On the one hand, I felt sorry for my father. But on the other, I was happy that at least Dad had someone with whom he could to share his pain. When I asked Yusuf about Dad’s work for the Vatican, he claimed he didn’t know details but revealed this: “Your father had many connections at the Vatican, but it had nothing to do with the travel agency.” No wonder the Vatican employed his services—he was a closed book, trustworthy till the end with their secrets.
I then started making bolder requests. I eventually found my way into meetings and conversations with the UN ambassador to the Holy See, the UN ambassador to Jordan, the former patriarch to Jerusalem, the editor of a respected Vatican publication, the lieutenancy of the Holy Sepulchre in New York City, and the office of the grand master of the Holy Sepulchre Archives at the Vatican. In most of these meetings I found my interviewees careful, cautious, and tight-lipped when it came to my questions.
However, most agreed, in light of the facts I had shared, that my father was most certainly doing missions—secret assignments for the Church. In my meetings with the UN ambassadors to Jordan and the Holy See, they confirmed the use of trustworthy laypeople to carry out political missions on behalf of the pope. It is not a well-kept secret that the Catholic Church has a vested interest in world politics, such as their active commitment to end communism after World War II. It has also been widely reported that the Church has often worked behind the scenes to support overthrowing regimes or getting rid of dictators—like Stalin—that prevented freedom of religion, or worse, persecuted Catholics. When it comes to the Vatican, politics and faithfulness are intertwined.
One Church source assured me that she would help in any way possible, promising meetings with lower-level Church figures who she said were my best bet.
“You can’t go too high up the food chain because they will not tell you,” she warned.
After our first meeting, I never heard from her again. When I asked the UN ambassador of Jordan how my father could have a Jordanian passport, she reminded me that the Vatican and Jordan have very close ties, stating, “If the Vatican had requested a passport for your father, the Jordanian government would have certainly issued it. I have no way of knowing, but it sounds like your father was definitely doing missions for the Holy See.”
She also explained that the Vatican army was trained by Jordanian special forces. She ended our meeting with “The Church does a lot of good around the world.” I think this was her way of telling me that Dad’s missions may have been secret, but that didn’t mean they were dishonorable. Then she suggested I speak with the ambassador to the Holy See. And so it went.
A bit frustrated, I went back to the annual Christmas letters, the Worthington Wonderland, reviewing the fifties, when it seems most likely that his work began, during the papacy of Pope Pius XII—who served from 1939 to 1958, during World War II and the Cold War that followed. The most inexplicable fact that slipped into the family letters was that Dad traveled to two communist countries—to the USSR in November 1958, and Yugoslavia in May of the same year. Catholicism and communism go together about as well as disco in Appalachia. Under a communist regime, people are not free to worship. And even worse for the Church, there was open persecution of Catholics in these two countries. Fascism may not have been ideal in the fifties and sixties, from a moral standpoint, but it sure was good for the collection basket when a totalitarian regime insists that the state religion is Catholicism—as was the case with Franco in Spain.
It was this type of investment in anticommunism, and the need to appear nonpolitical, that made couriers invaluable to Pope Pius XII and the popes that followed. I believe my father was a Vatican courier, making stops all over the world to promote the political will of the Catholic Church.
According to Mark Riebling’s book Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler, Pius ran the first spy service and skimmed from Church charities to pay covert couriers. The timing of Dad’s 1958 trip—when very few Americans were traveling to Russia—is intriguing. Dad’s trip coincides with a major shift in relations between the USSR and the Holy See. According to Alberto Giovannetti’s Pius XII Speaks to the Church of Silence, published in January 1958, the Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, announced the USSR’s interest in establishing formal relations with the Vatican at this time. Pope Pius XII did not respond officially, and records will not be available until 2028, when the Vatican archives open access to all documents of his reign.
Dad also had claimed to have a wealth of information on the former head of the Vatican Bank, Archbishop Marcinkus, who was indicted for alleged ties to the 1970s counterfeit-bond scheme involving the Vatican and the Mafia, as well as accused of being an accomplice—according to journalist David Yallop—in the alleged murder of Pope John Paul I. Marcinkus was famous for saying, “You can’t run the Church on Hail Marys.”
My research has led me to believe that Dad was acting as a secret servant, doing special assignments for the Vatican in political negotiations and financial dealings where the Church wanted to appear neutral in world affairs, focused on being the shepherd to its flock and not on foreign governments. Under the guise of his travel business, Dad covered inexplicable miles around the world, making mostly one-day stops—the trait of a courier on a mission. He was likely carrying highly sensitive documents, or cash, while holding a Vatican passport that let him move through customs—as I witnessed—without being searched. Dad never, ever checked a suitcase, always traveling with an overnight bag and a briefcase, no matter how long the trip. This went on for decades.
Dad’s charm, his devotion to the Church, his work ethic, his ability to speak and read Latin, his unwavering commitment to lies and keeping secrets, made him the perfect trusted servant to the most secret of institutions. And because he did his job with the utmost discretion and commitment, there is no trace. No paper trail.
I’ve often thought of my childhood as a microcosm of the Catholic Church, where secrets and lack of transparency ruled the day. Where dark secrets—from the Nazis to the Vatican Bank scandals to clergy abuse—were kept to save face, protect the mask of morality. The culture of secrecy existed in my home, as it clearly exists in the Catholic Church. Dad’s secrets may never be fully uncovered. I, too, traded in secrets, and like father like daughter, I was a champion secret keeper. But I’m through with all that. Today, I don’t hide out anymore.
Dad was a charismatic romantic who appreciated living well, and yet devoted his life to serving the needs of the poor and handicapped. It’s where he shined, working endless hours in the baths at Lourdes, assisting the sick and disabled. Today, his legacy continues, thanks to my devoted sister, Margaret, who is carrying on Dad’s work.
I’ve spent decades immersed in my own healing waters—from therapy to acting—all in service of taking ownership of my life without shame or guilt. Using Dad’s mantra of “There is nothing you cannot do if you put your mind to it,” I have embraced my past. I think in order for me to get around the wreckage, I had to take myself on as a sort of project, an experiment in transformation. Find a way to be of service. Like Dad. But different.
Acknowledgments
To my magnificent publisher, HarperCollins, especially Lynn Grady and my fearless and whip-smart editor, Carrie Thornton, whose guidance and support have been priceless. To the entire team at HarperCollins, for their keen attention and care, especially Sean Newcott, Greg Villepique, Danielle Bartlett, Ben Steinberg, Kyran Cassidy, Rick Harris, and Katie Ostrowka. Thank you also to my rock-solid creative team: Susan Batson, Joel Gotler, Intellectual Property Group, Sarah Tomlinson, and Murray Weiss. And to all those who supported the early incarnations of this story across many platforms, especially Mark Lee, Daniella Vitale, Jim Fugitte, Tracy Goss, Andrea Quinn, Sandra Seacat, Wendy Spiller, Alexis Gargagliano, Kim Gillingham, and Vicky Pynchon. To my great big Catholic family—most especially my twelve siblings—for their love and support and their fierce commitment to serving others. My greatest love and gratitude to my m
other—“the saint”—for her kindness and constant modeling of unconditional love and forgiveness. And to my partner in crime, my father—Sir John—who taught me there is nothing you cannot do if you put your mind to it and that love isn’t love until you give it away. To my one and only diamond, Gina Raphaela, you are pure heart wrapped up in a breathtaking package, who has championed my truth-telling since day one. I love and thank you all wholeheartedly.
About the Author
TINA ALEXIS ALLEN is a GLAAD Award–nominated actress, producer, scriptwriter, and playwright. She appeared on the WGN America series Outsiders, and has costarred in several feature films. Allen is also the cofounder of the socially conscious Gina Raphaela Jewelry brand. She lives in New York and Los Angeles.
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Copyright
hiding out. Copyright © 2018 by Tina Alexis Allen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition February 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-256570-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-256567-9
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