demeanour for once became greatly animated:
‘We thought making him a Bishop was nepotism running wild, then the Holy Father really upped the ante. Archbishop? There were some, particularly among those working for Ratzinger, who were convinced this was all part of a plan ensuring that “the other Pope” became the next Pope, that when the Holy Father felt his time was drawing to a close he would give Dziwisz the red hat . . . Late sixties – perfect age for a Pope and what better way to ensure that there is a total and absolute continuity? And with all that certain backing from Opus Dei . . . Thank God it did not come to that.’
Apart from Dziwisz, the ‘little Polish family’ around the Pope over the years significantly reduced his continuing homesickness. The one notable exception was the charming Monsignor Vincent Tran Ngocthu, a Vietnamese priest who served as a private secretary to the Pope from 1988 to 1996. The Polish nuns cooked and cleaned for Wojtyla, his confessor was Monsignor Stanislaw Michalsky until his death in September 2003. There was also Cardinal Andrzej Deskur who did as much as any man to ensure Karol Wojtyla’s election in 1978.
The American’s views on Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz were echoed by a number of the nameless. All papal personal secretaries, certainly in recent times, have wielded considerable power. Paul VI’s personal secretary Pasquale Macchi ‘controlled’ the Pope during his final years, telling him whom he should see, what he should eat, even what time he should go to bed, but Macchi’s power was nothing compared with Dziwisz’s. When this secretary said, as he did with increasing frequency, ‘the Holy Father wishes . . .’ or ‘what the Holy Father says . . . ’very few would challenge the instruction.
With regard to the rise and rise of Opus Dei, Archbishop Dziwisz had been merely pushing at an open door. Opus Dei is a Roman Catholic sect of international dimensions. Although its actual membership is relatively small, its influence is pervasive. It is a secret society, something that is strictly forbidden by the Church. Opus Dei denies that it is a secret organisation but refuses to make its membership list available. It was founded by a Spanish priest, Monsignor Josemaria Escriva, in 1928.
As befits an organisation that flourished greatly in a Fascist culture it is to the extreme right wing of the Catholic Church, a political fact that has ensured that the organisation has attracted enemies as well as members. Its members are composed of a small percentage of priests, about five per cent, and lay persons of either sex. Although people from many walks of life can be found among its members, it seeks to attract those from the upper reaches of the professional classes, including students and graduates who are aspiring to executive status. Dr John Roche, an Oxford University lecturer, and former member of Opus Dei, describes it as ‘sinister, secretive and Orwellian’. It may be that its members’ preoccupation with self-mortification is the cause for much of the news media hostility that has been directed towards the sect. Certainly the idea of flogging yourself on your bare back and wearing strips of metal with inward-pointing prongs around the thigh for the greater glory of God might prove difficult for the majority of people in the early part of the twenty-first century to accept. No one, however, should doubt the total sincerity of the Opus Dei membership.
Under Pope John Paul II, Opus Dei flourished. If the Pope was not a member of Opus Dei, he was to its adherents everything they could wish a Pope to be. One of his first acts after his election was to go to the tomb of the founder of Opus Dei and pray.
This organisation has, according to its own claims, members working in over 600 newspapers, reviews and scientific publications, scattered around the world. It has members in over fifty radio and television stations. During the nearly three decades of the Wojtyla papacy Opus Dei – the work of God – succeeded beyond the worst nightmares of its critics and opponents.
Its late founder, Escriva, courtesy of an Opus Dei investment of some $750,000 placed by senior members where it would do the greatest good in oiling the wheels (as my American source wryly observed), achieved beatification in 1992 and canonisation in October 2002. Pope John Paul II, who created more saints than the entire number originated by all of his predecessors, handsomely repaid that multi-million-dollar ‘contribution’. In doing so he may well have ultimately demythologized not only the entire process of canonisation but the papacy itself.
The granting of the personal prelature by Wojtyla in 1982 is an act that will eventually come back to haunt the Church. Since 1982 Opus Dei has not been under the jurisdiction of the worldwide infrastructure of the bishopric. It can do as it wishes regardless of any objections in any diocese and is answerable only to its leader, currently the Madrid-born Xavier Echevarria, and through him to the Pope. When a number of Irish bishops in recent years objected to Opus Dei activities within their dioceses and indicated that they wished them to leave, they were ignored. In September 1994 when the popular Portuguese magazine VISAO carried a critical article on Opus Dei, the magazine was subsequently deluged with an unending torrent of hostile and threatening correspondence. A short while later the offices of VISAO mysteriously went up in flames. Since then VISAO appears to be disinclined to criticise Opus Dei.
On university campuses or in the nearby cities around the world, Opus Dei has established residences that serve as recruitment centres. The methods used by some Opus Dei priests are again very reminiscent of the tactics of more recognised sects. Their favourite targets are young adolescents away from home for the first time. Disenchanted former members and the embittered parents of ‘lost’ children talk of ‘mind control’ – an echo of Escriva’s writings:
‘This holy coercion is necessary; compelle intrare – compel them to come in . . . We do not have any aim other than the corporate one: proselytism, winning vocations . . . When a person does not have zeal to win others, he is dead . . . I bury cadavers.’
A sustained charm offensive or ‘love-bombing’ is used upon any potential member and when he or she joins they are gradually, almost imperceptibly, alienated from family or friends. It is, for example, a strict rule that all correspondence is first read by a senior member who may or may not decide that it can be read by the intended recipient.
On university campuses across the United States the activities of Opus Dei have recently caused deep concern among non-Opus Dei Catholic clergy. Donald R. McCrabb, executive director of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association, an organisation with over 1,000 Catholic chaplains across the country, observed,
‘I have heard through campus ministers that an Opus Dei spiritual “director” is assigned to the candidate. The director has to approve every action taken by that person, including reading mail, what classes they take or don’t take, what books they read or don’t read.’
Staff at Stanford and Princeton Universities are on record detailing the excessive pressure that first-year students have been put under by Opus Dei priests, including continuous questions about their sexual activities, constant coercion to go to confession, instructions on which courses to take and which professors to avoid.
The Opus Dei ‘friends’ who attach themselves to the target have a disturbing close-of-sale routine, including a staged ‘vocation crisis’ during which two existing members working in tandem on the target build to an emotional climax. As former member Tammy DiNocala recalled: ‘Basically it’s a one-shot deal. If you don’t take it, you’re not going to have God’s grace for the remainder of your life.’ In the USA, Opus Dei operate not only on university campuses but also at a number of high schools with pupils as young as thirteen. In England, after complaints and an official investigation, the then Primate, the late Cardinal Basil Hume, banned Opus Dei from proselytising anyone under the age of eighteen.
From its very inception Opus Dei regarded women as inferior, and assigns them mainly domestic work. They are at all times subordinate to their ‘superiors’; the sexes are strictly segregated and the women are disenfranchised. Although some women members achieve doctorates, their talents are frequently ignored. Escriva wrote: ‘Women needn’t be scholars – it’s enough for them to be prudent.’ Much stress is placed upon ‘modesty’. The late founder would have had mixed feelings about the meteoric rise in England of Opus Dei member, Ruth Kelly, promoted in January 2005 to the post of Education Minister within the Blair government.
Since May 2006 when Kelly was moved in a Cabinet reshuffle she has been in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on a number of issues, particularly homosexuality. As Secretary of State for Communities part of her brief is to implement the Equality Act which became law in early 2006. The Act makes it illegal to discriminate against an individual on a wide number of grounds including sexual orientation. Asked about the edicts handed down by both Pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI that condemn homosexuality and call upon Roman Catholic politicians to express their opposition ‘clearly and publicly and to vote against legislation that recognises homosexual unions’ Ruth Kelly observed, ‘I don’t think it’s right for politicians to start making moral judgements about people.’ Which is precisely what the Pope has instructed her to do.
During the canonisation ceremony the Pope quoted from Escriva’s The Way, a collection of spiritual maxims. One that did not make the ceremony was in praise of Escriva’s habit of whipping himself until the walls of the room were splattered with his blood. ‘Let us bless pain. Love pain. Sanctify pain . . . Glorify pain!’ (Number 208.) Unsurprisingly, many of Escriva’s philosophical gems, coming from a man who for many years was close to Spanish dictator General Franco, are demonstrably fascistic, as indeed were many of his spoken statements. These include the following attributed to him by Father Vladimir Felzmann, a former Opus Dei priest who devoted twenty-two years of his life to the sect. Escriva once remarked to his fellow priest that Hitler had been ‘badly treated’ by world opinion because ‘he could never have killed six million Jews. It could only have been a million at the most.’
Josemaria Escriva had strong views on books. Unlike the Führer, he did not burn them but used an alternative method of censorship. ‘Books: don’t buy them without advice from a Christian who is learned and prudent. It is easy to buy something useless or harmful. How often a man thinks he is carrying a book under his arm, and it turns out to be a load of rubbish.’ (Number 339.) Escriva also taught that we are not all equal in the eyes of God. ‘Next to the prayer of priests and of dedicated virgins, the prayer most pleasing to God is the prayer of children and that of the sick.’ (Number 98.)
The sect also tries to keep its members on message with advice on which newspapers to read, radio stations to listen to and TV channels to watch. Because of the secrecy, the precise number of media outlets either owned or controlled by Opus Dei is difficult to establish. One Opus Dei insider estimated that the media empire ‘was at least as large and far reaching as News Corp’, Rupert Murdoch’s multi-media organisation. Apart from pushing a strong pro-Opus Dei line, this media control also ensures a powerful degree of censorship that effectively prevents any critical coverage. It was brought fully to bear on the issue of Escriva’s beatification in 1992. A number of former members of Opus Dei felt ‘morally obligated’ to testify before the tribunal in Rome who were considering the matter. Opus Dei influence was brought to bear to ensure that with one exception only testimony favourable to Escriva was called.
One of the fifteen whose evidence was never presented and who was not called to testify was Maria Carmen del Tapia. An Opus Dei member of nearly twenty years, she had for six years been Escriva’s personal secretary and a Major Superior in the Opus Dei Women’s Branch Central Government. She had been the first director of the press at Opus Dei headquarters in Rome, a vitally important area within the infrastructure. In 1956 she had been sent to Venezuela as Director of the national Women’s Branch. She remained there for nearly ten years until being suddenly summoned by Monsignor Escriva to Rome. Maria, who had been told by Escriva that she had ‘saved the day for Opus Dei’ was told the reason for the visit was ‘to give you a few days’ rest’.
Nearly a month later Maria became aware that within the hothouse atmosphere that passes for normality within Opus Dei she had been secretly accused of various breaches of discipline, most notably allowing the women under her supervision to choose which priest they went to for spiritual guidance and confession. Although allowed, exercising such a choice rather than meekly accepting an instruction is considered ‘bad spirit’. From that day on, she was under the Opus Dei version of house-arrest and deprived of all contact with the outside world. The imprisonment lasted for five months. The mind games, the interrogations, the continuous mental cruelty, particularly the insults and constant repetition of how worthless a person she was, all of this is recounted with a calmness and a quiet clarity in her book, Beyond the Threshold: A Life in Opus Dei.
During 1991 Maria was astonished when the Vatican announced details of the beatification process for Escriva. It was unthinkable for her that he should be venerated. She wrote to Pope John Paul II at considerable length to justify her assertion that ‘the life of Monsignor José Maria Escriva de Balaguer, which I witnessed for many years, was not admirable and much less was it worthy of imitation’. She sent her letters via Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State. Whether he delivered them into the hands of the Pope or his Opus Dei secretary Bishop Stanislaw Dziwisz is not known. Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged receipt of both letters but from the Pope she heard nothing. Shortly after Escriva had been declared ‘blessed’, the distinguished religious editor of Newsweek, Kenneth Woodward, asserted in an article, ‘Opus Dei had sufficient influence on the tribunal to prevent critics of Escriva testifying . . . It seemed as if the whole thing was rigged. Escriva’s supporters were given priority and the whole thing was rushed through.’
In the run-up to the beatification process, articles very favourable to Escriva appeared all over the world. It was far from obvious that they were written by journalists who were Opus Dei members and invariably appeared in Opus Dei-controlled media.
Opus Dei’s membership is still not vast, about 90,000, but its very high quality is a tribute to the sect’s ability to handpick undergraduates at elite institutions. Within the Vatican Village, Opus Dei probably has some two hundred members but the quality of their access and control within the Vatican would be very difficult to better. Further afield in the US, Spain, Latin America and the UK and many other countries, they pop up again and again in positions of power and influence and in areas where they have access to the ultimate wealth of the world, information and knowledge. These people do not leave their Opus Dei commitment at home when they go to work; very few openly admit their membership. When challenged on this secrecy they have two responses. ‘It is not secret, it is private’ or ‘Of course we cannot publish a list of members; that is contrary to the Data Protection Act and a part of the members’ private life would be revealed if such a list were published.’ In the United States Escriva’s followers can be found in both the CIA and the FBI. The recent head of the FBI, Louis Freeh, is a member.
Attending the same Church as Freeh was one of his agents, Bob Hanssen. He and his wife Bonnie were considered to be the perfect couple; devout, spiritual, they epitomised many greatly cherished American values. Hanssen worked in counter-intelligence, an excellent position from which to create a second profession – treason.
From October 1985 until his arrest in February 2002 he passed top-secret information to the intelligence services of the Soviet Union (later Russia). According to Louis Freeh, the damage he did to his country’s security was ‘exceptionally grave’ and his betrayal constituted ‘the most traitorous actions imaginable’. In return he was paid by the KGB some $600,000 in cash plus three diamonds and had been told that a further $800,000 was sitting in a Moscow bank account in his name. He was directly responsible for the deaths of several US agents. In the words of another FBI executive, ‘He sold the farm.’ The entire United States intelligence programme for Eastern Europe had been compromised.
Part of the money Hanssen received from the Russians was used to finance the education of his six children at private Opus Dei schools. Another part of the payments went on lavish entertainments he shared with a stripper from Ohio. When unmasked, Hanssen insisted that the stripper and he had a non-sexual relationship. ‘I was trying to save her,’ he claimed, an unlikely scenario for a man who also secretly filmed himself having sex with his wife so that a friend could watch the performance. Part of the software that he sold to the Russians found its way into the hands of the Al-Qaeda network. After the attacks on September 11 the FBI reassured Bonnie that they would not be putting any of the blame for the carnage in New York on her husband’s traitorous activities: given their ineptitude in the run-up it is hard to see how they could be so certain.
Ever the devout Catholic while working for godless Soviet intelligence, Hanssen continued to attend Mass regularly and also make his confession of sins. In the confessional box he admitted that he was betraying his country and went into considerable detail. At least one Opus Dei priest initially urged Hanssen to go to the authorities, then rapidly changed his mind and told him that for his penance he ‘should pay $20,000 to Mother Teresa’s charity’. The penitent Hanssen duly sent the money, part of his Soviet pay. As he was rotating his confessions several different Opus Dei priests were fully aware that this pillar of the Church was also delivering top-secret intelligence information to the enemy (eventually his total reached over 6,000 pages).
Apart from donating $20,000 to the Sisters of Mercy in Calcutta, Hanssen as a deeply committed member gave Opus Dei at least ten per cent of the money he received for betraying his country. It is not known whether any attempt has been made to recover it, as proceeds of a serious felony, or whether Opus Dei returned it voluntarily. Hanssen’s contribution from his Soviet income was in addition to the tithe which as an Opus Dei member he was obliged to contribute from his regular American salary. Tithing is one of the many sources of Opus Dei revenue: since it is generally tax-deductible Opus Dei is benefiting from many of the world’s finance ministries, and less-privileged taxpayers.
Many members of Opus Dei continue to deny that the full membership list is a carefully guarded secret. They are either lying or ignorant of the rules of their own written constitution drawn up in 1950. In recent years some members have claimed that the original constitution has been superseded, yet the 1950 rules include the declaration, ‘These constitutions are the foundation of our Institute. For this reason they must be considered holy, inviolable and perpetual.’ The Spanish author Jesús Ynfante fully explores this issue within his highly revealing book, La Prodigiosa Aventura del Opus Dei where he quotes the entire constitution including the following:
Article 189 states that
‘To attain its goals in the most effective manner, the Institute (Opus Dei) as such must live an occult existence.’
Article 190 adds,
‘Because of (our) collective humility, which is proper to our Institute, whatever is undertaken by members must not be attributed to it, but to God only. Consequently even the fact of being a member of the Institute should not be disclosed externally; the number of members should remain secret; and more expressly, our members must not discuss these matters with anyone outside the Institute.’
Article 191 follows:
‘Numerary and supernumerary members must always observe a prudent silence regarding the names of other members; and never reveal to anyone the fact that they belong to Opus Dei . . . unless expressly authorised to do so by their local director.’
With a potent mix of the super-rich and the flower of highly talented university graduates, Opus Dei has created a global business empire that is frequently described as ‘Octopus Dei’. Like the IOR, the Vatican Bank it now largely controls, the sect never publishes annual accounts. In true IOR tradition, Opus Dei hides behind offshore outlets, shell companies and nominees. If there is indeed a life after death Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona must be viewing in silent awe an organisation that had for many years as its principal protector and Chairman of the Board, Pope John Paul II.
Opus Dei’s headquarters in the United States is appropriately located in mid-Manhattan not far from Wall Street. The seventeen-storey building costing some $50 million is mute testimony to a global wealth built on a great deal more than the tithes of its 90,000 or so members. From an obscure humble beginning in October 1928 in Madrid the ‘Work of God’ now has assets that Swiss banking sources have valued as ‘one billion US dollars and rising’.
As early as 1974 Escriva was already in a position to offer to provide in perpetuity thirty per cent of the Vatican’s annual expenditure. But the donation came with a price. Escriva was prepared to take on most of the loss, so desperate was he to have Opus Dei granted the privilege of personal prelature. Despite much that has been written, Pope Paul VI by that time had deep reservations about Opus Dei and Escriva, and politely declined the offer.
Long before the mid-1970s, Opus Dei had pushed out far from Spain. Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom all had well established Opus Dei centres by the early 1960s as did virtually every Latin American country from Mexico to Chile. Infiltration of the United States and the Far East rapidly followed. The highly focused members targeted potential recruits with the zeal of a powerfully motivated sales force determined come what may to achieve its monthly target figures. The current billion-dollar rating from the Swiss is due in no small measure to the very high success level of those targeted recruits in their secular lives. The global power and success of Opus Dei owes more to Mammon’s work than it does to God’s. In politics, banking, investment consultancy, the legal professions, education, publishing, Escriva’s followers have their hands on a wide range of the levers of power and influence. Spain, the country where it all began, serves as an enlightening example.
Successive Spanish Governments since the 1950s have invariably contained either Opus Dei members or men who happily ‘co-operated’ with the sect. In October 1969 General Franco decided the country needed a new government. Ten of the new cabinet were Opus Dei members, a further five had very close links with the organisation, a further three frequently collaborated with it and the Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco’s commitment to Opus Dei was total. This fact was confirmed to me several years before Admiral Carrero Blanco was assassinated by ETA in December 1973. More recently Opus Dei members in Spain have included a President of Banco Popular, an Attorney General, Jesus Cardenal, a Head of Police, Juan Cotino, literally hundreds of senior academics, journalists and some twenty members of the Spanish Royal Family. Inevitably Opus Dei is also very well represented in the Spanish Church, at every level from priest to cardinal.
The children of the recently deposed Prime Minister José Maria Aznar were Opus Dei educated. Within the Aznar government, the judicial system, the universities, the schools, Opus Dei flourished at the highest levels. With the exception of the newly elected Socialist government, all previously acquired strongholds remain intact. Like it or not, the Spanish taxpayer is subsidising the teaching of an ideology throughout the country that has been rejected at every polling survey by the majority of Roman Catholics. Opus Dei’s ideology does not recognise freedom of conscience and does not respect the principle of equality.
In Italy during the 1960s and 1970s it was frequently said that ‘if you want to succeed in this life you must join the Masonic lodge P2’. In modern Spain and many other countries there is a new version of P2, just as secret, just as pernicious as Licio Gelli’s Lodge. The same is true in Rome. The President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Trujillo, probably did more than any other man to persuade the late Pope that liberation theology was a major threat to the Church, a position that was directly responsible for an escalation of the carnage in many parts of Latin America during the late 1970s and throughout the following decade. Cardinal Trujillo is very close to Opus Dei. The late Professor Jerome Lejeune, who was the lunchtime guest of the Pope hours before the Agca attack in St Peter’s Square, deeply influenced Karol Wojtyla on a range of issues, particularly birth control and abortion. Lejeune’s family are France’s premier Opus Dei dynasty. The beatification process for the Professor has already begun, with the late Pope John Paul II’s full approval.
My American Vatican source was one of several within the Curia who were fully prepared to discuss the ever-tightening grip of Opus Dei at the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church. I was told,
‘They control the Bank, the information services, the Council of this, the Congregation of that . . . Look, every time there’s a Synod or a gathering secret meetings take place. It’s been happening since 1991–1992 in the Via Aurelia, in particular colleges – the Europeans (cardinals) even held one in Paris . . . Apart from the known cardinals, apart from the fifty or so Opus Dei members in place in the congregations and on pontifical boards, there are their “friends” outside. Across the Tiber those are the “friends” who in 1986 were able to block a parliamentary and juridical enquiry into Opus Dei that the Government Finance Department had asked for.’
Opus Dei’s friends within Italy number many thousands. Their actual members within the country are only some 4,000 but, as always with Opus Dei, they put quality before quantity. On one side of the Tiber they can call on the current Vatican Secretary of State; on the other side, they can access leading industrialists, editors, bank governors including the current Governor of the Bank of Italy, and an array of leading politicians. Asked in 1993 whether the Vatican had entrusted a special task to Opus Dei, the organisation’s Rome spokesman Giuseppe Corigliano’s response was a masterpiece of brevity: ‘Europe.’
Opus Dei does not have a monopoly on Vatican intrigue, however. There are the Masons, notwithstanding 500 years of papal anathema, as indestructible as the very walls the medieval masons built. There are the Bologna Mafia, the Venice axis, the clans from Romana and Piacenza. There is the Emiliana Mafia. Even various colleges have spawned their own Vatican ‘lodges’. There is even evidence that Satanism is alive and well within the Vatican. Every new entrant to the Curia is delicately lobbied by various emissaries. He would do well to hesitate. Any choice he makes on entry has no opt-out clause. It is for life.
Paul Maria Hnilica is one of many village residents that any writer of fiction would shrink from creating. He was born in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1921 in the Archdiocese of Travni. According to Hnilica, his mother was a devout Catholic who prayed as a little girl that she would one day become the proud mother of a priest. Her prayers were answered.
At the time the Communists seized control of the country after the Second World War, Hnilica was training for the priesthood. He was later to tell how he and many others were seized by the Communist regime and taken to a prison camp. His ordination as priest took place in a section of the quarantine unit of a hospital. He has yet to explain how he got out of the prison camp and to the hospital at Roznava but he has explained why his entry to the priesthood took place in such bizarre surroundings:
‘All the bishops had been arrested. There was no one free to ordain me but one particular bishop was receiving regular medical treatment at the hospital. On this occasion his doctor, a Catholic, told the three security guards that the bishop was to be treated within the unit for contagious diseases. The police, afraid of being infected, waited outside. I was waiting in the unit and was ordained. It was 29 September, the feast day of the Archangel Michael.’
In possibly the fastest religious promotion in modern times, three months later Father Hnilica became Bishop Hnilica.
‘It was in a basement. I fought against it. But my provincial ordered me to accept this ordination under obedience, so I agreed. As you know every bishop receives a diocese when he is ordained. I was told: “Your diocese covers Peking-Moscow-Berlin.” This was meant symbolically not geographically but I did not understand that at the time.’
Within months Hnilica was hard at work as a clandestine bishop. His activities became known to the police and an arrest warrant was issued in July 1951. On 24 August Hnilica was in Bratislava, with the police in pursuit. He ordained Jan Korec as a clandestine bishop; then, evading the police, jumped in the nearby river Danube and swam to a new life in the West. Now a bishop without a country or a diocese, he made his way to Our Lady of Fatima. He journeyed several times to the Fatima shrine in Portugal meeting Sister Lucia, the remaining survivor of the three children who had claimed in 1917 to have seen the Virgin Mary. It has been alleged that during these years he was also trained as an agent of the KGB or the CIA or both.
In May 1964 the newly elected Pope Paul VI appointed Hnilica titular Bishop of Rusado, a diocese that has long ago ceased to exist. It is a custom of the Church to assign a new bishop a defunct diocese as a reminder of times past. The appointment carries no jurisdiction or authority but is normally accompanied with the assignment of a regular diocese. That did not occur in Hnilica’s case, he was left free to make a reality of the symbolic appointment he had received in Czechoslovakia – the entire Communist-controlled empire. His range of contacts and friends grew rapidly, ranging from Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, to the future Secretary of State, Cardinal Casaroli and Flavio Carboni, a man who in the summer of 2005 was put on trial for the murder of yet another of Hnilica’s good friends, the former chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi.
In 1968 when Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets there was no thought of returning to the motherland he had swum away from in 1951, but when Pope Paul VI returned from a visit to Colombia to be greeted by Prime Minister Giovanni Leone, a dozen cardinals and the entire diplomatic corps, he was also welcomed by Paul Hnilica. He had rounded up about one hundred of his countrymen temporarily trapped in Rome and he led the Pope over to them for a highly emotional meeting. It was clear that His Holiness held Hnilica in high regard. Earlier that year Pope Paul had given his approval for the creation by Hnilica of Pro Fratribus, a charitable organisation with the aim of helping the Catholic Churches of Eastern Europe.
Pro Fratribus was destined by various means to acquire huge amounts of money. Exactly where it all went has yet to be established. Some undoubtedly went into Russia and was used to create religious institutes. The Family of Mary Co-Redemptrix has centres for male religious in Ufa, and the village of Alekseevka and for women at Shumanovka and Talmenka in the Altai krai (administrative territory). All of these are wholly owned and controlled by Hnilica and his associates. There may be others in the former Warsaw Pact group of countries. No accounts have ever been published and no annual reports ever made; a remarkable omission for an organisation that claims to be a charity.
John Paul II never entertained any doubts about the man and his work. The two men enjoyed a close friendship for many years. Hnilica was even accorded the rare privilege of concelebrating Mass with the Holy Father in the Papal Chapel. He recounted afterwards how they breakfasted together.
‘I said to him. “Holy Father, only you have a bigger diocese. It comprises the whole world. Mine comes right after that size. Peking-Moscow-Berlin.” The Pope said, ‘Paul, this is your mission field. Find yourself the best Christians as missionaries!” ’
Hnilica has also recounted how after the attempt on the Pope’s life, during his recovery in the Gemelli hospital, the Pope asked him to bring all of the documents held by the Vatican on Fatima to the hospital. The two men, both with a deep obsession about the mother of Christ, rapidly concluded that the Virgin Mary had interceded and saved the Pope’s life. When the Pope was discharged from the Gemelli, Hnilica brought him a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, ‘the most beautiful statue I have even seen’, at which point the Pope told him,
‘Paul, in these three months I have come to understand that the only solution to all the problems of the world, the deliverance from war, the deliverance from atheism, and from the defection from God, is the conversion of Russia. The conversion of Russia is the content and meaning of the message of Fatima. Not until then will the triumph of Mary come.’
The following year Bishop Hnilica accompanied the Pope to Fatima, where the two men again talked to Sister Lucia and then prayed in front of a life-size statue of the Virgin Mary in whose own crown had been placed the bullet that had been intended by Mehmet Agca to kill the Pope.
These were busy times for Hnilica. Apart from his considerable time with the Pope, he was also fully occupied with Roberto Calvi in organising the transfer of huge quantities of money to Poland and more particularly to the empty coffers of Solidarity. That at least is what Calvi was told. The reality is that Solidarity never saw or had use of a single cent of this money, a sum approaching $100 million. Bishop Hnilica’s final destination for this money and what has subsequently happened to it remains a carefully kept secret known only to him and his business associates. Calvi was ‘suicided’ under Blackfriars Bridge, London, in June 1982 but even in death the bishop saw business opportunities, particularly when it became known that the black attaché case that had been bulging with documents when Calvi fled from Milan was empty when opened by the police after his death.
Before that episode the bishop without a diocese began to take a great interest in Medjugorje. He was a frequent visitor to the Medjugorje gold rush during the 1980s. The Franciscans in Medjugorje were recycling ‘donations’ on a regular basis. Throughout the decade, hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred to the United States. Hnilica was allegedly laundering money both into and out of Medjugorje during the same period, an activity that ceased only with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the outbreak of a Balkans war which in no small way was initiated by the Vatican.
In early 1984 Hnilica was working with another of his good friends, Mother Teresa in Calcutta. In February, he learned that the Pope had called bishops throughout the world to join with him on 25 March in consecrating Russia on behalf of the Virgin Mary, the first step in the Pope’s mind to the conversion of the country and ‘the solution to all the problems of the world’. Hnilica decided to join in the ceremony, not in a church in India, but in Communist Russia. He then gave an excellent example of his powers of persuasion. He first persuaded the Russian Embassy in India to grant him a visa, then charmed his way past the customs and security police at Moscow and finally beguiled the security guards on duty at St Michael’s Church to let him enter with his bag which should have stayed at security. Inside the church, which had been converted by the regime into a museum, he took out an edition of Pravda and from its inner pages a copy of the text that the Pope and bishops around the world were reciting and proceeded to say the various prayers. For good measure, he then went to the Marian Church of the Assumption of Our Lady, repeated the consecration ritual and then celebrated Mass.
When next in Rome he recounted in great detail to the Pope what he had done. When he described how once people in the Soviet Union learned that he was a Catholic they begged him to send them Bibles, the Pope was moved to tears.
The mystery of Calvi’s black attaché case or rather the missing contents of the case remained. These included the Vagnozzi report referred to earlier, a large number of documents that incriminated people in both Italy and the Vatican, and finally the keys to a fortune locked away in various deposit boxes and the numbers of secret bank accounts in Switzerland and other countries. In 1985 this particular mystery took another bizarre turn.
Flavio Carboni, one of the last people to have seen Roberto Calvi alive, quietly advised Bishop Hnilica that he ‘might be able to put his hands on the various documents, at a price’. Among those that Hnilica turned to were the Pope and the Secretary of State, Cardinal Casaroli. They authorised the bishop to negotiate. The agreed price was £1 million, approximately $1.5 million. Hnilica demanded some evidence that would demonstrate that Carboni was indeed holding the genuine documents. Among the items that the bishop was given was a letter written by Calvi thirteen days before his death. It was to the Pope.
There were ample documents within the Vatican Bank bearing Calvi’s signature. The letter, written when life was closing in on Calvi from all sides, sought help at this desperate hour from the Pope. He wrote, ‘It was I who disposed of large sums of money in favour of many Eastern and Western countries and political-religious organisations.’ The banker continued with a description of his activities on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. He had ‘co-ordinated all over Central and South America the creation of numerous banking operations for the purpose of halting, above all, the penetration and expansion of Marxist and related ideologies’.
While asking for help from the Vatican, the organisation that above all others he blamed for the crisis confronting him, Calvi was at pains to point out to the Pope the potential embarrassment he could cause the Church.
‘I have been offered help by many people on condition that I talk about my activities for the Church. Very many people would like to know if I supplied arms and other means to some South American regimes to help them combat our common enemies. I will never reveal it.’
Those within the Vatican who studied the letter were in no doubt that it was genuine and Hnilica was instructed to close the deal. He wrote out a number of cheques to Giulio Lena, a criminal well known to the Italian police. Two of the cheques were for £300,000 each. Owing to the Vatican’s failure to place Hnilica’s Vatican accounts in sufficient funds, the cheques bounced and the deal was never concluded but the parties concerned had left an incriminating paper trail and there were also tape recordings of Carboni talking to Hnilica about the deal. Then in a scene that could have come directly from the film ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight’, while on trial for a totally different matter Giulio Lena blurted out details of the criminal conspiracy concerning the Calvi documents. The Italian financial police raided his home and what they found there led inexorably to Carboni and Bishop Hnilica and Lena being indicted.
In Italy the judicial process can halt for years. Granted bail, the bishop got on with his busy life. There was his global diocese, his creation of a chain of religious centres in Russia, his activities in Medjugorje and his continuing conversations with the Pope. A year had gone by since the worldwide ceremonial consecration of Russia by the bishops. World peace had yet to break out but there was a new man at the helm in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev would give the world a great deal including the words perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). Bishop Hnilica would later claim that both he and the Pope attributed all of the dramatic changes that would occur to the Virgin Mary. However, the late Pope acknowledged very publicly the crucial role played by Gorbachev.
The bishop’s main task after the outbreak of war in former Yugoslavia in 1990 was to find an alternative source of revenue to replace Medjugorje, which was no longer the number one must-see shrine on the pilgrims’ list. He went to the United States in 1992, preceded by one of his secretaries, Father Luciano Alimandi. The secretary’s brief was to identify a visionary, one who was ideally in contact with the Virgin Mary at The Franciscan University in Stubenville, Ohio. Father Luciano happily found one studying theology with other members of Hnilica’s Pro Fratribus organisation. She was a self-proclaimed mystic, Christine Mugridge. Alimandi clearly had a talent for spotting visionaries. He rapidly had four to choose from. Apart from Christine he found Veronica Garcia, Sylvia Gregor and Theresa Lopez.
Alimandi selected Theresa Lopez. It is said that the casting couch featured heavily in his choice. Lopez admits to four marriages, but her former husband Jeff believes it could be five and he has also revealed that she has six children. Mental arithmetic was not one of Theresa’s assets, for she has had at least twenty-five different credit collection and debt recovery notices and pleaded guilty in 1990 to a second degree forgery/cheque fraud charge. Bishop Hnilica arrived in Denver in May 1992 to take control of Theresa Lopez. Before his arrival the ever-versatile secretary Father Alimandi had arranged a meeting for Hnilica with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The NCCB fell for Hnilica’s persuasive patter and gave him full permission to fund-raise in the United States for the ‘Catholic Evangelisation Mission for Russia’.
Shortly after the bishop had met Theresa Lopez, a huge publicity campaign was mounted to publicise ‘this amazing seer’ who ‘regularly has visions and communicates with the Virgin Mary’. Hnilica and Theresa became regulars on the Medjugorje tour circuit as it made increasing inroads into Catholic communities. Unofficial estimates placed the value of these tours at $50 million per annum.
In December 1993 the then Archbishop of Denver, Francis Stafford, concluded a three-year investigation of Theresa by declaring that her ‘visions’ had no supernatural origin. Entirely unabashed Hnilica carried on with the tour, which included targeting carefully researched potential donors. In November 1993 at a retreat for a group of devout and wealthy Catholics in Snow Mountain Ranch, Colorado, Theresa Lopez approached Mrs Ardath Kronzer and proclaimed that the Virgin Mary had a special message for her. During a subsequent conference in May 1994 held at the Notre Dame University Mr and Mrs Kronzer were again in the front row when the guest speaker was Bishop Hnilica. Subsequently he asked Mrs Kronzer to make an $80,000 cash donation. Within a few short years, Phillip Kronzer had lost his wife and a very lucrative business. His legal actions against the Medjugorje Mir Centre, Colafrancesco’s Caritas and over 100 defendants have been on going for some years and remained unresolved as of May 2006.
In between his appearances with his seer in the United States the bishop was obliged to make a number of other appearances, in a Milan Court. In 1993 the trial began of Hnilica, Carboni and Giulio Lena, the latter in absentia, having unsportingly jumped bail and fled abroad. One of the high points occurred when the bishop was questioned about some cheques he had made out to Flavio Carboni. The records revealed that over the years he had made out a great many of these. He certainly acted confused very well.
‘Is that your signature on the cheque?’
‘Yes, I signed it.’
‘How much is the cheque made out for?’
The bishop spent a considerable time peering at the cheque through his spectacles.
‘It’s either ten million lire [approximately $10,000] or ten billion lire [about $10 million], I don’t know which.’
The bishop later observed, ‘These external things don’t mean very much to me.’
In March 1993 both men were found guilty. Flavio Carboni was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and the bishop to three years. As mentioned earlier, while waiting for his appeal to be heard the bishop continued his normal everyday life. There were his regular meetings and long conversations with the Pope, and the fund-raising activities both in Medjugorje, war permitting, and in the United States with his visionary Theresa Lopez. The Appeal Court annulled the sentences on a technicality: a legal document had been one day out of time. A second trial, this time with the previously elusive Giulio Lena, took place in March 2000. This time Carboni was again found guilty and sentenced to four years. Lena was found guilty and sentenced to two years and the bishop was acquitted.
The court found that the Vatican had reneged on the deal and failed to put up the money and that Hnilica had not taken possession of Roberto Calvi’s documents even though he, Cardinal Casaroli and the Pope had all conspired that he should. He was therefore, in the opinion of the court, technically not guilty. From the way that he was received within the Vatican by Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger or any other member of the hierarchy, Bishop Paul Hnilica’s life and his values are clearly considered acceptable. But such standards are normal in the Vatican Village.
For a village where the overwhelming majority have sworn a vow of celibacy there is an unusual preoccupation with sexual matters. Homosexuality, if not rife within the Vatican, is constantly evident, and is a frequent factor in career advancement. Young, attractive priests, invariably referred to as Madonni, use their charms to accelerate their promotion. Certain bishops have found the need to work late in a locked room with only a Madonno to assist them. Satanic masses have happened regularly with hooded semi-naked participants and porn videos have been shown to very carefully selected audiences. I was introduced through one source to an elegant Roman whose main source of income was arranging ‘safe apartments’ for Vatican assignations both heterosexual and homosexual. His clientele includes two homosexual cardinals, a German priest who has frequent assignations with his ‘wife’ and until recently an American bishop who had conducted an affair with a former beauty queen over many years. He also supplies child pornography videos to ‘a number’ of Vatican residents.
Paedophile and adolescent pornography videos are a multi-million-dollar business in Italy. A large part of this particular industry is Russian-controlled. The films range from children running about in bathing costumes or naked, which sell at about £50, to films showing the torture and murder of children that sell for approximately £1,500. In October 2000 when magistrate Alfredo Ormanni brought charges against 831 Italian nationals and 660 foreigners for either selling or downloading child pornography from the Web there was uproar, not least from the ‘paedophile lobby’ of politicians that the magistrate claimed were obstructing his investigation. There was also considerable anxiety within the Vatican. Aware that computers leave a record of the viewing history of the machine a significant number were replaced. Two independent sources assured me that a number of the original machines went into the Tiber.
One particular scandal symptomatic of the sickness within this Vatican Village occurred in spring 1998. On the evening of 4 May Alois Estermann had every reason for feeling satisfied with his life. Only a few hours earlier he had heard the official announcement to confirm what he had been told unofficially over the previous weekend: he was to be promoted to Commander of the Vatican Swiss Guard. He had worked hard and lobbied even harder for the post; now it was his. Enjoying the triumph with him was his Venezuelan-born wife, Gladys Meza Romero. Just after 8.45 p.m. there was a phone call from a family friend who had heard the news and wanted to convey his pleasure.
The friend chatted to Gladys for a few minutes and then Estermann came on the line. Their everyday conversation concerned the caller’s desire to attend the annual swearing-in ceremony for the latest batch of recruits, due to take place in two days’ time. It was interrupted by an unusual sound, as if Estermann had cupped a hand over the mouthpiece or placed it upon his chest. The caller could hear voices coming, it seemed, from some distance away. He was able to distinguish Gladys but not the words. There was a curious humming sound followed by two ‘sharp blows’, then more noise from a distance. Assuming that Estermann had dropped the phone upon the arrival of a guest, the caller hung up, planning to call back later.
Precisely who had called and exactly what then took place in the Estermanns’ apartment is still a matter of speculation and conjecture within the Village. Beyond all doubt is that their neighbour Sister Anna-Lina, disturbed by the unusual sounds, walked in on a scene of carnage. Just inside the front door Gladys was lying in a heap on the floor, blood still pouring from gunshot wounds. The petrified nun stood for a moment in shock, and then raised the alarm. Lance-Corporal Marcel Riedi of the Swiss Guard was the first to arrive. He established that Gladys Meza Romero was dead and moved through the entrance area and into the sitting room. To his left Estermann was stretched out on the floor, still bleeding, and the handset of the phone was still swinging slowly from a nearby table. Close by was a third body that despite the gunshot wounds to the head and the blood was instantly recognisable to Riedi. There was no mistaking the good-looking Cédric Tornay, a fellow lance-corporal in the Swiss Guard. There was nothing that Riedi could do for any of them except carry news of their shocking deaths to his superiors.
In the secular world, certain basic police procedures are automatically triggered upon such a discovery: ‘Secure the scene. Access to be limited to essential personnel: photographer, fingerprint expert, pathologist, officer in charge and his subordinates.’ In the Village they have their own way of life and death. Within minutes of the discovery of the triple killing the apartment and the surrounding areas were a bedlam. Some had come to help, others to gawp, some to take control, a function that included tampering with vital evidence.
According to one well-placed source Alois Estermann was in fact still alive when the bodies were discovered. If so, no one thought to summon medical help. One of the first on the scene was the Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. Monsignor Giovanni Battista Re, the Deputy Secretary of State, appeared almost simultaneously. Others who came and crowded into the apartment for all the world as if they were late arrivals at a party included yet another Secretariat of State official, Monsignor Pedro Lopez Quintana, three officials of the Corpo di Vigilanza Vaticana, forensic experts Pietro Fuci and Giovanni Arcudi and the man who by happy coincidence would be appointed to head the enquiry into the triple deaths, Gianluigi Marrone, a qualified lawyer who had never practised. Marrone, an Italian civil servant, also had a part-time job as an occasional Vatican Judge. Monsignor Re either came bearing chocolates or went off for them and returning offered them to the onlookers.
More than two hours later, the area was still awash with people. Some witnesses recall four wine glasses on a small table in the Estermanns’ living room yet later photographs did not show them. Accounts of the position of the bodies varied suggesting that they had been moved. An official from the Vatican Government arrived and photographed the scene with a Polaroid camera. These original photographs, like the wine glasses, also disappeared, after which a second photographer, this time a staff photographer from L’Osservatore Romano, appeared and took a second series of photographs. These became the ones used during the subsequent official Vatican enquiry.
The Italian authorities were not informed of what had occurred, nor asked for assistance. Although Rome has at least three world-class forensic facilities, Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano ordered that the autopsies were to be performed in the highly inappropriate Vatican mortuary that lacked many of the necessary facilities. When a Vatican ambulance arrived to transport the bodies to Rome’s Gemelli polytechnic it was sent away again. The Secretary of State saw no need to disturb the Fondo Assistenza Sanitaria – the Vatican’s internal medical assistance service – or its doctors or specialist staff. The Corpo di Vigilanza, the 120-strong police force that is entirely independent of the Swiss Guard, took charge of proceedings. The three bodies were removed by members of the Swiss Guard to the Vatican mortuary at midnight. The Estermanns’ apartment was then finally sealed.
Long before this, in fact within the first fifteen minutes of the discovery, the Vatican spokesman Navarro-Valls had already arrived at the complete truth. He was aided in this remarkable feat by a number of factors. Firstly, Cédric Tornay’s service weapon, the Swiss-made 9mm SIG pistol, had been discovered beneath his body. Secondly, a letter that Tornay had written to his mother then handed to a friend to give to her had been taken from the Swiss Guard, opened and photocopied before the original was resealed. Within the letter Tornay refers to the benemerenti medal that is awarded to members of the Swiss Guards after three years’ service:
‘Mummy,
I hope you will forgive me because of what I have done but they were the ones who drove me on. This year I was due to receive the benemerenti and the Lieutenant Colonel refused it to me. After three years six months and six days spent here putting up with all the injustices. The only thing I wanted they have refused me. I must do this service for all the Guards remaining as well as for the Catholic Church. I have sworn to give my life for the Pope and this is what I am doing. I apologise for leaving you alone but duty calls. Tell Sara, Melinda and Daddy that I love you all. Big kisses to the Greatest Mother in the World.
Your son who loves you’
Thirdly, several members of the Swiss Guard when interrogated and threatened with being accomplices to the attack talked of how upset Tornay had been shortly before the deaths when he had discovered that the three-year service medal that he cherished had been denied him by Estermann. Tornay’s friends also told of how Estermann had made young Cédric Tornay’s life a living hell for a long time but that was an aspect that Navarro-Valls chose to suppress. The essence of the Vatican’s version of events had been communicated to a number of interested parties before 9.30 p.m. It was given a more public airing at midnight with a statement to the waiting crowd of TV, radio and press reporters:
‘The Captain-Commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, Colonel Alois Estermann, was found dead in his home together with his wife Gladys Meza Romero and Vice-Corporal Cédric Tornay. The bodies were discovered shortly after 9 p.m. by a neighbour from the apartment next door who was attracted by loud noises. From a first investigation it is possible to affirm that all three were killed by a firearm. Under the body of the Vice-Corporal his regulation weapon was found. The information which has emerged up to this point allows for the theory of a “fit of madness” by Vice-Corporal Tornay.’
The following afternoon Navarro-Valls, again without benefit of forensic evidence or an adequate investigation, elaborated on his instant verdict. “There is no mystery,” he told his audience.
‘The hypothesis of a fit of madness on Tornay’s part yesterday evening is the same as yesterday and today I can say that it is much more than a hypothesis. The Vatican has the moral certainty that the facts are as I have stated.’
It developed into a vintage performance from the Vatican spokesman. Navarro-Valls often has a tenuous grasp on reality but as with any good spin doctor he has complete belief in whatever he happens to be saying. He now told the media that Tornay’s first two shots had been fired at Estermann and his third at Gladys Meza Romero. Then, after placing his gun in his mouth, Tornay had committed suicide by shooting himself. The injuries that Estermann had sustained had caused ‘in practical terms, in physiological terms, instant death’.
Navarro-Valls had now hit his stride. Tornay’s motive was ‘a long deep-seated belief that his talents and abilities were not adequately acknowledged by his superiors’. This feeling had been ‘dramatically enhanced by a courteous and firm, but not harsh’ reprimand from Estermann, three months earlier when Tornay had spent a night away from the Vatican barracks without permission. Following Estermann’s refusal to award him the standard three-year service medal, Tornay’s unstable character, ‘a character that accumulates things and explodes without logic’, had pushed him over the edge. This instant analysis of a situation that, by his own version, had been festering for months ‘could not have been foreseen by anyone’. The Swiss Guard were exemplary; their selection process flawless. According to Navarro-Valls, ‘It was a tragedy that could have happened in any branch of society.’
Pressed by a reporter to explain the seven-month delay before Estermann’s promotion, a delay that had not only left the Guard without a Commander but had also become the cause of comment far beyond the Vatican Village in the international press, Navarro-Valls muttered vaguely about ‘a long and complicated selection process that is hampered by historical factors’, then glibly observed, ‘Sometimes you don’t even notice that the perfect candidate is right under your nose.’
Then he tossed the media a titbit. He revealed that Cédric Tornay had written a letter to his family and entrusted it to a friend.
‘Yes, the Vatican does have a copy but I am not going to reveal its contents out of respect for Tornay’s family. It is up to them to decide whether its contents should be made public. I will say however that the letter’s contents support my diagnosis of “a fit of madness”.’
In fact, Navarro-Valls had already secretly orchestrated the leaking of Tornay’s letter to the Italian press. The original version written in French had been rather badly translated into Italian for their convenience.
In one area at least Navarro-Valls seriously over-egged the Vatican pudding. He stressed that the three bodies were all fully clothed when found. This observation excited much speculation within both Italian and international media. Had the handsome Cédric and the stunning former model, Gladys, been caught by a jealous husband? However, reports of the rampant homosexuality throughout the Vatican tilted the media enquiry simultaneously in another direction. Were Estermann and Tornay lovers?
The secrecy with which the Secretary of State surrounded the deaths; the lack of involvement of the very competent Italian police; the refusal to allow the autopsies to be performed at the Gemelli or one of the other Rome institutes; the fact that the entire Swiss Guard, the forensic experts and a number of other individuals had been forced to take an absolute vow of silence; the fact that if Tornay had determined to kill Estermann and then commit suicide then the act of killing Meza Romero had no meaning or purpose; the calm writing of the letter that contradicted Navarro’s theory of an explosion of mad rage – these were just a few of the hares that were out running around in the Vatican Village.
Prelates who had never met Tornay quickly delivered a character assassination, while piling eulogy after eulogy on the departed Estermanns. Much of what was occurring had a familiar ring. In many ways it replayed certain events in September and October 1978 that followed the murder of Albino Luciani, the Smiling Pope, John Paul I. His dead body was almost certainly moved after discovery. The Secretary of State imposed a vow of silence on the Papal Household. A number of items vanished from the Papal Apartments. A tissue of lies concerning the late Pope’s state of health was planted in the media. A secret autopsy or detailed examination of the dead body was carried out behind locked doors. No report of this has ever been made public. There was also a sustained character assassination of the dead Pope. The Secretary of State lied about who found the Pope’s body, what time it was found and the nature of the documents that were found in the Pope’s hands. It is the way that these things are dealt with in this totalitarian country. It has always been this way.
On 22 June 1983, fifteen-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, disappeared at 7 p.m. while on her way back to her Vatican home from a music lesson. Subsequently the Italian police intercepted phone calls to the Vatican in which callers claiming to be the kidnappers of Emanuela demanded the release of the Pope’s would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Agca. The mention of Agca’s name catapulted a run-of-the-mill story to international news. The Pope took a continued personal interest in the case and made a number of public appeals to the kidnappers on behalf of the parents. The Italian police installed an intercept within the Vatican as the kidnappers (who by now had revealed evidence that confirmed they were indeed holding Emanuela) demanded direct access to Secretary of State Casaroli. The abductors phoned several times but the tapes, complete with the intercept, vanished from within the Vatican. Italian Judge Priore, the man responsible for investigating every ramification of the Agca affair, attacked the Vatican within his report as obstructive and uncooperative with the exception of one prelate, Cardinal Oddi, who testified that he saw the young girl getting out of a car with a priest some hours after her disappearance.
The judge subsequently discovered years later that a few days before the attempt to kill the Pope, Agca had attended a church service in Rome. Photos taken at the time showing the Pope paying a visit to the church service also showed Ali Agca sitting in the front row. An official invitation was required for this service. Agca’s had been arranged by Ercole Orlandi – the father of the girl kidnapped two years later. Judge Priore’s attempts to pursue this lead again met with obstruction from Vatican officials. One particular Vatican source that had repeatedly and deliberately sidetracked the Italian investigation was the second-highest-ranking officer within the Vatican Central Office of Vigilance, the same police force that was put in control of the Estermann affair. The officer, Raul Bonarelli, had his phone tapped by Italian magistrates and a taped conversation established that certain documents on the Orlandi case ‘went to the Papal Secretariat of State’. The magistrates sent three requests to the Vatican asking that they be allowed to interrogate staff within the Secretariat and members of the Swiss Guards to establish what these documents contained. Every request was denied.
This is the Vatican way: whether it is papal murder, attempted papal murder, triple killings, abduction or child abuse or financial crime – cover it up. Lie, prevaricate, deny. Emanuela was almost certainly subsequently murdered by her captors.
Thus the Vatican machine began its cover-up in spring 1998. Within days it was claimed that Estermann had been a spy for the East German secret service, the Stasi. It is certainly true, and not surprising, that many intelligence agencies ran spies within the Vatican, and still do. The major world powers have long coveted the extraordinary quality and quantity of information the Vatican acquires from its official diplomats and its global network of lay members and clergy. The allegation that Estermann was spying for the Communists in the heart of Christianity surfaced in Berlin in an anonymous letter to the newspaper the Berliner Kurier. It was full of detail of how Estermann had approached the East German trade mission in Berne in 1979 and had offered his services. This was prior to his May 1980 start with the Swiss Guard. A year later he was on duty in St Peter’s Square when Agca shot Pope John Paul II. The Stasi story was a nine-day wonder and then faded away. It is occasionally resurrected but in truth it is a fabrication.
I talked to Peter Brinkmann, the German editor who broke the story. ‘I was given a bum steer. There is nothing to the story,’ he assured me. Through contacts within German intelligence I was able to establish this directly from the former Stasi section that handled such foreign agents. Not a single piece of evidence that backs the story up has come to light since the anonymous letter landed on Peter Brinkmann’s desk in May 1998.
Judge Marrone placed the Vatican’s judicial inquiry in the hands of the Promoter of Justice, Nicola Picardi, a strategy that showed Vatican insiders clearly that this would be a Vatican-controlled operation. If Picardi was functioning as the equivalent of an investigating prosecuting counsel where was the counsel for the defence? Who was representing Tornay’s mother, Muguette Baudat? Long divorced from Cédric’s father, she had, despite her own Protestant faith, honoured a promise she had made to her ex-husband and brought Cédric up in the Catholic faith.
Within a few hours of being told that ‘Cédric has murdered two people and then killed himself’ by her local parish priest in Valais, the chaplain of the Swiss Guard, Monsignor Alois Jehle, was attempting to persuade Muguette that she should not come to Rome for the funeral, or to view her son’s body. He told her that the head had been ripped off, that the body was in a state of putrefaction, that the hotels were all full. The mother would not be dissuaded. When she arrived in Rome, she was immediately put under pressure by both Monsignor Jehle and the Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano. It would be better, they urged Muguette, if after the funeral service Cédric’s body was cremated. The shocked and grieving woman said she wanted time to consider. They told her they would draw up the necessary legal documents and get her to sign them on the following morning. By then she had enough presence of mind to reject the Vatican plan to destroy the most crucial piece of evidence.
When Muguette viewed the body of her son in the Guards chapel he had been dressed in his uniform and looked at peace with the world; only his chipped two front teeth indicated the trauma of his death. Later she was drawn to a very distressed young man sitting on a bench crying and shouting. When she attempted to comfort him, he told her that his name was Yvon Bertorello, that he was a priest, that he should have been there to stop the tragedy and that her son had been murdered. He told Muguette that he had the proof in his briefcase. Later she was told by Vatican officials that Bertorello was Cédric’s ‘spiritual father’. Whatever the truth, Bertorello vanished into the Vatican mists.
The following day after the funeral service she was told to stay in her hotel room and wait for a call from the Pope as he might find time to see her. She was still waiting for the call in the evening when she had to catch her return flight to Switzerland. Despite various letters written to the Pope and to Vatican officials, the papal call never came. When she had told the Vatican investigating magistrates of her conversation with her son’s ‘spiritual father’ she was informed that they had no idea who Bertorello was.
From the outset of this affair, the Vatican, from the Pope downwards, took a very specific position towards Cédric Tornay and his mother and the rest of his family. The Vatican, without benefit of a full investigation or an inquest, determined that Tornay was guilty and by some convoluted thinking so by association were his mother and his sisters. The Estermanns were accorded the rare posthumous honour of a requiem Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. Conducted by Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano and concelebrated by a further sixteen cardinals and thirty bishops, it lacked for nothing.
Tornay’s funeral service was held privately in the small Santa Anna Church on the very edge of the City State. His fellow Swiss Guards were there in force with a poignant space left in their ranks where Cédric Tornay had stood. The ceremony was conducted by a Swiss bishop, Monsignor Amédée Grab, who also entertained no doubts as to the precise course of events in the Estermann apartment. ‘God will forgive him for what he did because of the fragility of the human condition.’
The day after the Tornay letter to his mother had been leaked to the press by Navarro-Valls, it appeared in the Italian newspapers. Most of the Estermann eulogies contained reference to the fact of his bravery when the Pope had kept his appointment in St Peter’s Square in May 1981. Many told the story of how Estermann, with no thought to his own life, leapt on the papal vehicle when the first shot was fired and shielded the body of John Paul II. It was a heroic and unimaginably brave act. It was also a fantasy. Estermann had been between 100 and 150 yards from the vehicle when the Pope was shot. The three men who held and comforted Karol Wojtyla were his long-term friend and secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz, Francesco Pasanisi, a senior Italian police officer, who had for a number of years acted as liaison between the Italian force and Vatican security, and the Pope’s valet, Angelo Gugel. Estermann was nowhere near the jeep and, by the time he arrived, Agca was already disarmed and under arrest.
Estermann’s fictitious role, which he eagerly accepted, was the creation of Navarro-Valls and other Opus Dei members. In yet another of the Vatican Village power struggles they were determined to place him at the head of the Swiss Guard. Though not a member, both Alois Estermann and his Venezuelan wife were ‘close to Opus Dei’, the classic phrase that is used to describe those who are members in all but name.
When Roland Buchs had been appointed Commander of the Swiss Guard it had taken only forty-eight hours to fill the vacancy. His successor Estermann was not appointed for seven months. It was hinted that the reason was because he was ‘a commoner’ and not from a titled Swiss family. That had not stopped Roland Buchs getting instant promotion. Within the Vatican Village they give two reasons for the delay: first, a long sustained power struggle between Opus Dei and the Vatican Masons and second, deep concerns over Estermann’s allegedly very active homosexual life. Cédric Tornay had told his mother many months earlier that he was investigating links between Opus Dei and the Swiss Guard.
The allegations about the triple deaths both at the time and since are seemingly endless. One would have hoped that the judicial enquiry that had been set up within twenty-four hours of the deaths would have addressed each and every one of these allegations. When the secret internal investigation published its conclusions some ten months after the event, the Vatican’s report, at least the scant fifteen pages that it deigned to make public, very typically left many questions unanswered. During the ten months of investigation the Promoter of Justice Nicola Picardi and a variety of experts created forensic reports, accumulated five police reports and interviewed nearly forty witnesses including a detailed interrogation of Yvon Bertorello, Tor-nay’s spiritual father. All this was reduced to fifteen pages, which essentially confirmed the story put out by the Vatican Press Officer less than fifteen minutes after the three deaths.
The report itself was riddled with highly speculative conclusions. Witnesses said that they had seen four wine glasses on the table immediately after the neighbour Anna-Lina arrived, which suggested that a fourth person had been present in the room at the time of the deaths or was expected to arrive. The ‘Promoter of Justice’ discounted the possibility that there may have been four glasses on the basis that they were not there when the investigation got underway, ignoring the possibility that they may have been deliberately moved. Picardi attempted to eliminate the presence of the fourth person by saying ‘the small size [of the apartment] would not have permitted the presence of a fourth person and, above all, no trace of a scuffle had been found and everything had been in order.’ That ignored the fact that a number of prelates and investigators had fitted in comfortably when they had searched the room. The report seems less like a factual account based on forensic evidence and more and more a descent into supposition designed to support a previous conclusion. It would not stand up in an Italian, English or American court for five minutes.
Muguette Baudat has asked the Vatican on numerous occasions to make available to her the entire report created by Picardi along with all other evidence that the Vatican holds on this affair, particularly the report on the secret postmortem. They have consistently refused, and the mother who buried her son has no idea why he really died. The ubiquitous Navarro-Valls said, ‘We understand and respect her pain, but the truth is the truth and it has to be accepted.’
Writing a few weeks after the triple deaths in the Italian magazine L’Espresso, Sandro Magister, a seasoned Vatican-watcher, expressed a caustic view of Navarro-Valls’s account. He was astonished, he said, that the Vatican’s Press Officer’s story of the murders was ‘for once, close to being believed. Which for him is a rarity.’ Muguette Baudat, still convinced that the ‘truth has yet to be established’, retained top lawyers Jacques Vergès and Luc Brossollet who in January 2005 stated that they would seek a murder inquiry under the Swiss judicial system. Over a year later, Muguette was still seeking ‘the truth’.
Navarro-Valls has the power of life and death over the livelihoods of all Vatican-accredited journalists, and he does not hesitate to abuse it. When a journalist has his/her accreditation withdrawn by this man he or she can no longer function effectively for his or her employer. This happened to Domenico Del Rio of La Repubblica when he was stopped by Navarro-Valls from accompanying the Pope on a papal flight to Latin America. His sin was to interview and record theologians and historians who had expressed critical opinions on Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments calling for a return of the values of the restoration. He was replaced on the flight by an Opus Dei journalist, Alberto Michelini.
The Italian Vaticanologist, Sandro Magister, has recounted that in September 1988 during the Pope’s African tour, while the Pope and a number of the press were on a trip outside Harare, Navarro-Valls held court with the remaining members of the press at the poolside of the Sheraton Hotel. Perhaps on that day the Spaniard had a little too much sun. He was spectacularly indiscreet as he talked of Vatican initiatives in Mozambique, Angola and South Africa. The following day, newspapers around the world carried reports of what had been a highly secret Vatican agenda. Secretary of State Casaroli was furious, and suddenly the Vatican Village had come to the African continent. Recriminations, charges and counter-charges flew around like unguided missiles. The reporters who had accompanied the Pope had missed a major story; so they too were angry. In the midst of the hysteria Navarro-Valls suddenly materialised. Taken to task both by the Secretary of State and a large number of reporters, he flatly denied that he had talked about any of the subjects and the claims that he was the definitive source were all ‘without any foundation. They are fantasies.’ When a tape recording was played to him he denied it was him. When it was pointed out that part of his briefing had been replayed on Italian radio, he continued to deny he had ever talked to anyone by the pool.
When this débâcle was written up by Tullio Meli, the Giornale Vatican representative, Navarro-Valls banned him from the next papal flight. In 1989 during a trip to Bratislava the Pope worked hard to convey his thoughts on Christian Europe and his initiative to hold a Pan-European Synod. Curiously, the following day’s international coverage of the Papal tour ignored the Papal initiative and focused on the scoop that Navarro had given them, that the Pope’s next trip would be to meet Fidel Castro in Havana. The reality was that the Pope did not arrive in Havana until nine years later.
In September 1996 while the Pope was visiting Hungary, Navarro-Valls wiped out all mention of the Papal tour by choosing to reveal something he had denied for many years: the Pope was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Excited with all the attention he was getting, Navarro-Valls told the media that the Pope was also suffering from a mysterious unidentified virus of the intestine. Four days later the Pope’s doctor Renato Buzzonetti, who regards Navarro-Valls as his personal cross, dismissed the story of the mysterious virus. ‘It does not exist outside the fevered mind of its inventor.’ The Pope was suffering from appendicitis.
In many Third World villages one can still find the storyteller, a man who at the sight of a listening audience can spin fantasy and weave a myth. To find such a man in the Vatican Village is entirely to be expected. By early 2005 the Vatican Village appeared to be functioning in a curious state of suspended animation. While it was true that changes continued to occur, they were minimal. Transfers and promotions very largely occurred on the outer edges of the chessboard. The main players, the key pieces, appeared to be frozen in time and place. The papacy of Pope John Paul II had to all intents and purposes ended several years before. Cardinal Ratzinger continued to publish pronouncements on Catholic dogma; no matter how controversial or divisive they were, the faithful were reassured that they had all been approved by the Holy Father.
In fact, papal ghostwriters have been the practice for many years. As the late Pope himself observed: ‘Since I became Pope, it’s been much easier because other people write for me.’ A few essential passages, a short outline and Wojtyla would hand the task to others. The missionary Piero Gheddo wrote Redemptoris Missio in 1990, the theologian Bishop Carlo Caffarra Veritas Splendor in 1993 and fellow theologian Bishop Rino Fisichella obliged with Fides et Ratio in 1998. All three encyclicals were published as infallible documents in the Pope’s name.
Opus Dei member Cardinal Julian Herranz Casado continued to arrange very discreet meetings either in the city or slightly further afield at a secluded villa in Grottarossa. Those who attended were invariably cardinals ‘of a certain age’, men still eligible to vote in conclave. The others of the cabal continued to fulfil their respective roles but above all of them was the man who was Pope in all but name: Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz. ‘It is the Holy Father’s wish,’ was the constant refrain that was heard from the son who had become the father. In October 2003 when Cardinal Ratzinger talked publicly of how seriously ill the Pope was, the Cardinal, whom Karol Wojtyla had described in a rare tribute as ‘a trusted friend’, was reduced to tears by the verbal tongue-lashing he received from Dziwisz. An extraordinary example of the real power of the ‘other Pope’, the servant who had become the master.
On the evening of 2 April 2005, the earthly life of Pope John Paul II came to an end. Before the body of the man from ‘a far country’ was laid in its final resting place, the lobbying, the speculation, the jostling for position was in full flow.
Cardinal Ratzinger’s ascent to the papal throne was not quite the serene progress that news media reports have described but with Pope Benedict XVI residing within the papal apartments, it would seem on the surface little has changed within the Vatican village. The Polish mafia have largely been replaced by a German entourage. Monsignor Georg Gänswein from the Black Forest has replaced the ‘other Pope’ who has returned to Poland as Archbishop of Cracow. Dziwisz was promoted to cardinal in March 2006, thus making him a candidate for the next papacy. In the village the jostling is, if anything, more frenetic. Delation – the practice of secretly denouncing a superior or a rival – is on the increase. Every village in the world has the potential to produce the malicious letter writer. Few could match the village across the Tiber.
The latest round of the endless battle for increased power among the various Vatican security forces commenced soon after Benedict’s election. The Swiss Guard are seeking to establish themselves as ‘the primary force’. The Vatican police, some twenty men larger, insist they are the Italian police force numero uno, who are frequently obliged to deal with both parties’ dream of taking over complete control of Vatican security. Other turf wars involve a range of senior posts where retirement of the incumbent is well overdue. Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano heads an eminent group of leading Vatican officials who are already past the retirement age of seventy-five years. The Secretary of State is but one example. Any Vatican-watcher expecting a greater degree of veracity as a result of that particular departure should not hold their breath.