In God's Name

by David Yallop

  The day after the attempted murder of Rosone, April 28th, Flavio Carboni paid the surviving leader of the Rome underworld 530,000 dollars. The job had been botched but Calvi was a man who honoured his debts with other people’s money.

  Calvi, who undoubtedly had ordered the assassination of his own deputy chairman, was quickly at the bedside of his wounded colleague, complete with the statutory bunch of flowers. ‘Madonna! What a world of madmen. They want to frighten us, Roberto, so that they can get their hands on a Group worth 20,000 billion lire.’

  In May 1982 the screws began to tighten on Calvi. Consob, the Milan Stock Market Regulatory Agency, finally forced him to list his shares publicly on the Milan Stock Exchange. Such a listing would necessitate an independent audit of the Bank’s books.

  Roberto Calvi’s wife Clara has stated under oath that earlier that year in a private audience with Pope John Paul II, Calvi had discussed the problem of the billion dollar debt the Vatican had incurred very largely through the efforts of Calvi, Gelli, Ortolani and Marcinkus. The Pope allegedly made Calvi a promise. ‘If you can extricate the Vatican from this debt you can have full control of rebuilding our finances.’

  If this offer was indeed made then His Holiness was obviously seeking more of the same. It was to be business as usual for ever and ever with no Amen.

  The Pope and Calvi were only two of many beginning to show real concern about the fortune in dollars that had poured into the Vatican-owned off-shore companies. On May 31st, 1982, the Bank of Italy wrote to Calvi and his board of directors in Milan. They demanded that the board give a full account of foreign lending by the Banco Ambrosiano Group. The board of directors, in a pitifully late show of resistance to Calvi, voted 11 to 3 to comply with the central bank’s demand.

  Licio Gelli, who had secretly returned from Argentina to Europe on May 10th, was another making demands on Calvi. Gelli was in the market for more Exocet missiles to help his adopted country in their Falklands war with Great Britain. With the bulk of Argentina’s foreign assets frozen and an official arms embargo operating, Gelli was obliged to turn to the black market arms dealers, who displayed some scepticism about Gelli’s ability to pay what he was offering for the deadly missiles. He was offering four million dollars per missile, with a minimum order of twenty. At six times the official price there was considerable interest in the order, subject to Gelli raising the necessary money. He was well known to the arms dealers as a man who in the past had purchased radar equipment, planes, guns, tanks and the original Exocets on behalf of Argentina. Now he was in need of at least 80 million dollars and the need was urgent. The war in the Falklands hung in the balance.

  Thus, Calvi, already juggling the needs of Pope John Paul II, his Mafia clientele, his irate shareholders, the Consob watchdogs on the Milan Stock Exchange, a recalcitrant board of directors and an incompetent assassin who had succeeded in getting himself killed, yet again found Gelli with his hand out.

  Calvi saw only two avenues of survival. Either the Vatican had to help him fill the ever-growing hole that was appearing in the Bank’s assets or Gelli, the Puppet Master, must yet again demonstrate that he still controlled the Italian power structure and save his P2 paymaster from ruin.

  Calvi discussed the options with Flavio Carboni, who continued secretly to run tape on their conversations.

  It is clear from Calvi’s remarks that he considered the Vatican Bank should fill the huge hole in Banco Ambrosiano if for no other reason than that they were the main beneficiaries of the missing millions and further that they were legally obligated. Calvi observed: ‘The Vatican should honour its commitments by selling part of the wealth controlled by the IOR. It is an enormous patrimony. I estimate it to be 10 billion dollars. To help the Ambrosiano the IOR could start to sell in chunks of a billion at a time.’

  If any layman in the world should have known the worth of the Vatican that man should have been Roberto Calvi. He was privy to virtually all of its financial secrets. For over a decade he had been the man to whom the Vatican had turned in financial matters. I have previously noted that at the time Albino Luciani became Pope in 1978 the wealth controlled by both sections of APSA and the Vatican Bank was conservatively in the region of three billion dollars. Now in early 1982 the highly conservative Roberto Calvi placed the patrimony of the IOR alone at 10 billion dollars.

  It is clear that as 1982 progressed the man who is mistakenly known to the world as ‘God’s Banker’ had a multitude of problems, the majority of them self-created. ‘God’s Thief’ would be a more appropriate title for this man who stole millions on behalf of the Vatican and P2. Since the late 1960s there has been only one man who deserves the sobriquet of ‘God’s Banker’ and that is Archbishop Paul Marcinkus.

  In spite of the formidable range of problems confronting him at the time, problems that were only partly known to me, Roberto Calvi was initially calm when I interviewed him by telephone during the evening of June 9th, 1982. The interview had been arranged by an intermediary whom Calvi trusted. It covered a wide range of subjects. Through my interpreter, I began to question Calvi closely about the Banca Cattolica del Veneto transaction. He had been told that I was writing a book about the Vatican and when I mentioned the bank in Venice he asked what the central subject of the book was. I told him, ‘It’s a book on the life of Pope John Paul I, Papa Luciani.’

  Calvi’s manner suddenly underwent a complete change. The calmness and control vanished, to be replaced with a torrent of loud remarks. His voice became excited and very emotional. My interpreter began to translate the stream of words for me.

  ‘Who has sent you against me? Who has told you to do this thing? Always I pay. Always I pay. How do you know Gelli? What do you want? How much do you want?’

  I protested that I had never met Licio Geili. Calvi had barely stopped to listen to me before he began again.

  ‘Whoever you are, you will not write this book. I can tell you nothing. Do not call me again. Ever.’

  Eight days later the body of Roberto Calvi was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London.

  Within days a hole was discovered in Banco Ambrosiano Milan. A 1.3 billion dollar hole.

  The central purpose of my investigation has been the death of another man, Albino Luciani. Villot, Calvi, Marcinkus, Sindona, Gelli, Cody: one of these men was at the very heart of the conspiracy that resulted in the murder of Luciani. Before you, the reader, consider your verdict, let us take one final look at these men.

  Cardinal Jean Villot, whom Albino Luciani had decided to remove from office, retained his position as Secretary of State upon the election of Karol Wojtyla. He also retained his many other posts including the control of the vital financial section, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, APSA. It was APSA that took the role of bride in the Sindona/Vatican marriage. Archbishop Marcinkus has frequently been castigated for bringing Sindona inside Vatican City. He bears no responsibility for that act. The decision was taken by Pope Paul, Monsignor Macchi, Umberto Ortolani and the gentlemen of the APSA, including, naturally, its head, Cardinal Villot. If Luciani had lived, then Villot’s removal from the Secretariat of State would also have meant his automatic removal from the APSA. It is this organization with its immense portfolio of investments, not Marcinkus’s Vatican Bank, that is recognized as a central bank by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlement in Basle. It is a section that has much to hide, dating back to its deep involvement with Sindona.

  At the time of Luciani’s election, Villot had only a short while to live. He was a sick, tired man who by September 1978 knew he was seriously ill. He died less than six months after Luciani on March 9th, 1979. His death, according to the Vatican, was due to ‘bilateral bronchial pneumonia attacks with complications, circulatory collapse, renal and hepatic insufficiency’. It was known that he had wanted to retire but it was also known he wished to determine his successor, and the man he had in mind was not Benelli. If Be
nelli discovered the scandal of the APSA section he would undoubtedly alert the new Pope. This, combined with the other changes that Villot knew Luciani was about to make, created a powerful motive. If he was at the heart of any conspiracy to murder Luciani the motive would have been the future direction of the Church. On the testimony of three Vatican witnesses, Villot considered the changes that were about to be implemented ‘a betrayal of Paul’s will. A triumph for the restoration’. He feared that they would take the Church back to pre-Vatican Council II. That his fear was invalid is not relevant. Villot felt it and felt it profoundly. He was also bitterly opposed to Luciani’s plan to modify the Roman Catholic Church’s position on birth control, which would have permitted Catholics throughout the world to use the contraceptive pill. With Paul VI, the creator of Humanae Vitae, barely dead, Villot was watching at close range the destruction of an edict he had many times publicly supported. Did Villot conclude that the greater good of the Church would be served with Luciani’s death?

  His behaviour after the Pope’s death was either that of a man who was responsible for or deeply involved in that death, or of a man suffering a severe moral crisis. He destroyed evidence. He lied. He imposed a vow of silence on members of the Papal household. He rushed through an embalming before a majority of the cardinals were in Rome, let alone consulted. If Villot is blameless with regard to Luciani’s death, then he most certainly materially assisted whoever was responsible. His actions and statements ensured that someone got away with murder. He himself clearly had a motive; it is also clear he had opportunity. In addition, by dint of his position as Camerlengo, he had virtually total control over immediate subsequent events or, as in the refusal to perform an official autopsy, non-events.

  It may well be that the various illegal actions perpetrated by Villot after the discovery of Albino Luciani’s body were motivated by what Villot considered the paramount factor, the greater good of the Catholic Church, if he saw clear evidence of murder, clear proof that Albino Luciani did not die a natural death. Many would contend that his subsequent actions were to protect the Church. Even given that rationale, I would still contend that morally he would appear to have been in need of help.

  Cardinal John Cody, another of the men Luciani had been determined to remove from office, retained his position as Cardinal of Chicago upon the election of Albino Luciani’s successor Karol Wojtyla. In his book, The Making of The Popes, Father Andrew Greeley observes:

  Cardinal Cody parlayed his past financial contributions to Poland (and some new contributions, according to Chicago sources), the size of the Polish population in Chicago, and his alleged friendship with the Pope, into a successful counter offensive against his enemies. John Paul II, according to what the Cardinal told visitors in early December [1978], offered him a job in Rome, which he declined. The Pope, the Cardinal intimated, indicated the matter was closed.

  My own research confirms this. Further, the financial contributions Cody subsequently made to the Vatican and which were secretly funnelled into Poland, were part of a much larger operation that Marcinkus and Calvi undertook on behalf of Pope John Paul II.

  Cardinal Cody continued to be a lavish donor of gifts. In October 1979 Pope John Paul II visited the USA. When he arrived at O’Hare airport in Chicago he was met by Cardinal Cody who thrust a small wooden box into the Pope’s hands as ‘a personal gift’. Inside the box were 50,000 dollars. No one would deny the Cardinal the right to give the Pope a gift but, apart from the crassness of the gesture, the question this act raises is, where did the money come from? Was it from diocesan funds? Was it from funds exclusively controlled by Cody? From exactly what source had 50,000 dollars so mysteriously appeared?

  Within a year of this incident, the United States Government had mounted an official but secret investigation into Cody. US attorneys began to probe allegations that Cardinal Cody had illegally diverted up to one million dollars of Church funds to his life-long friend Helen Wilson. They also began to investigate a variety of other allegations including that he had commingled personal and Church funds, that he had paid Helen Wilson a secret salary over many years, that he had improperly awarded her pension benefits, that he had bought for her a 90,000 dollar home in Florida. That all of this had been done allegedly with Church funds which are tax exempt, made it a Government issue. In view of the highly sensitive political implications of such an investigation, the fact that the Government initiated the enquiry is indicative of the very strong prima facie case that existed. The investigation began in September 1980.

  In January 1981 the Federal Grand Jury served a number of subpoenas on Cody, demanding to see his financial records. If Cody was as pure as the driven snow, his subsequent behaviour is unaccountable. Only the Cardinal, his lawyers and one or two very close confidants knew of the investigation and subpoenas. Cody kept the developments from the people of Chicago, from the Apostolic Delegate in Washington and from the Vatican. He also refused to comply with the Government requests to hand over the diocesan financial records. For an ordinary citizen to decline to co-operate would have meant prison but Cody, who is on record as declaring, ‘I don’t run the country but I do run Chicago’, demonstrated that the boast was not an empty one.

  In September 1981, when the Chicago Sun Times broke the story, Cody had still not complied with the subpoenas. The Sun Times had been conducting its own investigation of the Cardinal for nearly two years. It proceeded to give its readers chapter and verse on a large array of allegedly appalling crimes committed by Cody.

  The Cardinal refused to produce a shred of evidence that would have rebutted the wide variety of charges and attempted instead to rally behind him the 2,440,000 Catholics of the city with the assertion: ‘This is not an attack on me. It is an attack on the entire Church.’

  Many responded to this totally fallacious statement. Many did not. The massive damage to the image and reputation of the Roman Catholic Church which Albino Luciani had rightly foreseen was now a reality. The city was divided. Initially it is clear that the majority supported Cody but, as the months dragged by, one fundamental fact began to sink in. Cody had still not complied with the Government subpoenas. His own close supporters began to demand that he obey the Government. His initial response through his lawyers had been, ‘I am only answerable to God and Rome.’ It was a concept that he took to the grave. In April 1982, with the Government still waiting for answers, Cardinal Cody died. Notwithstanding that he had a long history of illness, Cody’s body, unlike Albino Luciani’s, was subject to an autopsy. His death had been caused by ‘severe coronary artery disease’.

  He had left a final message to be read out after his death. It contained no proof of his innocence with regard to the very serious charges that he had faced. It contained instead that arrogance which had been such a feature of his entire life. ‘I forgive my enemies but God will not.’

  With the tyrannical despot Cody dead, there had been immediate speculation about his successor. A name frequently mentioned was that of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, citizen of Cicero, Chicago, who was currently drowning in scandal in Italy. The US Church hierarchy demurred and advised the Vatican that to give Chicago to Marcinkus, ‘would be more of the same’. In the event the position went to Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Cincinatti who promised an immediate Church investigation into L’Affaire Cody.

  The Government announced that it was closing its own enquiry and the Federal Grand Jury investigation was terminated without any charges being brought. In view of the fact that the man who had been accused was dead, there was little alternative.

  In December 1982, Bernardin issued a two-page pastoral letter to Chicago’s Catholics. The letter was not supported with any documentary evidence. Bernardin concluded that a probe of Cody’s finances showed no wrong-doing, that he may have unfairly awarded a pension to Helen Wilson, that he ‘did not always follow preferred accounting procedures’. More significantly, accountants whom Bernardin had employed, refused to certify the ‘accuracy of the estimated
receipt and expenditure figures’ though they found the figures ‘within an acceptable range of reasonableness for the purposes of the inquiry’. The reason the accountants refused to certify the records was because, as Bernardin admitted, some of the financial records of the archdiocese could not be located and, ‘if they were subsequently to become available, then the conclusions might require reevaluation’. Nearly two years later, those financial records are still missing.

  The despotic, arrogant Cody clearly had a motive, and a powerful one, to involve himself in a conspiracy to murder Albino Luciani. A question mark may remain with regard to his financial corruption. There can be no doubt that Cody suffered from acute paranoia. If he was a paranoid psychotic it is entirely consistent that he would have sought to solve his problems, real or imagined, in a violent manner. Clearly if any Pope was going to remove Cody from Chicago it would be over his dead body – either Cody’s or the Pope’s. Through his many early years in Rome and then during his numerous visits, Cody had succeeded in ingratiating himself with two future Popes, Pacelli and Montini, and he had built up a large network of friends and informants. That this man could put two fingers in the air to Pope Paul VI is an indication of his power. The many cash gifts, not only to Poland but to favoured members of the Roman Curia, also consolidated a peculiar brand of loyalty. Cody had his own Mafia or P2 planted deep within Vatican City – men with constant access to the Papal Apartments.

  Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the third of the men Albino Luciani had been determined to remove from office, retained his position as head of the Vatican Bank upon the election of Karol Wojtyla. Indeed, as previously recorded, he has been promoted to Archbishop and given even greater power. For a man who observed upon his initial appointment to the Vatican Bank, ‘my only previous financial experience is handling the Sunday collection’, Marcinkus has come a long way. He has far greater claim to the title of ‘God’s Banker’ than either of his two former close friends and business associates, Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona. He can also justly claim to have brought the Roman Catholic Church into greater disrepute than any other priest in modern times.