On September 5, 1978, CIA affiliate Cardinal Cody accompanied Cardinal Wojtyla to Krakow where they spent a week together. 12
On September 13, 1978, the Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla met with bishops Agostino Casaroli and Giuseppe Caprio in Genoa.
On September 24, 1978, John Paul changed the theme of the upcoming Puebla Conference in Mexico from Liberation Theology to Liberation of the Poor and announced he would preside over it. He praised those struggling for a better world in Central America. 13
On September 27, 1978 John Paul, in a worldwide televised audience established the scope of his papacy, “It is the inalienable right of no man to accumulate wealth beyond the necessary while other men starve to death because they have nothing.”
On the morning of September 29, 1978 John Paul was dead.
On October 17, 1978, John Paul II rose to the papacy. In one of his first public statements he condemned Liberation Theology. He warned radical priests and nuns—the principal inspirers of guerillas in Central America—to cease their support of the revolution.14
On October 30, 1978, the Pope removed Pericle Felici as legal counsel to the Patrimony restricting the scope of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura to canon law—a confusing move as Felici was a brilliant lawyer well versed in international monetary law.15
In November 1978, Calvi began raising money from investors on the promise their investments were guaranteed by the IOR. In 1982-84, Italian courts determined the first ‘scandal’ investment claimed by a plaintiff dated back to November 7, 1978.16
In mid-February 1979, Jean Villot, fell ill and died in early March of circumstances similar to those of Paul VI a few months earlier. Each man, vibrant and on the job, suddenly spiraled downward and three weeks later was dead. In the late stages, both men developed bladder infections from which they seemed to have recovered when on the last day they developed a sudden acute respiratory condition and died a few hours later. Unlike Paul’s case, the younger Villot’s death drew suspicions of foul play in local newspapers. 17
Giuseppe Caprio had the unique privilege of having been the only person to have witnessed the deaths of both Paul VI and Jean Villot. In the case of Villot, Caprio had been the only witness. 18
The Vatican bank scandal could not have taken place as long as Villot remained President of the Patrimony of the Holy See.
On April 28, 1979, Agostino Casaroli replaced Villot as Secretary of State and Giuseppe Caprio replaced Villot as President of the Patrimony of the Holy See—the Vatican’s central bank. 19
Eduardo Somalo was named Substitute for General Affairs. This position which had played a major role in banking activities under Paul VI in the persons of Giovanni Benelli and Giuseppe Caprio ceased to be involved in banking. Somalo had no interest in financial matters. His expertise was limited to doctrine. He would eventually accede to Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship.
At this early stage—before the Vatican bank would make its first move in what would eventually culminate in the bank scandal—John Paul II had materially revamped his banking organization.4
Because there were thousands of legitimate transactions going on between Banco Ambrosiano and the Patrimony and the Catholic Bank of Italy at about the same time, the courts could not determine precisely when the first deposit in the Patrimony related to the bank scandal took place. They did determine the first significant deposit of 2.3 billion lire—about $3 million—took place on May 9, 1979. It was rapidly followed by others of millions of dollars each.20
Although the Prefect of Economic Affairs does not normally get involved in the day-to-day goings on in the dozen or so departments that report to his office, it became obvious Cardinal Vagnozzi was becoming aware of the surreptitious happenings going on around him when in mid-June 1979 he jokingly told a reporter, “If one were to engage the entire armies of the CIA, the KGB and Interpol combined they would never be able to figure out how much money is involved here or where it is going.”21
The following week, June 30, 1979, he was made Chamberlain (Treasurer) of the College of Cardinals—a strange move as the incumbent Gabriel-Marie Garrone had not been in the job a year. Vagnozzi’s office was moved from the Patrimony on the ground floor of the Papal Palace to the Government Palace where he became engulfed in managing properties of a hundred plus cardinals.22
Though he continued to retain his title as Prefect of Economic Affairs, he was rarely seen in the Patrimony again until late in 1980 in connection with an audit of the bank’s records. Though the bank traditionally closed its books at the end of each calendar year, since the time of Paul VI, the Prefect personally conducted an audit every fourth year; audits had been performed in 1968, 1972 and 1976.
At about this same time in mid-1979, on the other side of the world, the Sandinista Liberation Front—a socialist-communist party which had grown up out of Paul’s principle of Liberation Theology years earlier overthrew the ruthless Somoza regime in Nicaragua.23
In September 1979 the central bank of Nicaragua froze all money leaving the country. It also froze assets including manufacturing facilities and bank holdings of anti-revolutionary factions who had supported Somoza—Banco Ambrosiano was among them.24
On October 11, 1979, Ambrosiano opened a branch in Lima, Peru. From this point on the money was deposited in the IOR/APSA by the Lima branch and then loaned to the ghost affiliates.25
On October 16, 1979—a year to the day after John Paul II took office—the Lima branch made its first time deposits totaling $134.3 million in IOR/APSA which it transferred under the guise of a ‘loan’ to a Panamanian ghost company, United Trading Corporation.26
In mid-December, Cardinal Vagnozzi returned to the Patrimony on the ground floor of the Papal Palace to conduct the audit required every fourth year of APSA which included the IOR depository.
On the morning of December 26, 1980, Vagnozzi was found dead on the floor of his Vatican apartment.
It is not unusual for the Vatican not to disclose cause of death at the time of death. Yet, normally a few months afterwards for official reasons it proclaims the deceased died of a ‘heart attack’ or ‘cancer’ or… In Vagnozzi’s case cause of death has never been disclosed.27
On January 30, 1981, Giuseppe Caprio was promoted to Prefect of Economic Affairs—Chief Financial Officer of the Church.28
On the same day, Secretary of State Casaroli replaced Vagnozzi as President of the Patrimony of the Holy See. One can only surmise this was to avoid anyone else learning of the scandal transactions.28
At this point, the transactions which would eventually culminate in the bank scandal were privy to only four men in the Vatican: John Paul II, Casaroli, Caprio and Marcinkus.4
Threads begin to unravel
In January 1981, the deposits of the Ambrosiano Latin American branches in the Vatican bank which in turn were transferred to the Panamanian ghost companies and European ‘offshore’ ghost companies had reached $1.2 billion of the $1.3 billion figure one speaks of when one says The Great Vatican Bank Scandal.
On March 17, 1981, police raided Licio Gelli’s villa at Arezzo. In addition to finding a list of 962 members of P2, they discovered evidence Roberto Calvi had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars extracted from unsuspecting investors through the Vatican bank to Panamanian ghost companies in Central America.29
A few months later, the scandal transactions, as determined by the courts which tried the Ambrosiano downfall, had come to an end.
Deposit from the IOR/APSA to ghost affiliates
Total 1,285 million
After a lengthy trial which persisted into the following year, Calvi was convicted of bank fraud and given four years and released on appeal. During the trial he was distraught and made no effort to defend himself. Asked by a reporter why he didn’t defend himself, Calvi answered, “I am in the service of someone on the other side of the wall.”30 In Rome ‘the other side of the wall’ is the Vatican.
During the Calvi trial, on September 26, 1
981, for the first time in the history of the Church, a pope shed his civil title. John Paul II made Marcinkus President of the Sovereign State of the Vatican. 31
This changed IOR’s reporting status directly to the Pope. This has never been reversed. Today, the IOR no longer reports to the Prefect of Economic Affairs.
On November 25, 1981, Joseph Ratzinger was moved to the Vatican as Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith. 32 His office and that of Marcinkus—IOR—shared the Palace of the Holy Office.
Back in 1978, when the CIA and Opus Dei had wiggled their candidate into the top job, they felt secure for twenty-five years as the Polish Cardinal was only fifty-eight when elected.
In 1981, with the attempt on the Pope’s life, assassination or even accident became a possibility. The CIA/Opus Dei coalition needed a backup on board should anything happen to the Polish Pope.
As the most powerful ecclesiastical voice in the Catholic world, Ratzinger masterminded the anti-Liberation Theology crusade and removed it from everyday life in Latin America to the history books.
Being a master of deceit, Ratzinger put together a razzle-dazzle platform designed to convince the poor of Latin America the concept of Liberation Theology was not only in conflict with the teachings of the Church—some children are entitled to more—but its promise of redemption was actually a restriction of opportunity for the poor.
By the end of the twentieth century he had silenced Leonardo Buff and other champions of Liberation Theology often referring to them as Marxists. In 2005, he added it to the vow required of candidates for the ‘red cap,’ ‘I pledge to suppress the role of women in the Church, homosexuals, contraception, Liberation Theology…’
Ratzinger took on the job of chief of propaganda in the Vatican not only in its war against revolution of the poor in Central America, but against revolution of the poor in Italy and Europe and anywhere else communism happened to raise its ugly head.
Regardless, Cardinal Vagnozzi’s death had left only two outside the Vatican banking inner circle who might have known of the ‘shady deals’—Cardinal Felici and his closest friend Cardinal Benelli. A blend of newspaper reportings took care of both of them.
“Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, once a leading candidate for the papacy, died two hours after he was removed from the hospital to his home yesterday afternoon. His death comes as a surprise a day after his doctor told reporters ‘…the cardinal is making good progress for recovery and should be released soon.’33
When criticized for having moved the cardinal, sources in the Vatican said Benelli, himself, requested he be removed from life support and returned to his residence. Yet, when asked, ambulance attendants said the cardinal was unconscious when moved.
Cardinal Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli—who happened to be in Florence—took immediate charge of the body and said there would be a three hour viewing of the coffin this morning in the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. Following a funeral mass, Benelli will be interred beneath the floor of the cathedral this afternoon.
Factions in the Vatican complained as to why Benelli would not lie in state in the Vatican where he had served for ten years and was a friend of many of the Curia cardinals. Local sources complained of the brevity of the viewing, as it was customary bishops be viewed for three to five days to allow the congregation to pay respects.
The sixty year old Benelli had been in the process of lining up votes against the ratification the Prelature of Opus Dei. He told reporters just yesterday, he was anxious to get back to work.
Following the death of John Paul I in 1978, Benelli and Felici rose up as enemies of Opus Dei, so much so, they were labeled by the press, ‘A twin-engine bomber headed for Monti Parioli.’ Opus Dei headquarters is in the posh Monti Parioli district of Rome.
This past March, the bomber lost one of its engines when Felici—having just returned from Panama—presided over the Marian Congress. The cardinal had finished the consecration of the Mass and was in the midst of his sermon when he suddenly grasped his head and fell dead onto the podium.34
At the time of his death, the Vatican’s chief legal authority, Felici was involved in investigating recent allegations that the coalition of Opus Dei and the Masonic lodge P2 had been involved in what has since exploded in the press as the Great Vatican Bank Scandal.
The twin-engine bomber headed for Monti Parioli is down. There are no survivors…”35
If Opus Dei had been brought to trial for the murder of these two men, any court would acquit the cult on the grounds of self-defense.
In the following spring when the extent of the bank scandal first became known, Marcinkus was harassed by reporters as to how this could happen. He slipped, “I have told John Paul, if we continue to sweep things under the rug we will eventually trip over it.”36
Marcinkus became a prisoner in the Vatican. He was moved from his Rome apartment to the Vatican and was not allowed to go out of its gates until after the scandal was resolved in 1984. This not only cut him off from reporters, it protected him from being arrested by Italian authorities and brought to trial as a witness in the scandal.
On June 5, 1982, Roberto Calvi wrote a letter to John Paul II warning him of the imminent collapse of Ambrosiano.
The letter had the tone of ‘every man for himself.’ Calvi warned in a threatening fashion, the Pope would have to resign unless he satisfied the demands of the investors.
A copy of the letter submitted as evidence in Italian court trials and widely published survives as compelling evidence Wojtyla and those supporting his papacy had involved Calvi in the conspiracy which led to the Vatican bank scandal—that Calvi had been assured if the ‘deal’ was uncovered prematurely, he would be made whole.37
Events which followed on the heels of Calvi’s letter imply right wing forces in the United States, specifically the CIA, had been involved in the scheme from the start—the ‘deal’ had been a stop-gap measure in which the Vatican would finance the Contras through the Carter years. The CIA would step in and satisfy the debt before it went sour—consistent with that the CIA had joined right wing factions in the Church in electing John Paul II. Reagan was now president and had already taken up the cause for the Contras. It makes sense the Pope would have his hand out for the $1.3 billion.
The Holy Alliance
Two days later, on June 7, 1982, Air Force One landed in Rome.
For security reasons, the president’s visit had been unannounced. Reagan had been critically wounded in an attempt the previous year and the Pope, himself, had survived an attempt on his life at about the same time. John Paul II and Ronald Reagan were sequestered behind closed doors in the Pope’s private study for hours on the guise they were discussing Polish Solidarity. 38
A president cannot pick up a phone and talk to a pope privately. White House phones are taped and there is no assurance they cannot be tapped on either end. The only way they can be guaranteed privacy is in person. Polish Solidarity—true of a myriad of other issues—could have been handled by phone. In fact, in its case, it could have been handled before worldwide television cameras.
No one knows what this president and pope talked about that day. What one does know it was not Solidarity or any other issue which could have been handled by phone or emissaries.
Some claim it was in this meeting the Holy Alliance was formed. The Pope controlled twenty percent of the votes in the United States where presidential elections are decided by one or two percentage points. John Paul II would support the Reagan-Bush campaigns by attacking their opponents. In exchange, Reagan/Bush would appoint a wave of practicing Roman Catholics to the Supreme Court. 39
Yet, the timing of Reagan’s visit to the precise moment in history the collapse of Ambrosiano became imminent and investigations by the courts were looming on the horizon is compelling, if not absolute proof, it had to do with the bank scandal.
No one knows what this president and pope talked about that day. Yet, what was taking place on the floor below tells one that.<
br />
Casaroli, Caprio and Marcinkus were meeting with United States Secretary of State Alexander Haig, CIA Director William J. Casey and National Security Advisor William P. Clark.40
Let us connect some dots here.
Alexander Haig had been NATO Commander (1974-79) during which time Giulio Andreotti’s document The Parallel SID disclosed the CIA, NATO (Gladio) and Italian Intelligence had conspired in the terrorist activities in the 1970s in Italy intended to turn the mindset of the Italian people against communism. To the extent the CIA had been involved in the murders of Aldo Moro, Paul VI, John Paul I and some others we have talked of, Haig would have been the United States official intervening between the CIA and P2.41
Before being named to the NATO post, Haig, as Nixon’s Chief of Staff, had met with Licio Gelli of the fascist P2 lodge conveying American funds to Gelli’s plans for a new Italy. Gelli had the unique distinction of having served under all three fascist dictators. He had served as an Intelligence officer in Hitler’s SS Guard, as a black coat under Mussolini and served in Franco’s cabinet in Spain.42
William J. Casey was the same William J. Casey who would mastermind the Iran-Contra Affair just a few years later. 43
William P. Clark was a former seminarian and a devout member of Opus Dei. In retirement, he built a chapel on his ranch. A statue of Saint Jose Maria Escriva adorns its altar.44
Nevertheless, this meeting—its participants widely named in the press—involved the three Vatican principals in the bank scandal and the three United States principals involved in the Contra war. This seems to confirm the president’s trip had to do with the bank scandal as it related to the Contras in Central America. He did not want the bank scandal to break in the press as the Vatican-Contra Affair.
If this is true, and as the events of the time seem to say it is true, the $1.3 billion which disappeared in Central America had gone to the Contras. The Vatican had supported the Contras during the time (1979-1981) the American President Carter would not support them.
Murder in the Vatican Page 44