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4. THE IOR-AMBROSIAN SCANDAL A lot of books have been written about pope Luciani without any reference to the economic aspects, that, as a bishop, patriarch or pope he had to confront. The following reason is normally adduced: Luciani didn´t understand neither money nor business. Nevertheless, problems of an economic root that he confronted with rightness and firmness when Church’s mission and credibility were at stake, are hidden. This kind of matters took place with the Antoniutti´s case (1962), with the selling of Veneto´s catholic Bank (1972) and the problem of the IOR- Ambrosian connection (1978). John Paul I has taken the important and courageous decision to put an end to the Vatican business. Conscience discharge On August 9th 1962, Albino Luciani, Vittorio Veneto´s bishop, addressed a letter to his diocesans: “Two of my priests – he said – have been mistaken; neither in the exaggerated figures that someone says or writes, nor assuming themselves responsible for the traffic of drugs or weapons or even worse things, but they have been wrong. What had it happened?
On German biographer Regina Kummer put it out in her book about Albino Luciani, published on 1988, but Vitorio Veneto´s bishop was annoyed with her, because he believed that it shouldn’t be published. This author’s confidence was communicated to me by Anthony, Edward Luciani´s wife, in her home in Canale d´Agordo, where John Paul I was born. Loris Francesco Capovilla, who was John XXIII´s secretary, and presently archbishop of Mesembria, has no inconvenience to comment Vittorio Veneto´s history. He makes it to rebate the idea that bishop Luciani were timid. He says: “He is firm, prudent. It is demonstrated in an worrying situation in which he sees two of his priests implicated in a not very clean financial operation. The bishop doesn´t doubt. He compromises his clergy in a reparation work up to sell the church’s property. Truth, justice, charity are jointly conjugated, not without mercy gestures towards the guilty persons” (2) On 1973, Albino Luciani, Venetian patriarch, finds himself by first time with the IOR problem. Its president Marcinkus, without farther consultation, had sold Veneto Catholic Bank to Roberto Calvi, main Ambrosian Bank administrator. The Catholic Bank, founded for the venetian dioceses, lent money at low rates and it had distinguished by its help to those sectors of the society that do not have a politic weight, like deficient and handicapped. Luciani had shown himself very interested for supporting the work special centres. At the middle of 1972, the low rates loans ended. The IOR had sold the Catholic Bank to the Ambrosian Bank. The bishops of the region urged to the Venetian patriarch to go directly to Rome. Prudently, Luciani began to investigate. What he discovered about Calvi and Sindona rendered him stunned. They, nevertheless, had Paul VI confidence. Luciani went to visit Benelli, by that time a substitute in the State Secretary, and he told him the problem. Benelli explained himself fully. The selling of the Catholic Bank was the result of a plan started by Calvi, Sindona and Marcinkus. Marcinkus helped Calvi to disguise the true nature of this and other financial operations, keeping them out of the Italian Bank inspections, taking advantage of the ample easiness of the Vatican Bank. Bottom of the matter: “taxes evasion, bonds illegal movement”. Luciani´s reaction was quick: “What does all this have to do with the church of the poor people? In the name of God…” Benelli interrupted him: “No, Albino, in the name of the dividend” (3). Luciani took the venetian bishops out of the Catholic Bank. After his conversation with Benelli, he commented to his secretary Mario Senigaglia: “I am liberated. I have said everything”. The same Senigaglia told me this confidence in Venice, being present Camilo Bassotto. Patriarch Luciani knew that something in the vatican finances smelled badly. When he was elected pope, he found himself in front of the problem.
The IOR, the Vatican Bank Some history. On 1887, Lion XIII established a Commission whose function was “to keep and to administrate the capitals of the pious foundations” On 1904 Pio X modified this organism, and, later on, he changed its name to the Commission for the Religious Works, opening its activity to the whole Italy. On Most of these assets were placed under a commission, the Holy See Special Administration, which invested the money in the following manner: one third in italian industries bonds, other third on real state and the last third in foreign money and gold. Other organism, the Holy See General Administration, continue administrating the assets constituted on 1876 by cardinal Antonelli. As a consequence of the
pacts of Letran it also was born the Governatorato,
a On 1942, Pius XII constitutes the Religious Works Institute (IOR), which task is “to undertake the capital custody and administration (in bonds and in cash) and of the real state transferred or placed under the Institute, by physical or juridical personas, assigned to the Christian religious and piety. The IOR works under an original formula: the clients compromise themselves to hand over or to allocate, at least partially and pointing to the future, a part of their savings for religious works, which substitutes to the commissions earned by the ordinary banks: “In exchange for it, IOR´s clients earn interests free from taxes, they may convert the invested capitals into any foreign currency, with no limitations of any type and, what is even more important, they may transfer their money to any part of the world. If we take into account that there are no frontiers between Italy and the Vatican State, it can be easily understandable that the IOR had been an important platform easily used to evade capitals from Italy to foreign countries” (5). The Pacts of Letran were
the Holy See modern economy financial base. The It was the years of the
european big economical expansion. The benefits obtained by the The council reform According to the Vatican
Council II (1962-1965), the Church is mystery of communion, it lives in
community. The Council sees in the community experience of the beginnings
(10) the model, not only of the religious life, of the missionaries and
of the priests, but of all the people of God (11). The Church is Community,
Following the Council´s
indications, on Cardinal Albert Di Jorio, IOR president, convinced Paul VI of the need to upkeep the bank´s independence: “You well know, Holy Father, - repeated the cardinal – that it would be impossible to keep secret the names of the clients if the IOR were inscribed among the other administrations” (12). The idea of subordinating the IOR did not like to the pope´s secretary, Mr Pasquale Macchi, either. So, the bank was kept out of any control Sindona and Calvi
Michele Sindona was born in 1920, in the Sicilian city of Patti. He licensed
in fiscal right in the In 1948 Sindona moved to Milan with his family. With a presentation letter of the bishop of Messina, he met Massimo Spada, a member of the Vatican nobility and a main layman of the IOR, and to Giovanni Battista Montini, who was a substitute to the State secretary. The Vatican bank attractive for a financier like Sindona was obvious: “The IOR is the best foreign bank that can be imagined. In place of having the undesirable reputation of a Caribbean bank, it has Church’s moral backing. It is not responsible before any central bank governor, the secret is total… and no pope is elected by his financial perspicacity” (14) In 1954 Montini
is named archbishop of Milan
and Sindona accompanies him in his visits to factories and workshops.
In 1958 the archbishop needs and important amount of money for an ancient’s
home. Montini goes to Sindona, who, according to what he says, “he got
the money from a CIA´s agent who was destined in In 1963 Montini was elected pope with the name of Paul VI. Paul VI considered Sindona as a financial genius. In 1968, the Italian
government displaces to the left and decides to revoke the fiscal law
that granted privileges to the Church in the matter of taxes. The During the following
years, Sindona associated himself intimately to the Vatican
bank business in tight relationship with Marcinkus, who, since 1969 was
IOR general secretary and in 1979 he was named president. Sindona´s and
Vatican´s business were so much integrated that “when Sindona culminated
one of his spectacular business in But Sindona did not connected
only with ecclesiastics, bankers and politicians, but also with hidden
power centres. On Giuseppe Carlo Marino, a Palermo’s University Contemporary History teacher, comments on Sindona affair: “A business which heart was made of drugs and weapons traffic, couldn’t prevent, above all for the black money laundering and other similar activities, and also because of its origins and the necessarily international market to which it was directed, to have at its disposal of an organic connection with the due financial structures”. Sindona is “the personage into which shows up how the masonry – always an important part of the mafia´s middle class general history – became a mafia´s essential component”, “It is not a chance that Sindona´s activities, with those of the P2´s masonry loggia, gave the fruit of some kind of CIA’s shadow party in Italy, a very speculative and functional organisation addressed to the interests of a very great personages net running after power in Italy”, “both for Sindona and for Gelli the best base-recourse to their disposition was the communism, since the fight against it was the alibi for their enterprises, including those of a criminal nature” (21) Senator and mason Giussepe Corsini, who was Pistoia´s communist mayor, Gelli´s home town, reports about the fascist nature of the P2´s leader: “He was the fascist federation’s factotum and the organiser of all the revenge actions, that, even without any motivation, were then carried out. He had a jeep to his disposal and the inseparable submachine gun with which he pointed with no doubt and he even shot, when he wanted to impose his will. Altogether with his honourable godfather Fronzaroli da Bardolino he exercised the most merciless tortures upon those who were detained under the pretext of pertaining or even of simple sympathy towards the partisan groups”(22) At the end of the seventies, Sindona meets Robert Calvi (Milan, 1920) and he decides to help him in his career: “When I met Calvi, says Sindona, he was a low level director in the Ambrosian Bank exterior department. But I acknowledged that Calvi was the only one, among all the bank personnel, who had an international mentality… and great brains for the international operations” (23). Bank of business The Ambrosian Bank, founded by Giuseppe Tovini on 1896, offered the services typical of a credit entity and, at the same time, it was an instrument of confidence to “congregations, pious works and religious organisations of a beneficial nature” (24). The founders hoped to demonstrate how the credit activity can be carried out “with no offence to the christian teaching great ethical principles, that they could even serve like a guide to regulate economical life” (25). The specific weight of the most important bonds packages was limited to avoid the surging of powerful stockholders able to vindicate the management control. The individual stockholders never might posses packages over the five per cent (26). On February 1971, Calvi
accesses to the Ambrosian Bank general leadership. Calvi and Sindona desire
to make it a modern bank of business, “a bank that not only
accepted deposits and granted loans at short notice, but that it also
operated aggressively in the stock market, it bought and sold companies
and it undertook, in general terms, the roll of a dynamic force in the
economy” (27). But an obstacle was present: the 1936 banking law in Therefore, Calvi starts,
one after another, all the bastions of his empire, beginning in The Pope´s, the P2´s and the mafia´s banker On 1969 spring, the government
(centre-leftist) irrevocably decided that the The Michele Sindona would work in an intimate relationship with bishop Marcinkus, Vatican Bank president. Nevertheless, “Sindona would have the decisive authority” (30). Therefore, Michele Sindona, mafioso and mason had become the “pope´s banker”. Did Paul VI know the hidden side of Sindona´s personality? It’s hard to believe it. But the truth is that he placed the Vatican´s financial future in the hands of a man that was the mafia´s banker and the loggia P2´s banker. According to Luigi Di
Fonzo, Harvard university teacher and author of a book titled Michele
Sindona, Saint Peter´s banker (1983), it is difficult to believe that Paul VI wouldn’t hear the rumours about
Sindona´s ties with the mafia and the P2: “In the international bank real
world those appearing like enemies at day light, often appear like allies
under the night’s shelter”. He also says: “The right wing of the Christian
Democracy… has been the protection of the Vatican interests in In 1967 a report sent
to the italian police from the Interpol, identifies Sindona like the leader
of a mafioso and bankers group which were “involved in the stimulant,
antidepressant and hallucinogenic drugs unlawful traffic between In a final report the italian Parliamentarian Commission for the bankruptcy of the sicilian banker, says: “The sale of the Società Generale Inmobiliare (SGI, society of Vatican real state sing) points out the start of the vatican financial demobilisation and of the relationship, more and more tight, between the IOR and the Sindona´s system”. It is not a simple economic transaction, but the establishment of a co-operation: “The effect of the alliance, becoming perhaps a symbiosis, between the Vatican and Sindona is double: by one side, it legitimates Sindona in the internal and in the international fields, which allows him to advance toward his objective to create a financial empire; on the other side, there is the power acquired by Sindona in front of the italian authorities, who do not consider him like a private banker, but like Saint Peter’s shadow. This background is, without any doubt, one of the keys to understand Sindona´s power system” (33) An action and protection pact During those years Sindona centres the economical activity: “His banks, id est, the Banca Unione and the Banca Privata Finanziaria, whose merging gives birth to the Banca Privata Italiana, are dedicated to capitals exportation on behalf of the large, median and small businessmen and of liberal professionals, terrified by the lira progressive depreciation” (34). Years later, in an italian TV programme, Sindona would say: “As IOR president, Marcinkus was a partner in two of my banks”. The socialist magazine Critica sociale in an informative service published on 1980, reports that in the 1969 Christmas Night, a historic supper took place in attorney Umberto Ortolani´s roman office, Licio Gelli´s right hand arm in the P2: “The fellow dinners were Calvi, Sindona and Gelli; the host, Ortolani. Meeting purpose: to establish an action pact between the two bankers, by which Calvi would be helped, thanks to the Vatican support that Ortolani had, to progress in the bank, while Sindona backed from the outside becoming his partner in any of the operations jointly started in the future. On his part, Gelli, would guarantee the political support at every level and in the most diverse checkerboards.” (35). It was an action and protection pact. In Sindona´s arms, Calvi
contacts the Vatican financial leader, Paul Marcinkus. Clara, Mrs Calvi, declared
from Nassau ( To the common creed (Church-money-anticommunism)
that united the three bankers, added the international masonry shadow,
that of the secret services and the one of the italo-american mafia. The
British mason John McCaffrey (former British counterespionage leader in
Calvi substitutes Sindona On March the 14th 1974 the italian newspapers
of leftist trend, report the losses of the Franklin National Bank, the bank controlled by Sindona
beyond the ocean. The rumour gives way to a massive deposit withdrawal.
On October the 8th the Franklin National Bank was declared insolvent. Sindona´s empire is in bankrupt.
That same month the italian government publishes two imprisonment orders
against Sindona. Carlo Bordoni, Sindona´s group key operations director,
flees to Gelli phoned Sindona,
who was hidden in Sindona put into his baggage four bottles of digital. One toxic dose produce arrhythmia in the heart muscles and, at the end, muscular fibrillation. The muscles vibrate, but they do not move the blood through the body. The result is the death. The world falls down over Sindona: “The strong ties he has established with the United States republican party start to decay: just on 1976, democrat Jimmy Carter wins the presidential elections and, after the Watergate scandal, the new power occupants tolerate badly any kind of ambiguous activities. Meanwhile, in Italy, judges Ovilio Urbisci and Guido Viola, in charge to investigate the bankruptcy, are bringing to light, with Ambrosoli´s help, the secrets of his castles of cards” (39) At the time to find a substitute to the system created by Sindona, Calvi has no rivals. Both systems are the same, “to pillage the societies they lead, following the principle that the losses will be socialised in one side of the frontier, the italian, and the benefits privatised in the other, the foreign” (40). The relationship between Sindona and Calvi breaks in 1977. It is necessary the participation of somebody , that somebody pays out the 250.000 millions liras to put an end to the bankruptcy procedure. Calvi promises to help him, but he doesn´t. On November the 3rd 1977 Milan’s centre walls appear with white, blue and yellow manifestos. The papers are signed: Public institutions vigilance committee. The manifest explains the way in which the Calvi-Sindona association worked: “The sicilian in bankruptcy attracted in the Stock Exchange large number of bonds that later on he sent abroad, to the customary Liechtenstein or Panama “magic boxes”, from where they were sold to foreign societies or to its filials, with bulky benefits that were deposited into the Cimafin banking accounts. Calvi made these operations under the counter, since they did not appear at all in the official accountability. Therefore, either one thing or the other: either Calvi used the bank secret funds, or he illicitly used his clients´ deposits” (41). It is Sindona´s revenge. Calvi boasts a supreme calm. Gelli has already made his election and he is inclined for him. He is now the secret loggia’s banker, as much for the clean business, as for the dirty ones. The P2 is in a large expansion and the Ambrosian Bank is one of its main operational arms. Expansion in South America Sindona had the P2´s bankers preference for the Latin-Americans dictators: “I prefer to meet with men like Somoza. To deal with a dictator is much easier than to deal with democratically elected governments: these have many commissions, many controls.” (42). Besides, the common view of the masonry and the politics tied the P2´s men with the Latin-American dictators. Sindona will say it too: “Ortolani and Gelli had a good relationship with the governments (Latin-American) because a large percentage of them was composed by masons. A great part of the South America military governments belong to the masons. In Argentine, Peron was one of the masonry leaders; Massera, who was the Argentine’s strong man and Gelli´s personal friend, was one of South America’s best known masons” (43). At the beginning of the
seventies, Calvi installed the Overseas Ambrosian Bank in the With Calvi´s expansion in Latin America, two grave menaces hang over him: the italian justice investigates the exportation of his capitals and, besides, his plan to control the Ambrosian through ghost societies begins to cause financial tensions. Legal and financial problems feed reciprocally in a vicious circle: “Gelli offered Calve protection against the judicial investigations, but it looks like the price of such protection was for Calvi to take out money from the Ambrosian chests to bribe and to grant questionable loans to the P2´s brothers. Of course, this action aggravated the financial tension. If they were uncover, these questionable loans could start new judicial investigations against Calvi, what obliged to pay and additional protection” (44) Outside Peron adjudicated Gelli
an argentine diplomatic post, and named him Argentine’s embassy in Rome special
economic advisor. Peron died on 1974 and on July the 1st his
vice-president, Isabelita, (and widow) succeeded him. On March 1976, a
military junta overthrow her. Gelli get out unharmed from the coup, because
one of the three junta members was his former friend Admiral Massera,
Navy Head. The P2´s leader not only survived the coup d´état, but he even
prospered with it: the new country’s government very soon decided to invest
thousands millions dollars in weapons import, and Gelli´s power in Bank of On The report mentions evident signs that such societies could be a shield to hide the fact that the control was practised by Calvi or the IOR, the Vatican bank. More than 25 pages of the report are dedicated to the relationship between the Ambrosian and the IOR: “Independently of its position as stockholder, the IOR is tied by strong interest connections to the `Ambrosian Group´, as it is demonstrated by its constant presence in some of the most meaningful and delicate operations… about which nature the highest reserve is promoted” (46) On “We are carrying our
inquiries”, answers Alessandrini to one of L´Espresso
newspaperman who asks him for information. It was Lucca Mucci substitutes
Alessandrini. Through his contacts with the Finances Guard, Gelli was
systematically obstructing and delaying the investigation. Nevertheless,
on Two weeks later, Mucci ordered Calvi to deliver his passport. Calvi and Gelli did everything possible to recover it, even at least temporally, and they didn´t get it. On March 1979, Mucci managed to know who were the twenty main Ambrosian Bank stockholders. The main stockholder is the bank itself, with the 7,39 % of the total. The Vatican possesses, through the IOR, the 1,82 % (50), but the financial plots wrapped by Calvi and Marcinkus were multiple and, many times, shameful: “In the course of five years (1972-1977) the Vatican has been rewarded with almost 70 millions lira because of having agreed to several operations with titles carried out by the Ambrosian group societies. The function of the IOR, that under the italian legislation is a non-resident bank and due to this it is not submitted to the limitations applied to the italian banks, consisted of acting like a shadow in the transfer of titles carried out by the Ambrosian team” (51).
On Five days later, during the annual reception that takes place in Rome to commemorate the Letran pacts signature, Agostino Casaroli, State secretary commented: “Those who criticise are right. We can’t continue like this. We must change” (52). Sindona´s kidnappingAt the end of January
1979, doctor Joseph Miceli Crimi, north american physician of sicilian
origin and a P2´s member, appears in Sindona´s office, in New York. He
tells him: “We are a group of sicilian patriots, most of us masons, and
we need your help to overthrow the italian government in Sicily. We know
that you hate the communists and we are aware of the persecution that
you confront here as well as in As soon as doctor Crimi leaves his office, Sindona phones Gelli. This tells him that Crimi is an honest man and deserves confidence, although he is not very brilliant. Two days later, they meet in New York. Gelli says that Crimi´s plan is an insanity: “It only could succeed if the P2´s military and political members approve it (54). On March the 9th, north american justice processes Sindona, accusing him of 99 fraud, perjury and misappropriation of funds charges. He is set free on bail of 3 millions dollars and the condition of reporting every day in the justice officer office. On June, doctor Crimi again calls on Sindona. The masons and a small partisans group are willing to get into action. But they need more men and they need mafia´s support. Sindona meets with John Gambino and Rosario Spatola in a Motel Conca d´Oro room, in Staten Island. He tells them: “We can do it. But we need two hundred additional men. More weapons. If you help me, I would guarantee to all mafia people an amnesty of all the crimes committed before the coup. But we ought to leave drug traffic. It is necessary to end with all the mafia´s crimes” (55). Rosario Spatola said that he would have to speak to the family’s leader Gambino in New York and with his people in Sicily. On July the 20th, John Gambino and Rosario Spatola answer to Sindona. They support Sicilian Action. If Sindona agrees, they can provide him passport and disguise, but the trip was already prepared for Joseph Macaluso and doctor Crimi On August the 2nd, Sindona (that now answers to the name of Joseph Bonamico) gets into a TWA plane to Vienna. He changes the anticipated plan to arrive to Florence and he ends in Salzburg. From here he phones doctor Crimi. The doctor tells him to go back to Vienna to wait for instructions. Sindona begins to suspect: Crimi looked rare. In the Doctor Crimi communicates
to Sindona a plan change: to reach Palermo through On August the 16th, they arrive to Brindisi on a ship. Due to security reasons they form two groups: Crimi and Puccio get on the train, Vitale and Fodera take Sindona by car “There is something
rare in all this process, says Sindona to his fellows. In all this matter
there is something that stinks. I am returning to One of the men take a revolver out of his pocket. The other tells him: “You must come with us. The leader wants you to go to Palermo. If you flee, we will kill you and your family” (56) They arrive to Palermo. His kidnappers take him to Francesca Paola Longo´s home, a teacher friend of Crimi and Rosario Spatola. Crimi and Francesca dictate him extortion letters. The letters demand money in compensation for not revealing certain documents, also demand documents and they are signed by the Proletarian Committee for a Better Justice. About the fourth day Sindona has grown beard, he has lost weight and he has bags around his eyes. It is the moment to make him a photograph to send it to his family and his attorneys. They tie him to a chair and they hang around his collar a notice saying: “We will make him the trial he deserves”. On August the 23rd, Rosario and Vincenzo Spatola take him to another home. With his eyes blindfold, he is taken to a room before a man identified as “il padrone”. “Mr Sindona, tells
him the man, you have become a bother for us… Because of your legal problems,
the police is investigating heroin traffic between Sicily, “I am Licio Gelli´s friend, says Sindona. He promised help to me. He has power, you surely know it. Talk to him. He can tell you that this is true”. “Gelli is nobody, Michele. He is a labourer. Gelli only exists if he does not become a problem for us, as you have become. Look the things that Bordoni has told about you. He calls you the mafia´s banker. Some friends told you to get rid of him, but you insisted. You rebelled. Look what has happened now, Michele. You must confront the facts. We want you to transfer your money to different banking accounts. We want to know the names of the politicians who have helped you. If you give us this information, we can negotiate. Nothing will happen to those who pay for being protected. The rest will be sacrificed” (58). During the following weeks, Sindona is constantly interrogated by different men, most of them hooded. On September the 21st, Crimi goes to Arezzo to meet Gelli. Crimi delivers him a letter in which Sindona requests his help. Gelli convinces Roberto Calvi to withdraw thirty thousand millions lira (50 millions dollars) out of Sindona´s Bank of Gotardo account. The money is delivered to a messenger that represents the mafia. On September the 23rd, Spatola and John Gambino tell Sindona that they will not set him free: “Don’t try any trick. You have seen our organisation. You know we can found you or your family at any time. Accomplish your word, get the documents and your family will be safe”. Sindona assents. But Crimi intervenes: “He can’t come back as easy as that. We must be sure about what he will say and we must do something to make believe that he has been kidnapped by terrorists. We must shoot him”. Crimi shot him in a leg, he cleaned the wound and he bandaged it On October the 7th,
John Gambino, Crimi and the two bodyguards (Vitale and Foderà) accompany
Sindona, who is with wig and sun spectacles on, in the flight from Palermo
to Milan. John Gambino tells him: “You are going to Frankfort with doctor
Crimi and the rest. My brother has connections with the TWA. He will take
you to the The P2´s lists At the beginning of 1981 two Milanese magistrates, who are investigating Sindona´s ties with the mafia, travel to Palermo to interrogate doctor Joseph Miceli Crimi. The judges ask him why during the period in which Sindona had been kidnapped in Palermo, he had all of a sudden travelled to Arezzo: “I travelled to Arezzo, answers Crimi, because my dentist lives there and this summer I suffered a toothache”. The magistrates do not agree with that answer and, finally, Crimi confess: “The truth is that I travelled to Arezzo because Licio Gelli was there; Gelli is my mason brother and a Michele Sindona´s close friend”. The magistrates immediately order a Gelli´s house search, in Arezzo, and into his office in the near city of Castiglion Fibocchi. It was on March the 17th. This is how the P2´s lists appear. Gelli had recruited 962 powerful personages for his loggia, pertaining to most of the sectors of the system: politicians, militaries, intelligence services, businesses and finances, mass media. It is also discovered that “Gelli had been involved in a long series of scandals that go back to the previous decade, including the Sindona´s case, the scandal ENI/Petromin and the recent Calvi´s case. Besides, among Gelli´s friends there were several persons tied to rightist terrorism actions and to conspiracies to overthrow the italian government” (61) In Gelli´s archives also appear two folders about Calvi, what puts out that Gelli followed step by step Calvi´s affair (62). Calvi will confirm his adhesion to P2: “As a matter of fact, I adhered to Lucio Gelli´s P2… who presented himself like a man with important initiatives as leader of the Institution P2, and used to put out his diverse initiatives in the business field as taken under the guidance of the Great London Mother Loggia. According to Anna, Calvi´s daughter, his father attempted to grow apart from the P2´s leaders some months before the explosion of the loggia history: “My father had already began to say no to answer to Gelli´s or Ortolani´s phone calls. He asked me to say that he was not at home, or that he was ill or sleeping” (64). Clara, Calvi´s widow, and his daughter Anna have revealed that Gelli never said his true name when somebody from the family asked him who was he: “He answered them with his coded name: Luciani” (65). Same affirms Bettino Craxi, Italian Socialist Party general secretary by that time. At the beginning of 1980. in the Hotel Rafael where he had his roman residence, he receives a “courtesy visit”, a man who presents himself “like an exponent of P2´s loggia”, with the name of “Luciani, engineer Luciani”: “When he comes and talks to me, says Craxi, I understand about what and with whom I am talking”. It was not only a courtesy visit and the man was Gelli himself (66). P2´s scandal didn´t explode
until some weeks later. The copies of the lists were delivered to first
minister Arnaldo Forlani, who decided not to divulge them. Gelli fled
from On Italian Economy Minister Beniamino Andreatta was expecting it. In the first months of the year 81, he manifested his worry to cardinal Casaroli, State Secretary: “In the occasion of a meeting requested by cardinal Casaroli to talk about other matters, I could express to him my concern about the IOR-Ambrosian connection. I remember telling to the cardinal that I was afraid of the possibility to reach situations similar to those that took place in the past between Sindona and the IOR”. He also told him: “get free of Calvi as soon as possible” (67). In an interview, on - - I had
sometimes lunch with Roberto Calvi. I often saw him choleric, especially
when he returned from the meetings he has in the IOR. In fact, I said:
In things go wrong, the Almighty would have to leave - - The Almighty? - - Of course, the pope!, explained Gelli in a malicious tone (68) Calvi in prison That month of May 1981 was terrible. On the 13th, in Saint Peter´s square, John Paul II suffered a brutal attempt. On the 20th, Calvi was arrested: “An unprecedented earthquake shook the financial world” (69). Confusion and panic dominated the Ambrosian. That same day, another fact joined to increase the commotion caused by Calvi´s arrest: the P2´s lists were made public. Calvi was the most outstanding banker in the Gelli´s lists. The publication of these lists brought down Arnaldo Forlani´s government, and for first time in forty years the government head did not belong to the Christian Democracy Party. The Christian Democrats left the office to a member of other party: Giovanni Spadolini, of the Republican Party. In the prison of Lodi, Calvi explained to his wife Clara and his daughter Anna what they can do to help him: “He told them that it was necessary to mobilise the politicians whose parties had benefited from the Ambrosian generosity, so that they would use their influence in his favour. He added that it was essential to put pressure on the IOR, the Vatican Bank. Calvi revealed to his family that he had not made on his own behalf the two operations with bonds for which he has been arrested, but that they were carried out in representation of the IOR. The Bank of Gotardo, the Ambrosian Swiss bank, possesses documents proving the IOR´s intervention. But Swiss laws about the banking secret did not allow to the Gotardo to deliver the papers without the IOR´s authorisation. The banker indicated to his family that the pressure should be put on the two main IOR directors: Archbishop Marcinkus and Luigi Mennini. During a visit to the prison of his wife and his daughter, he even delivered them some papers in which it was written down: This trial is called IOR”. When Clara and Anna went out of the prison they met with Luigi Mennini´s son, Alessandro, an Ambrosian executive. “On seeing the papers that my daughter had in her hand, he tried to snatch them away – told Clara Calvi later on -. But I sat down on them and did not let them to go off”. Clara Calvi affirms that Mennini told them then”. You should not mention this name (the IOR) not even in the confessional box” On May the 22nd, magistrate Gerardo D´Ambrosio interrogated Calvi in a four and a half hours session: he requested him explanations about one of the anomalous operations with bonds and about his relationship with Gelli. At last, Calvi understood that he had lost the game and he clumsily said: “I am unable to give any explanation”. The magistrate came back the following day, taking with him some documents about Calvi´s judicial affair found in Gelli´s archives. The trial began on May the 29th. The court president is Guido Roda Bogetti and the prosecutor, Corrado Carnavalli, a magistrate competent in foreign currency export. During the night from the 2nd to the 3rd of July, Calvi calls for some Milanese magistrates. He is discouraged, he is conscious that everybody has turned away from him, that he has lost the judicial battle and that he must confront a severe sentence. Pestered with questions, Calvi breaks to weep and, alternating long pauses with deep sighs, he delivers an important confession: “I am the lowest of the low, try to understand… The Ambrosian Bank is not mine. I am a just a dogsbody of others”. The magistrates insist: “But, who commands you? Who is the proprietary of the bank?”. “I can’t tell you anymore”, answers Calvi (71). Nevertheless, that same
night, the Milanese banker comments to the magistrates his relationship
with Gelli and, above all, with Umberto Ortolani: “Ortolani had friends
in all the environments, even at international level, particularly among
the London masonry. I repeatedly could check that Ortolani
had high level friends also in the ecclesiastic environment, under his
position like On July the 9th the news spread that Calvi tried to commit suicide during the night: he ingested a number of pills and he wounded himself in his right wrist. The opinions are diverse: “he made it in a moment of depression, seeing that the trial was marching against him”, “he wishes to raise court’s compassion”, “he wishes to provoke friend political forces intervention”. Finally, on June the
20th the court pronounces the sentence: Calvi and other three
Ambrosian group leaders are declared guilty. Calvi receives the most severe
sentence: four years in prison and a sixteen millions lira fine (more
than ten millions dollars). The prisoners obtain the provisional freedom.
The Vatican´s Bank guarantee
Alarm spread in the Ambrosian Bank.
On August, the Bank Andino of Peru manager flew to Milan
and held a tempestuous meeting with Calvi. Giorgio Nassano, Andino´s president,
reported later on to the Financial Times that “he and his colleagues directors menaced to resign
immediately if Calvi did not offer them guarantees that the loans to the
Calvi resorted to Marcinkus. He requested him some kind of guarantee that could help him to gain time while he cleared the Ambrosian financial problems. Marcinkus rejected to extend an explicit guarantee, but he accepted to write some sponsorship letters. Wrote on September the 1st and on October the 26th 1981 in the IOR and addressed to the Lima Andino Ambrosian and the Managua Commercial Ambrosian, the letters said that the IOR controlled “directly or indirectly” eight societies (six in Panama) and that “it knew its debt”, which at that moment had raised to some 1.000 millions dollars. The letters were signed by: Mennini, Marcinkus executive, and Pellegrino de Stroebel, IOR accountability director. (75) The creditors could breathe calm. What they did not know was that Marcinkus had no intention to pay off the debts. There was another letter, secret, from Calvi to the IOR, written on August the 27th, in which it was ensured that the IOR would not suffer “additional harm nor loses” (76). It was the defence letter Marcinkus explain it as follows: “Calvi gets out of prison in 1981 and he comes and tells me: `I have problems and I don’t know how to solve them. Since I can’t take care of everything, please help me and look after these matters. He didn´t say that they were our own matters. I requested him to write a letter, an explanatory letter, in which it would be said that those business neither were ours nor had ever been. I insisted that any measures should be taken to decrease the debt, and that in one year and a half everything must be solved and we completely disengaged from the business. It is like a trustee compromise. I didn´t give him a guarantee or any thing similar to that. The only thing we knew was the existing debt, that is all”. (77) After taking over the
Ambrosian vice-presidency, on Autumn 81, Roberto Rosone began interrogating
Calvi about the loans to the On December, the financier Carlo De Benedetti, as Ambrosian vice-president and stockholder, tried to know with precision the relationship existing between the bank of Calvi (and of the P2) and the bank of the pope. Since Calvi eluded the answer saying that those were “particularly reserved matters”, De Benedetti looked for another way and he got a private meeting with monsignor Achille Silvestrini, in the State Secretary: “The meeting took place
in Rome, in my office, being present – as friend and as a courtesy
– the honourable Virginio Rognoni (Minister of the Interior and demo Christian
member of the Parliament). In that occasion, starting with the explicit
affirmation that Marcinkus, IOR president, was a thief and that it seemed
inconceivable that a State such as the New protectors On March 81, Calvi hires Francesco Pazienza as an Ambrosian consultant. Pazienza acknowledges himself as a mason in his book The disobedient. He belongs to the Italian Great Orient from May 1980, legitimated by the British Great Loggia. Some months before, on
“In “The most surprising
matter, deduced from those documents, says Pazienza, was that the pope
was badly thought of in the circle of those who should have been his most
close and faithful collaborators. His `fault´ was to be a sort of `marcian´,
a true and own `strange´, arrived from Poland and fully outside and rejected
by the hard nucleus of italian prelates constituting the historic core
of the Curia, used to handle in their own way and in an absolute manner,
the complicated but almost perfect vatican machine. Therefore, one couldn’t
`trust´ him, since the consolidated and built during so many years power,
inside and outside the Holy See walls, could be in danger,. The danger
of breaking the incrustations that, like a strange, he would at the end
discover, existed, and he would have tried to diminish and destroy them,
since very little or even nothing had to do with the There was, besides, the support of John Paul II to the polish trade union Solidarity: “The flow of money reaching Varsovia through the IOR and, more correctly, through the financial institute which was the vatican bank secular allied by excellence and through Marcinkus: it is to say, the Ambrosian Bank, whose president was Roberto Calvi. On January 1981, such information were properly confirmed to me by the French, whose intelligence services were very different to the Italian ones” (82). Another new Calvi´s protector is Flavio Carboni, a Sardinian business man, who seemed to have a surprising amount of friends in high positions: in the political, editorial, Vatican, intelligence services and criminal world. “Once disappeared Licio Gelli, refugee in a foreign country, the Milanese banker was almost orphan and isolated… Through the time I had the opportunity to repent to have been in contact with Carboni and, above all, of having made his acquaintance with Calvi” (83), says Pazienza. On December 81, Carboni assumed the roll of main Calvi´s public relations manager. Roberto Rosone, Ambrosian vice-president, defined Pazienza and Carboni as “individuals who scare you only by seeing them” (84) On September the 2nd of 1981 the ordinary section of the Cassation Court issues an order according to which all the investigations directly or indirectly related with the P2 are under the jurisdiction of the roman seat of the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Republic. Therefore, the Milan and Brescia magistrates must leave the summaries and send them to Rome: “The political power can’t tolerate that some politically independent magistrates handle delicate investigations that in some aspects involve the secretaries of the two most important parties of the Government” (85). The roman prosecution office move is directly managed by Achille Gallucci, first Roman Republic prosecutor, and the delegate prosecutor Domenico Sica: “Sica carries out a great activity in Rome: the most delicate and hot activities of the close times are assigned to him at these moments, from Aldo Moro´s assassination to that of the newspaper Mino Pecorelli, going through the Pope Wojtyla´s attempt” (86). Another matter. The story known like Protection account is discovered when in Gelli´s archives appear an envelope titled Deputy Claudio Martelli, with three writings of an explosive contain. The first says: “Three millions and a half dollars in the Protection account number 633369, of the UBS: Fiorini, DDL and Martelli on account of Bettino Craxi, 28 – 10 – 1980”; the second paper: “They will be followed by another three millions and a half at the contract’s signature”. The third is a note in the back of an envelope titled Chamber of Deputies: Pay in the account number 633369” (87). On May the 10th 1981, the weekly L´Expresso publishes the news of these compromising documents, at the sight of which the Milanese magistrates Viola and Fenizia open a criminal lawsuit, dictating diligence against Martelli, the Ente Nazionalle Idrocarburi (ENI) vice-president, Leonardo Di Donna (DDL), the financial director of the mentioned organisation, Florio Fiorini and Roberto Calvi. It is suspected that Calvi has paid a seven millions dollars commission upon a monetary operation between the ENI and the Ambrosian. The Milanese instructors, besides, are convinced that the account Protection does not hide a physical person, but a fiduciary society with seat in Hong-Kong. In effect, in 1980, Roberto Calvi obtained an important credit from the ENI – controlled by the socialists – for his bank. The Ambrosian was already running into problems, and Calvi was ready to do anything to get fresh money. In exchange he paid to the PSI (Italian Socialist Party) seven millions dollars in two instalments, that passed through the Protection account. The account was opened in a Swiss bank “to the name of a Craxi´s friend architect, Silvano Larini, but the money really went into PSI´s hands”. (88) Ambrosian´s Bank crack. In 1981 Calvi tries several plans to save the Ambrosian Bank crack. In order to this, he appealed to the Opus Dei: “The organisation would buy the Ambrosian shares that were under the ghost societies, avoiding the financial losses (and also the damage to its public image), that the Holy See would suffer if the Bank crack happened. In exchange for this the Opus Dei would obtain several privileges in the Church”. (89). On his part, Pazienza wishes to introduce general Pietro Musumeci, former SISMI director and a P2 member, into the Ambrosian. At the end of 1981, Musumeci appears in the bank offices to organize the vigilance services control. But the project is too expensive: “Not even the Sha of Persia could allow himself a so costly security service”, tells Rosoni to Calvi, implying that he opposes to the service. On The investigators indicated
that the aggressor, who was accompanied by an accomplice called Bruno
Nieddu, belonged to the roman mob known as the Magliana Band. He had in
his pocket a driver’s licence and a carefully folded paper in which appeared
several phone numbers. One was Ernesto Diotallevi´s, close to the Magliana
Band. It was checked that, the day after the attempt against Rossone,
Carboni had laid down a payment of 530.000 dollars in Diotallevi´s favour.
On Additional problems. At the end of May 82 the Bank of Gotardo claims to the IOR the amount of 300 million dollars for an operation made by Calvi. According to Flavio Carboni, “Mennini convened Calvi and required him to immediately respond to the compromise. Due to this, the banker decided to go abroad, in the certainty that the Vatican would not tighten more the string; he wished to seek money to please Mennini and company” (92). Anna Calvi tells that she silently listened a conversation between his father and Carboni, during a weekend in May: “ My father was saying (rising his voice) to Carboni that he should make understand to the Vatican that the priests ought to honour their compromises, since, in other case, he would reveal all he knew” (93). On May the 30th, Calvi and his daughter are alone in a property in Drezzo (Como): “My father told me that, in order to solve the problems with the IOR, he has studied and initiated a project foreseeing the direct Opus Dei intervention, organisation that should contribute an enormous figure, in an amount of more than a billion lira, to cover the IOR´s debt with the Ambrosian Bank”. Calvi tells his daughter that Casaroli is against his project, but the IOR runs the risk of bankrupt: “The priests will be obliged to sell Saint Peter´s square” . The numbers are enormous: “Because of this range of numbers, people can assassinate”. Calvi approaches his wardrobe and takes out a revolver and says: “If they come, I shall shoot them”. (94). The Vatican Bank president, Archbishop Marcinkus, rejects for months to receive Calvi, “although he had been his business associate and he had received his help to organise the financing, according what it is said, of 50.000 million pesetas in favour of the Solidarity trade union, through Panama banks” (95). Locked to him the IOR gates, Calvi directs himself to the Opus Dei. According to Carlo Calvi, his father´s plan was to sell to the Opus the 16 % of the Ambrosian, that was into the IOR hands: “ The Opus Dei, would have hidden all the holes that Marcinkus and Luigi Mennini (his right hand) had induced in the Ambrosian Bank”. (96). In the morning of June
the 8th, Calvi told his daughter to leave Since he left prison,
the Bank of Italy pressed Calvi with letters requiring explanations about
his actions abroad. The May 31st letter was, says Rosone, “a
true bombing”. On On June the 9th, Carboni finds Calvi in an extreme agitation state: “Mennini had placed before him a brutal ultimatum about the matter of the 300 million dollars, indicating him that this amount ought to be delivered to the IOR not later than the next Friday, 11th of June. Mennini had added that his son Alessandro, a leader of the Ambrosian Bank, had instructions to denounce Calvi´s situation and debts to the magistracy” (99). On June the 11th,
Calvi leaves a written note in his roman apartment: “I must leave due
to unexpected reasons”. From the On June the 13th,
in Klagenfurt ( On June the 14th, Marcinkus handed in his resignation to the Nasau Ambrosian bank general director: “My resignation, he says, is motivated by the fact that it has become impossible for me to find the time to call on the administration council meetings due to the numerous tasks entailed to my present responsibility” (102). On Thursday the 17th of June, Il Sole 24 ore publishes the whole text of the Bank of Italy last letter, putting out the calamitous news about the Ambrosian´s external debt. The collapse happened in the Stock Exchange. The last Ambrosian administration Council takes place in the evening. It is decided to place the bank under a commercial management. From now on, the Bank of Italy will take care of the Ambrosian. That same day, Graziella Corrocher, Calvi´s secretary, falls down from the fourth floor of the Ambrosian central headquarters, leaving a “suicide note” in which she curses Calvi because of the harm caused. Some say that she “had committed suicide”. Something similar happens some months later, on October the 2nd , with Giuseppe Dellacha, an executive of the same bank. Calvi dies in London several hours after his secretary. His body appears the following day hung under the bridge of the Black Brothers (103). Calvi hung At Calvi´s death hearing concludes on July the 3rd. Jury’s sentence: suicide. Nevertheless, why should Calvi elect a so macabre and complicated way of dying? It could have been a ritual assassination. In some masonry ancient initiation ceremonies the new member is warned that if he reveals loggia’s secrets he will be hung and his body washed by the ebb and flow of the tide. To make it thoroughly clear, “around the collar it is placed a tied string with the end hanging from the back” and the candidate solemnly swears that he never will reveal “neither part nor parts, neither point nor points” of the masonry own secrets “under a sentence of no less – in case of infringement of some of them – than my head be cut, my tongue took out by its root and buried in sea sand over the ebb tide line, or at a range of one cable from the beach, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty four hours, or the most effective punishment of being marked as a consciously perjured individual, deprived of any moral dignity and fully inadequate to be received in this venerable loggia” (106). The jury verdict raises many doubts. Some italian newspapers even suggest that London and Rome police investigators have received instructions from the highest political levels to dictate a suicide veredict and to close Calvi´s bundle, “due to the uncomfortable connections with weapons traffic for Argentine and of the Vatican Bank implication in this case” (107). A second hearing was
decided, taking place on According to Robert Clake, London’s attorney who had helped Calvi to get lodging in London at the request of Hans Kunz (Carboni´s Swiss friend), Kunz told him that Carboni had acted “on behalf of the Vatican interests” and that if arrangements were not have been made for the London trip “the italian government could have fallen down”. Professor Antonio Fornari, Pavía University legal medicine Institute director, presented in the second hearing, a specialist’s report on behalf of Calvi´s family. Professor Fornari discovered a large stain on Calvi´s trousers external bottom. A little before dying, Calvi had sat on a very dirty place. In his opinion, on a boat’s bottom. One person, in the night darkness, had placed himself at his back, and maintaining a string in his hand, had made a knot pressing it around his collar: “He was strangulated from his back, says Fornari, and immediately afterwards, they hung him from the handrail” Palermo
court’s sentence (September the 8th 1985) against the mafia´s
leadership, gathers Tommaso Busceta´s testimony about an obscure figure,
Pippo Calò, to whom he accuses of being implicated “in the most grave
kidnappings and, in Rome, in obscure plots, among them in Calvi´s case”.
(110). The trial resulted in 19 life imprisonment penalties and some additional
of more than two thousand years imprisonment. On On 1992, roman magistracy
achieves to transfer Calvi´s case to the capital and it continues the
investigation that concludes with the arrest warrant against Pippo Calò
and Flavio Carboni, issued by judge Mario Almerighi on The motive would be the following: “Calvi would have seized, as before had done Sindona, part of the Cosa Nostra treasure, promising to invest it and to make it productive, but, at the end, trapped by the debts, and he wouldn´t had been able to give it back” (111). According to the roman magistrates, the Milan banker was assassinated by the plot mafia-camorra-masonry”. Calvi had possibly “become a mad unreliable splinter”, “the fear existed that Calvi could try to save himself though blackmail manoeuvres against his former allies” and “the fear that the banker could reveal the information he possessed” (112). A small detail. Calvi´s corpse appears without moustache. Had he shaved it to go unnoticed? A witness, Cecil Gerard Coomer, says that he had coincided (about 2200 hrs) with Calvi, in front of the hotel lift. He had the moustache, although it were very light. It seemed to him, Hitler’s face. He appeared thoughtful, pensive, worried. Two younger men accompany him, talking italian between them. Such circumstance supports the hypothesis that before hanging Calvi he was chloroformed and shaved then to avoid leaving any track. (113) Arrest warrant against Marcinkus On The three envelopes were delivered to the Italian ambassador before the Holy See, Claudio Cheli. They were rejected due to technicalities. Plea transmissions to foreign authorities should be done by diplomatic channels. The struggle over juridical formalities would last more than five years. IOR members invoked,
besides, immunity benefits contained in the article 11th of
the Letran pacts. On Milan magistrates continue investigating. On January the 23rd 1987, Pier Luigi María Dell´ Oso request judge Renato Bricchetti to issue an immediate capture order against Marcinkus, Mennini and De Strobel: “IOR support, which has been an irreplaceable associate of the operational system initiated by Calvi, has represented an unequivocal constant in the activity carried out by the Ambrosian bank executive group, culminating with the issue of the sponsorship letters, what have revealed harmful for the said bank” (115). On February the 20th the Milan magistrates Antonio Prizzi and Renato Bricchetti sign the arrest warrants. It is not questioned this or that operation, but the whole of the relationship of the IOR with the Ambrosian, the agreement, the understanding and the collaboration, without exception, that both banks mutually delivered for several years. From the Milan Ambrosian Bank it was possible to reach a series of financial societies set up called “Panamanian” or “ghost societies”: “those societies, says the arrest warrant, had been thought and were controlled by the IOR and Calvi; later on, huge sums of money, that appeared like usual banking operations, were delivered to Calvi to pass them to the mentioned societies”. They really served for “different purposes and they produced an enormous stream of money with no return”. According to the magistrates, the IOR agreed to “cover up the reality in order to avoid leaving any track upon the possible connections between the Ambrosian and the main Panamanian financier among all the ghost societies”, “the Vatican bank has served as a formidable support for Calvi´s anomalous operations”, and all this “proofs the existence of a deep understanding, taking place continuously, between the IOR and Ambrosian bank managers” Because of this, the IOR “is responsible of distraction, concealment, squandering and, in any case, of destruction” of the Ambrosian Bank assets. The crack meant a hole of about 1.200 million dollars (about 156.000 million pesetas)” (116). On The Milan Penalty Court examining magistrates played the last resort, that of the Constitutional Court, with a request lodged on November the 26th. On June the 6th 1988, the Constitutional Court signed a sentence liberating definitively Marcinkus. None of the italian republic courts could prosecute neither to the IOR´s president nor his two collaborators. The central character of the IOR among the Catholic Church organisms was established and the consequent immunity guaranteed by the Treaty of Letran was confirmed. (118). The parliamentary commission of investigation over the P2, says: “In fact, the IOR presence served as a cover to the banks, fiduciary and intermediary societies, of shadow-companies, of ciphered banking accounts disseminated all over the world, from Panama to Hong Kong; a mix-up, leaded by the Ambrosian Bank and the P2 band that had assumed the property and full control, born not only for fiscal evasion reasons and to flee the monetary authority control, but also to hide the flow and the laundering of the foul money” (119). The relationship between the IOR and the Ambrosian had already been initiated in 1972; it is to say, one year after the nomination of Marcinkus as president of the vatican bank. After the buying and selling of the Catholic Bank of Veneto, the IOR and the Ambrosian created a relationship that exceeded by far the normal ties between credit institutions. IOR´s complicity. On December the 27th 1982 it was officially announced the signature of an agreement to create an italo-vatican joint commission (three members from each part) to study the IOR-Ambrosian matter. The italian side commissioners distinguish among an “official literature” and a “parallel literature”. The most important document in the parallel documentation is the famous letter of disclaimer, but the italian commissioners know another nineteen documents of the same type, written by Calvi in a very prolonged period of time and above all from 1976 to 1981 (120). This demonstrates that the sponsorship letters and of the letter of disclaimer purpose, on the part of Marcinkus and of Calvi, represent “the evolution – in a difficult moment – of the tactics already experimented in the pass” Attorney Pasquale Chiomenti, president of the italian part of the commission, concludes that if it really does not show up the sure proof that the IOR be the true owner of the sponsored societies, it whereas appears “farther away of any possibility of doubt, the proof that, at least for some time from 1974, there was a very tight relationship among Roberto Calvi and the IOR, in the Ambrosian Bank all of them in order to cover Roberto Calvi´s not very orthodox positions and activities of the field of the Ambrosian Bank and the societies or other entities directly or indirectly controlled by it”. Chiomenti recalls that Marcinkus presented a lot of documents before the commission in order to deny that he were the owner of the sponsored societies, but at the same time these papers certainly demonstrate “that the IOR knew that its behaviour delivered to Roberto Calvi the means to start operations that he wouldn’t be able to carry out under the sun’s light”. According to the three vatican commissioners, “up to June 1981, the IOR only knew the MANIC and the United Trading Company (UTC), but it ignored the existence of the eight subsidiaries and, in consequence, it was in the dark about its activity”. (121) The commission worked
for less than three months and arrived to limited conclusions. The results
was a transaction. The agreement was signed in Geneva
on When the British newspaperman
Cornwell ask Marcinkus why the This man is Agostino Casaroli. State Secretary from July 1979 and from 1980 on a member of the Vigilance commission of the IOR, he had arrived with new plans. On March 81 he refused to approve the IOR´s annual balance, if he was not allowed to study the documents enough in advance. And at the end of the Spring, a commission of fifteen Cardinals was created for all these questions. About Calvi business, according to Flavio Carboni, the pope said: “Let everything to fall down. Let Cardinal Casaroli to take care of it” (124). Against Casaroli is especially
addressed the letter that Calvi writes to John Paul II, on “Your Holiness, I have thought a lot, a lot in these days. I have thought a lot, Your Holiness, and I have concluded that You are the ultimate hope, the ultimate… Your Holiness, I myself have assumed the heavy load of the mistakes and the faults committed by the present and the past IOR representatives, including the Sindona´s misdeeds from which I still suffer its consequences. I myself have been, under the precise order of Your authorised representatives, the one who carried out peculiar financing in favour of many countries and associations from the East and the West; I myself have been the one who, in accordance with the vatican authorities, have co-ordinated in all Central and South America, the creation of numerous banking entities, above all in order to resist the penetration of pro marxist ideologies and, finally, I myself am betrayed and abandoned precisely by this authority to whom I have always rendered most respect and obedience… We know who are the external adversaries, and You, Your Holiness, know it better than anybody and you fight them better than anybody; but the internal ones, in the Church I mean, the related, like some demo christians, you, Your Holiness, do you know them? I don’t think so. I am not a gossip and I am not one that accuses out of spite or revenge either. Therefore I am not interested in considering the many rumours that fall on some prelates and, in particular, on the private life of the State Secretary Casaroli, but I am very interested in pointing out the good relationship existing among him and notoriously anticlerical environments and personages, like the demo christian politician Nino Andreatta, with whom it looks like he has reached an agreement for the destruction and distribution of the Ambrosian Group.. But, to which plan wants or must obey the State Secretary? To which blackmail?. (125). The letter written to the pope will not be sent that day and perhaps never. Calvi placed it in the small case he took with him to London in his last escape. On 1982 Marcinkus is excluded from the trips of the papal entourage On According with the attorney Pasquale Chiomenti, “ the pope was against the idea to pay even one cent, convinced as he was that the matter was a dispute between laymen and that there was no legal proofs of Marcinkus responsibility” (126). Casaroli turned to the pope and drew a yes from him. Casaroli understood perfectly,
after having spent hours and hours upon thousands of documents, which
was Marcinkus´ weak spot. Who was the owner of the Manic, UTC and Zitropo,
the three holdings leading numerous ghost societies responsible of the
Ambrosian hole of more than 1.200 million dollars?. There was no doubt:
the IOR, since the stocks were issued to the name of the bearer and they
were in his stock portfolio. But, one of the Geneva
act clauses, on When the newspaperwoman Laura Colby published this news (128) on 1987, Marcinkus felt himself out of action. He did not answer immediately, but two years later with a memorial prepared by his attorneys and reproduced in the book of Cornwell, A thief in the night. To demolish Marcinkus´ thesis it would have been enough to revise the documentation of the Bank of Gotardo, of Lugano, that Marcinkus expected to stay buried in a swiss bank. Nevertheless, “the boxes with the precious swiss documents were sent to Milan on 1990 spring, exactly before the initiation of the trial for the Ambrosian bank crack” On March the 9th 1989 Marcinkus dismissal as IOR president is announced. It is carried out in a discreet way, in the context of a reform in the IOR structure. A five members cardinals commission, named by the pope for a five years period, looks after the IOR fidelity to its statutes. A prelate, not a bishop, named by the cited commission, follows the institute’s life, but with neither executive nor management function; an administration council looks after the financial activity; among its functions appears that of naming the director and the deputy director of the IOR – always laymen – and of three auditors Sindona poisoned On On On Sindona was extradited
to Two years in advance,
In the case that Sindona died in a “clean” situation and unexpectedly, it would mean that the Americans had joined the play. Pazienza stated that only the Americans could deliver to the Italians sophisticated poisons able to kill without leaving tracks that could be detected in the autopsy: “The Italians only are able of using arsenic and cyanide”. Therefore, Sindona´s death responsible probably were the italian secret services and not the Americans: The used poison was the cyanide. Nevertheless, the investigators find more logic the conclusion of a suicide, since, they say, Sindona drank the cup of coffee up to the bottom, in spite of the taste, the smell and the heartburn According to Pazienza,
also the Ambrosian Bank trial The trial on the Ambrosian
Bank crack, was initiated on “The judicial decision,
considered spectacular in Ambrosian Bank’s top management and that of the loggia P2 were condemned by the Third Section of the Penal in the Milan Audience. The larger sentences fell upon the P2´s leaders: 18 years and a half prison for Licio Gelli and 19 for Umberto Ortolani. Sentences pronounced are 34 in total, adding up to 300 years of prison for 33 charged. Other accused are: the ex-manager of the editorial group Rizzoli, Bruno Tassan Din (14 years); the Ambrosian managers, Roberto Rosone (12 years) and Orazio Bagnasco (7 years and a half); the ex-secret agent Francesco Pazienza (14 years and 8 months); Flavio Carboni (15 years). Some of the persons charged logged appeals, that the Appeals and the Supreme courts should solve (133) Other matter related
to the Ambrosian Bank is that of the illegal commission of the bill called
Protection, a commission
that ends in the italian socialist party chest. On Together with them Licio Galli with six years and a half in prison, the ENI ex vice-president and socialist Leonardo Di Donna with seven years, and the architect Silvano Larini, for the lending of his current account, with five years and a half, were condemned Dangerous connection It is certainly surprising the series of assassinations and violent attempts, related, in one or other way, with the P2, the mafia, the Ambrosian, the Vatican Bank: the public prosecutor Giorgio Ambrosoli, who investigated Sindona´s banks crack, is assassinated on the 11th of July 1979; judge Emilio Alessandrini, who investigated Calvi´s and Ambrosian´s activities, is assassinated on the 29th of January 1979; John Paul I, who wanted to end the vatican business, dies in strange circumstances on the 29th of September 1978; in May 1981, when he had abandoned the Ambrosian to his luck and Calvi is imprisoned, John Paul II suffers a brutal attempt; Calvi dies hung in 1982; Calvi´s secretary and one Ambrosian executive also die that same year; Sindona dies poisoned in 1986. Concluding, the connection IOR-Ambrosian becomes very dangerous, In September 1989, from
the 10th to the 17th , I was in Tenerife guiding a catechumenal inspiration course in La Vera parish. Precisely
those days cardinal Antonio Javierre, vatican archives responsible, was
preaching the quinario of the Christ of the Laguna. He was besides delivering
some conferences in a Convent in Garachico, former island capital. I assisted
to the Saturday conference with a group. The theme was the mission of
the laymen in today’s Church. After the conference, that took place in
the chapel, there was no dialogue, but a solemn mass. The first reading
talked about the golden calf, that false god before which The following day, back in Madrid, I read in the newspaper an article that attracted my attention. It was written by a priest who is, precisely, a cardinal´s brother. I don’t know why he brought about the lament of the poet Pablo Neruda: “I looked for the wise priests,/ I waited for them after the rite,/ I watched them when they came out,/ to visit God and the demon./ They were bored by my questions./ They didn´t knew too much either;/ they only were functionaries” (135). I coudn´t less that to recall what had happened the previous day. I thought of the wise priests who write books about pope Luciani and that do not want to know anything about the modern golden calf. |