BCCI
   |
|
Flashback 1982: 'God's banker' found hanged
The body of a top Italian banker has been found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London.
Known as God's banker for his links with the Vatican, 62-year-old Roberto Calvi was the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan and a central figure in a complex web of international fraud and intrigue. He had been missing for the last nine days before his body was discovered by a passer-by hanging from scaffolding on a riverside walk under the bridge.
Police are treating the death as suicide.
Jail sentence
Mr Calvi became chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, now Italy's largest private bank, in 1975 and built up a vast financial empire. In 1978, a report by the Bank of Italy on Ambrosiano concluded that several billion lire had been illegally exported. In May 1981, Mr Calvi was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to four years' imprisonment, but released pending an appeal. During his short spell in jail he attempted suicide.
Mr Calvi was due to appear in an Italian court next week to appeal against this conviction.
Later this month he was to be tried for alleged fraud involving property deals with Sicilian banker Michele Sindona, who is himself serving 25 years in America over the collapse of the Franklin National Bank in New York in 1974. The Vatican is directly linked to Mr Calvi by Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the Pope's bodyguard, a governor of the Vatican and head of the Vatican bank which has a shareholding in Ambrosiana.
Missing millions
Now Ambrosiano is on the verge of collapse amid press reports that investigators found a £400m "hole" in its accounts. Last week the bank's executive board decided to strip Mr Calvi of his authority. The Italian Treasury dissolved the bank's administration and the Bank of Italy is now a temporary commissioner. Mr Calvi fled to Venice nine days ago after shaving his moustache to avoid being recognised. From there it seems he hired a private plane to take him to London. The day before he was found dead, his secretary committed suicide in Milan by jumping off the fourth floor of the bank's headquarters. Teresa Corrocher, aged 55, left an angry suicide note condemning her boss for the damage she said he had done to Ambrosiano and its employees.
- bbc.co.uk 'on this day'
|
|
God's Banker death mystery deepens as coroner robbed of files in Rome
May 4, 2004 JEREMY CHARLES IN ROME - A LONDON coroner involved in the investigation of the 1982 death of Italian financier Roberto Calvi has been robbed twice in Rome, losing information related to the case.
Investigators yesterday said they suspected files were stolen to order by organised criminals.
City of London coroner Paul Matthews was robbed twice in a week while visiting Rome to discuss the "Gods Banker" case with Italian investigators.
Thieves first took a laptop computer with details of the investigation after breaking into Mr Matthews hotel. Later a bag containing files was snatched as he walked through a busy station.
Yesterday a spokesman for the Anti Mafia Investigation Department in Rome said: "To have items stolen twice in a week is more than just coincidence. Once could be put down to bad luck but twice is too much and we firmly believe that Mr Matthews was deliberately targeted possibly by the Mafia while he was in Rome.
"He has told us that he is sure he was followed on several occasions and the laptop and files on the Calvi case are the only items that were taken from him."
The first theft happened while Mr Matthews was staying at the four-star Abitart Hotel in central Rome where police said someone used a passcard to get into his room and take the computer.
Mr Matthews told police he had only left his room for a few minutes and when he returned the laptop had vanished.
Days later as he walked through Romes Termini station to catch a train to the airport for his flight back to London his bag was snatched.
Authorities have arrested one man and found another in possession of a wireless internet communications card from Mr Matthews computer, local media reported.
Scotland Yard and Italian police reopened the investigation into the 1982 death of Calvi last year and four people have since been charged with his murder.
Calvi was found hanged from Blackfriars Bridge in London with bricks in his pockets. A coroner initially recorded a verdict of suicide but subsequent investigations showed it would have been impossible for him to climb up the scaffolding under the bridge and hang himself and the case was reopened.
Mr Matthews has been working with British and Italian police and last month the trial of three men and a woman accused of murder opened in Rome. It was adjourned until later this month.
Two British women have also been questioned by police in connection with the case.
Calvis Canada-based family have long suspected he was murdered by the Mafia after a bungled attempt to launder £150 million of Mob drug money.
He was known as Gods Banker because the bank of which he was director, Banco Ambrosiano, had close ties with the Vatican.
- the scotsman
|
|
Bush family and associates' international money laundering operation
WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2005 [Wayne Madsen] -- Two criminal investigations based in New York are getting close to exposing a major Bush family and associates' international money laundering operation that has spanned more than a generation and has been used to illegally fund U.S. elections since the Nixon era. According to CIA sources, most Bush family assets are tied up in off-shore accounts that are masked from investigators through the use of pass through companies and secretive interlocking board directorships.
The investigations of the secret Bush money tranches are coming to the fore as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer focuses in on the scandal involving Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and the inflation of the worth of American Insurance Group (AIG) through shady affiliates, including AIG reinsurer Coral Re of Barbados. Greenberg was the CEO of AIG but was forced to step down amid the Spitzer probe. AIG was founded from Asia Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based international import/export and insurance firm founded in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during World War II. AIG's largest shareholder is Starr International Company (SICO), an off-shore corporation incorporated in Panama with headquarters in Bermuda. Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who prosecuted President Clinton, is the nephew of Cornelius Starr. Greenberg inherited the CEO job and Chairmanship from Starr as well as the $3.5 billion Starr Foundation.
Another probe by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is focused on long-time Bush backers Sam and Charles Wyly of Texas and a Bank of America off-shore account in the Isle of Man. According to intelligence sources, that probe is getting very close to an Isle of Man multi-billion dollar account controlled by the Bushes through an off-shore contrivance known as Five Star Trust.
Charles Wyly serves on the board of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). Critics have charged that hundreds of millions of dollars of UTIMCO's $11 billion in public funds have been steered to investment funds run by Bush family friends and supporters. A number of UTIMCO's past and current directors are members of George W. Bush's "$100,000 Club." These include, in addition to Wyly, former UTIMCO chairman Tom Hicks, a vice chairman of Clear Channel and head of Muse, Tate & Furst, Inc.; L. Lowry Mays, the chairman of Clear Channel; former Texas Representative and current lobbyist Tom Loeffler (who received illegal laundered campaign contributions from the failed Vernon Savings & Loan); A. W. Riter, a former chairman of NCNB Bank in Tyler, Texas; A. R. "Tony" Sanchez, Chairman of Sanchez-O'Brien Oil & Gas, owner of the Texas border-based International Bank of Commerce and the failed Tesoro Savings & Loan; and Woody Hunt, Chairman of Hunt Building Company. Some of UTIMCO's investments were directed to firms with close ties to Bush "Pioneer" contributors Lee Bass (Bass Brothers Enterprises), Henry Kravis (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), and Charles Wyly (Maverick Capital Fund), as well as George W. and H.W. Bush (The Carlyle Partners II Fund, managed by The Carlyle Group).
Questions have been raised about the sudden resignation of Hugh McColl, ostensibly a Democrat, from the Bank of America in 2001 just after George W. Bush's election. McColl's departure was reportedly a year earlier than originally planned. McColl contributed $104,000 to Bush in the 2000 campaign and gave a mere pittance to Al Gore. Earlier, in 1983, McColl became head of NCNB Bank, which became Nations Bank in 1991. In 1988, NCNB had acquired the failed First Republic Bank of Dallas and, according to intelligence insiders, assumed responsibility for a number of questionable Bush family business deals.
Texas money laundering is the tip of an Bush family financial iceberg that extends below the surface to shady financial deals around the globe. However, investigators who dare venture into Texas will have their jobs cut out for them. The Bushes have been major recipients of campaign cash from senior partners the largest law firms in Texas -- Vinson & Elkins, Baker Botts (law firm of James Baker III), Andrews Kurth (the law firm of contentious U.S. District Judge Priscilla Owen), Jenkins & Gilchrist, Haynes Boone and Bracewell & Patterson -- that have also been involved in defending those Texas companies and principals who have benefited from massive illegal financial flows.
For example, Andrews Kurth was the law firm for MAXXAM. The firm figured prominently in the failure of the United Savings Association of Texas in December 1988, a savings & loan owned by United Financial Group, Inc., a company in which two firms connected to Texas banker Charles Hurwitz -- Federated Development Company and MAXXAM Group Inc. -- had a significant interest. MAXXAM was an artifice financed with junk bonds from the failed Drexel Burnham Lambert investment firm and its chief junk bond master Michael Milken. The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision and the Treasury Department brought charges against Hurwitz and his colleagues for several violations of the law. The late House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez attempted unsuccessfully to have George H. W. Bush impeached for the massive S&L, BCCI, and other rip offs of the American taxpayers, investors and depositors. Gonzalez realized that the Bush family has concocted a series of financial tranches, off-shore shells, and artifices to conceal criminality unseen in the history of modern financial systems.
The Bank of America-Wyly investigation by Morgenthau, who prosecuted a number of BCCI principals, is noteworthy because of the Isle of Man connection. According to Enron insiders, the same Houston-based attorney who set up the Five Star Trust for the Bushes in the Isle of Man also set up Isle of Man trusts for Enron and the trusts often co-mingled funds and funding sources. The most important bit of intelligence to come forward from seasoned CIA financial operatives, speaking on a strict condition of anonymity, is that Osama bin Laden has had an interest in some of the same Isle of Man trusts used by the Bushes and Enron.
Spitzer's investgation of AIG is starting to dovetail with that of Morgenthau. One focus of the investigation is on some questionable Enron "cash flow" notes payable to Citicorp and J. P. Morgan Chase and purchased in May 2001 by AIG and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. On August 21, 2001, just a few weeks before the 911 attacks, a UBS Warburg/Paine Webber broker named Chung Wu advised his investors to sell their Enron stock, whereafter UBS quickly fired the broker. In an email Wu advised customers, "Financial situation is deteriorating in Enron and price drops another $7.00…I would advise you to take some money off the table even at this point." The House Committee on Government Reform investigated the sacking of Wu and his warning but little came from the GOP-run committee. In December 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy in New York City, not in Houston, where its headquarters was located. The New York bankruptcy court appointed Steven Cooper of Zolfo-Cooper LLC to run Enron.
After Enron's bankruptcy, UBS Warburg conveniently purchased Enron's energy trading unit, the group that was the subject of much of the investigations directed against the defunct firm, especially the role of the trading unit in inflating energy costs in California and ensuring the recall of Democratic Governor Gray Davis and replacement by the GOP's Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The deal involving Cooper's assumption of control of Enron raised eyebrows among regulators, chiefly because Cooper's Catalyst Equity Partner's Fund included Citicorp and J.P. Morgan Chase, two of Enron's major creditors. Financial investigators report that the Enron notes to Citicorp and Chase and sold to AIG and MacArthur were unusual, out of the ordinary, and "lacked teeth." A former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor referred to such financial instruments as "feints" designed to mask illegal transactions by keeping them off the books and away from the eyes of U.S. government regulators. In September 2002, Kroll Inc., a shadowy firm with ties to the U.S. intelligence community, acquired Zolfo-Cooper and Cooper was named managing director of Kroll Zolfo Cooper. In May 2004, Marsh & McLennan acquired Kroll and Zolfo Cooper. Jeffrey Greenberg, the son of AIG's Hank Greenberg, had earlier left AIG to run Marsh & McLennan. The revolving doors and musical chairs involving Enron, Kroll, Zolfo-Cooper, Marsh & McLennan, and AIG became the subject of Spitzer's probes. Another insurance firm investigated by Spitzer for price fixing of property casualty insurance coverage and conspiracy was ACE, headed by Hank Greenberg's other son, Evan. In October 2004, Jeffrey Greenberg quickly stepped down from Marsh & McLennan amid Spitzer's investigation.
Hank Greenberg has had a long time relationship with Henry Kissinger, the partner of Richard Perle in Trireme Partners, the firm that, according to Seymour Hersh, attempted to negotiate deals with Saudi Arabia using Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi as an intermediary. Greenberg and Khashoggi, according to CIA sources, have long had an interest in exploiting the oil and natural gas reserves of Uzbekistan and the construction of pipelines across the Uralskaya region of Russia. Uzbekistan has also featured prominently in oil and natural gas plans of Enron and UNOCAL. According to Enron insiders, on Saturday, September 7, 1996, 42 representatives of Enron and UNOCAL met in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, with Khashoggi, Taliban representatives, and Uzbek government officials. The subject was the CentGas pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan, a project that involved UNOCAL, Enron, and Saudi support. Current Afghan President Hamid Karzai was a consultant on the pipeline for UNOCAL. Prior to the Tashkent oil summit, on June 23, 1996, a $10 billion wire transfer was made from Cyprus, via Barclays Bank in London, to Enron in Houston. Cyprus is a major banking center for illicit activity. The Tashkent meeting was followed by a spring 1997 meeting between Enron, UNOCAL, and Taliban representatives at the posh Houstonian Hotel in Houston.
|
Five Tried for Italian Banker's '82 Death
By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 6, 2:44 PM ET
ROME - Five people, including a convicted Mafia figure, went on trial Thursday for murder in the 1982 death of the Italian financier known as "God's banker" for his close ties with the Vatican.
The body of Roberto Calvi was found hanging from scaffolding under London's Blackfriars Bridge on June 18, 1982, with rocks and cash stuffed into his suit. Although initially ruled a suicide, his family pressed for further investigation, and Italian prosecutors concluded in 2003 that he had been slain.
Calvi was a key figure in one of modern Italy's biggest banking scandals, which involved elements of the country's power brokers - businessmen, politicians, Masonic groups and the Vatican hierarchy. He was found dead as his Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans the bank had provided to several dummy companies in Latin America.
The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans, and the Vatican's bank agreed to pay $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors but denied any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors have alleged that Calvi was murdered in a ruthless Mafia vendetta, while defense lawyers claim the financier committed suicide as Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in the fraud scandal.
A panel of two judges and six jurors are hearing the case in a high-security courtroom.
Prosecutors allege that one of the five defendants, Giuseppe "Pippo" Calo, ordered that Calvi be killed.
Calo, nicknamed Cosa Nostra's "cashier" by the Italian media for his alleged laundering of mob money, was convicted years ago of Mafia charges unconnected to Calvi's death.
The other defendants are businessmen Ernesto Diotallevi and Flavio Carboni, Carboni's Austrian ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig; and Calvi's driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor. Carboni and Vittor are the last people known to have seen Calvi before his body was discovered.
Defense attorneys insist that Calvi killed himself. Carboni told reporters in the courtroom: "If reasons to commit suicide exist, Calvi had them all." Carboni and Corrado Oliviero, a lawyer for Calo, contend the prosecution's case was based on evidence from unreliable Mafia turncoats. Thursday's opening session was devoted to procedural matters. Presiding Judge Mario D'Andria indicated case deserved to be settled quickly.
"Let's try to keep in mind that this is a trial about facts that happened almost 24 years ago," D'Andria told the court, as he rebuffed requests by the defense for a longer adjournment. He set the next trial date for Nov. 23.
Italian law permits defendants to skip trial sessions, and Carboni was the only one in court. The 74-year-old Calo, jailed since the 1980s, appeared by video link from a prison in central Italy. New forensic tests in 2003 conducted on Calvi's shoes and clothing found no signs the banker had climbed the scaffolding and indicated he had been killed elsewhere. Prosecutors allege that Carboni and Vittor went to London with Calvi to deliver him to the people who killed him, according to court documents and Vittor's lawyer.
The prosecutors also allege that Calvi was laundering money for the Mafia, and that Calo ordered his murder because mob bosses believed Calvi had appropriated some of the money and were afraid the banker would talk. - yahoo news
|
|
Why was 'God's banker' killed?
Was financier laundering money for Mafia, Vatican? After 25 years, trial of five seeks the answers
by BILL TAYLOR
Even the Pope couldn't help "God's banker."
Roberto Calvi, an Italian financier with ties both to the Vatican - hence his nickname - and the Mafia, in 1982 begged John Paul II to step in and save his bank from collapse, The Times of London reports. But money was the least of Calvi's problems.
Two weeks later, on June 19, he was found hanging by an orange rope tied in a lover's knot from scaffolding under one of the nine arches of Blackfriars Bridge in central London. The 300-metre, 18th century stone structure spans the River Thames.
It was one of the showier crimes of the 20th century, originally ruled a suicide but revealed two years ago to be homicide, with all the ingredients of a good whodunit - organized crime, financial scandal, money laundering for the Mafia and the Vatican, and chicanery in the most confidential corridors of religious power and the equally secret affairs of freemasonry.
It also never has been explained how someone could suspend a corpse in such a prominent place without being noticed.
Almost a quarter of a century later, that little mystery might be solved as the trial began in Rome for the five accused killers of Calvi, 62. They are: Pippo "the Cashier" Calo, a Sicilian Mafia chieftain; businessmen Flavio Carboni and Ernesto Diotallevi; Manuela Kleinszig, Carboni's ex-girlfriend; and Silvano Vittor, Calvi's bodyguard.
After brief opening statements yesterday in a courtroom inside a top-security jail, the trial was adjourned to Nov. 23 at the request of a defence lawyer needing time to prepare.
The prosecution will argue the accused lured Calvi to London to kill him after he held onto millions of dollars he was laundering for the Mafia and also stole from financier Licio Gelli, head of the illegal Masonic lodge, P2. Calvi was a member along with top politicians, businessmen and military officers.
The banker had been appealing a four-year jail sentence for illegally exporting currency. The day before his body was found, he was fired in absentia as head of debt-ridden Banco Ambrosiano, at the time Italy's largest private banking group. Its collapse triggered one of Italy's biggest banking scandals.
The defence, sticking to the original finding of suicide, is expected to embarrass the Roman Catholic church by calling former Vatican officials to testify.
Among those anxious to see justice finally done are Calvi's widow Carla and son Carlo, a Montreal banker. They believe he was the victim of a well-disguised Cosa Nostra hit to cover up the Vatican Bank's involvement with the Mafia.
Family members could not be reached yesterday but Carlo Calvi, 51, has told the British Broadcasting Corp. his father was "a dynamic businessman but not a good judge of people. I believe the killers were sending a message by killing him in public in the heart of the city. There was definitely something theatrical about it all, and the message was clearly worth the risk."
A new book on the case, Poteri Forti (Powerful Forces) by Ferruccio Pinotti, includes a letter to the Pope which Pinotti says the Calvi family gave him: "I have thought a lot, Holiness, and have concluded that you are my last hope," it says.
Calvi reportedly reminded John Paul that he had funded political and religious groups supported by the Vatican in both eastern and western Europe and had set up banks in Latin America to help combat the spread of communism. He warned the Pope that if Banco Ambrosiano went under it would "provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage."
His bank was owed huge sums of money by Panamanian companies involved with the Vatican Bank. The Vatican later paid out a quarter of a billion dollars to Ambrosiano creditors, denying legal responsibility but admitting "moral involvement."
Calvi also had warnings for the pontiff himself - that Vatican fiscal shenanigans were being kept from him and that Calvi's enemies within the church hierarchy were also conspiring against John Paul. Calvi claimed he had been dumped by the Vatican, "the authority for which I have always shown the utmost respect and obedience."
There were two British inquests into his death. The first said suicide; the second, a year later, returned an open verdict. But the findings of forensic scientists who exhumed his body led Italian judges to reopen the case. Scotland Yard detectives in London also got involved.
Calvi's pockets were stuffed with bricks, apparently to weigh down his body, and cash. He was carrying a forged passport. Forensic scientists said the absence of dirt on his hands and brick dust under his fingernails showed he had not touched the bricks or climbed the scaffolding. They concluded his throat injuries indicated strangulation, not hanging.
Under Italian law, defendants are not required to attend their trials. Carboni, one of the last people known to have seen Calvi alive, was the only one in court yesterday. Calo has been in jail since the 1980s for unrelated crimes. The prosecution alleges that he ordered Calvi's death. He watched the hearing by a TV hook-up from another prison.
Carboni said he was "indifferent" to how Calvi died, adding, "there is no proof of any kind ... if reasons to commit suicide exist, Calvi had them all."
Carlo Calvi, who moved to Montreal five years after his father's death, has said he has "no personal grudge against the killers. I am not someone who has that goal of having someone punished for the crime. I am someone who wants people to learn something from the judicial process."
He dismisses popular theories that Blackfriars Bridge and the way the body was hung were Masonic symbols. (P2 lodge members are said to wear black robes and call each other `friar.' Bricks are a mason's material. Initiates reportedly are told betraying its secrets brings death by hanging and tides to wash the corpse.) "But I do believe ... the way he was killed was symbolic."
Carlo Calvi has claimed parallels between the murder and the 1981 assassination attempt against the Pope of 1981. There was a power struggle within the Vatican, in which his father was caught up. "It wasn't obvious that the Pope was going to be in the winning position ..."
He told the Toronto Star in 1998: "My father had many enemies within the Vatican."
|
|
Defence lawyers say Calvi's death was suicide
23/11/2005 - Defence lawyers cited forensic reports today to argue that suicide, not murder, was the real cause of the 1982 death of the Italian financier known as "God's banker" because of his close ties to the Vatican.
Five people, including a convicted Mafia figure, went on trial last month for the murder of Roberto Calvi, whose body was found hanging from scaffolding under London's Blackfriars Bridge on June 18, 1982, with rocks and cash stuffed into his suit.
The death was originally ruled a suicide, but Calvi's family pressed for further investigation and Italian prosecutors concluded two years ago that based on more recent reports he had been slain.
In the trial's second hearing, defence lawyers cited an initial assessment by British forensic experts that the banker had killed himself and said that even a consultant for the prosecution had indicated there were no elements suggesting foul play in the case.
"The initial analysis of a body is always crucial and usually correct," said lawyer Renato Borzone. He said the first autopsy report on Calvi's death "stated that there were no reasons to believe that it was a murder."
Calvi was found dead as his Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in one of Italy's largest fraud scandals - one that also implicated the Vatican's bank.
Prosecutors allege that one of the five defendants, Giuseppe "Pippo" Calo, ordered Calvi killed. Prosecutors believe that Calvi was laundering money for the Mafia, court documents show. They allege Calo ordered the murder because mob bosses thought the banker had appropriated some of the money and were afraid he would talk in the wake of the scandal that overwhelmed his bank.
Calo, nicknamed Cosa Nostra's "cashier" by the Italian media for his alleged laundering of mob money, was convicted years ago of Mafia charges unconnected to Calvi's death.
The other defendants are businessmen Ernesto Diotallevi and Flavio Carboni, Carboni's Austrian ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig and Calvi's driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor.
Prosecutors allege the group worked to deliver Calvi to the people who killed him.
Over 23 years of intrigue and lengthy inquiries, experts have produced conflicting reports on the death, at one point recreating the scene of his death to try to come to a conclusion. The Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of £755m (€1.1bn) in loans the bank had provided to several dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans, and the Vatican's bank agreed to pay £145 million to Ambrosiano's creditors but denied any wrongdoing.
The trial is set to continue next Wednesday. - IOL
|
|
By Greg Szymanski
Part I While Mass is being said in the Sistein Chapel and tourists are being shown the works of Michelangelo, deep within the bowels of the Vatican sits a large, circular room with 13 separate chambers, each leading to a distinct catacomb. When a mummified body is placed in front of each doorway, a young child is then brutally sacrificed with a long, golden knife during what is said to be a secret induction ceremony for new members of the Illuminati, better known as the New World Order. As a young freelance reporter in Rome during the early 1980s, I heard many rumors of these secret ceremonies from local shop owners, several drunken priests and a couple of local clairvoyants or fortune-telling card readers, one who apparently advised and guided the film career of the famous Italian film director, Federico Fellini. Although a product of a Catholic education and graduate of While on a story assignment or covering the weekly Papal address, I remember sneaking around the Of course, I never found the secret room or a hidden doorway leading to the tombs, my secret Indiana Jones hunt for the Satan's Den interrupted by a Vatican security guard who escorted me to the top of the stairs after showing my press card and saying I was lost. "One night alone in this place and I know I could break the biggest story in my lifetime," I thought to myself, as I walked through St. Peter's Square and looked up at the sculptures of the 12 Apostles staring down at me from the That particular day after trying to uncover the exact location of the Illuminati's secret induction ceremonies, I stopped for cheese and a glass of white wine on the first narrow, cobblestone street next the According to the locals, the street received this rather unusual name since for hundreds of years it housed many of the whores whose primary clientele were the After World War II, the prostitution on the street eventually moved to a more secretive location, making way now for stores engaged in the lucrative business of selling religious paraphernalia like rosaries, pictures of the Pope's and holy water. As I sat having a glass of wine and going through the Italian papers, the main headline read how Cardinal Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989, was indicted by Italian authorities (in 1982) as an accessory in the $3.5 billion collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, an Italian financial institution with close ties to the Vatican Bank. Although I tried many times without success to interview Marcinkus, since he was from my hometown of Chicago, the case never came to trial in Italy, as courts corruptly ruled that as a "Vatican employee he was immune from prosecution." The Vatican Bank also refused to admit legal responsibility for the Bank of Ambrosiano's downfall but did acknowledge "moral involvement", paying $241m (169m) to creditors. Little did I know that this story, the 1978 death of Pope John Paul I, the murder of the bank's president, Robert Calvi, found dangling under the Blackfriars Bridge in London, a little known mafia figure named Mario Cuomo (not the former mayor of New York) and a mysterious woman named Maria would all help in putting the pieces together of a larger more sinister puzzle. Although still incomplete, the small pieces of the puzzle I uncovered in the 1980s all lead to direct involvement of members of the Illuminati/Freemasons, through groups like "P Due", the Prieure du Sion and others, as well as the deep involvement of the Vatican, the hub and centerpiece of this secret worldwide organization known to the public as the Illuminati but known by members as "The Family or The Order." After writing several stories about the Vatican Bank Scandal and traveling to Mysterious Maria
As I mentioned, I put the gruesome picture of a child sacrificing out of my mind until a strikingly beautiful, black-haired Italian woman in her late 20s, named Maria, asked if she could join me at my Via Veneto outdoor table. Maria prefaced her story by saying she cold never reveal her full name, saying it meant an immediate death sentence for both of us if her identity hit newsstands, linking her to what she called "The Chosen Ones" or the Illuminati. I, on the other hand, remember feeling like I might be dealing with a quack or a mental patient, especially after she graphically explained how involvement with the Illuminati caused her to attempt suicide on three separate occasions, twice by poisoning and once by slitting her wrists, but each attempt played out in a bathtub surrounded by candles and bouquets of colored roses. I spoke to Maria on three occasions taking copious notes for total of about five hours at the same outside cafe during a three-week time span before learning through a mutual acquaintance about a month after our last meeting, she finally succeeded in committing suicide. This time, however, she didn't sit in her bathtub with flowers, deciding instead to make a public display, jumping from the roof of the Although I tried in vane to get her real identity, stories of the strange suicide were verified but, at the same time, covered up as her identity mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth as did any possibility of selling my story. More than twenty years have passed but I can still hear her words and see Maria's distraught face, sitting across from me at the Via Veneto cafe like it was yesterday. To the best of my recollection, these are the most important parts of her story of being recruited from birth by the Illuminati, a story that essentially died when Maria hurled herself off the "I can never tell you my name and only come to you as a last resort," were Maria's first words, as she appeared agitated and uncertain she was doing the right thing. In Italian she then said something like "May I rot in hell if I violated her trust" and I remember feeling as if someone just pointed a gun at my head. Coming from an aristocratic northern Italian background, she continued as I was able to understand most of what she said, save the complex and educated Italian verb and tense forms as I essentially learned to speak the language in the streets of Rome with the common-folk. In our first meeting, she delved heavily into her involvement with the "Family" or the "Chosen Ones," saying her aristocratic background left her no choice in the matter. She said she was born into the ranks of the Illuminati, taught as a child she was one of the "divine chosen ones" to rule over the masses and initiated into the "Order" at a secret Vatican underground ceremony in a room very similar to the type I previously heard about on the street. And when I finally got up enough courage to ask her about the child sacrifices, she couldn't talk about it, only burying her head in her hands as tears rolled out from between her fingers. The remainder of our discussions centered on the Illuminati origins, its leadership centered in the Vatican, its worldwide reach, its operations in Europe, its branches in America and its eventual goals of population control and world dominance. I remember how AIDS was not mentioned overseas and how she confused me with saying the Illuminati or the "Chosen Fathers" had purposely inflicted the disease on the masses. Besides being convinced she was telling the truth, Maria also said the Illuminati, referring to them in Italian swear words as "pig gods", had been entrenched for years in Our last conversation became quite personal, straying away from the names of powerful church and political figures, instead centering on how the Illuminati personally devastated Maria's life. To this day, as she said her final words, I wish I would have said or done something more to save her life, but I had no inkling whatsoever it would come to a shocking end at the "They killed Pope John Paul I and he didn't die of natural causes. I cannot live like this any longer but there is now way out. I am a trapped soul, destined to burn in the depths of hell for all the wrongs I have witnessed and have done nothing in my life to stop," said Maria, as she stood up from table and began walking away. As she left, I still remember her final words: "I have had all the riches in the world, but I feel so empty and alone. Dio have mercy on me." After Maria died, I began searching harder and harder to connect the dots of the Vatican's involvement in the Illuminati, as well as the bank scandal, the Pope's 1978 mysterious death and other stories related to Marcinkus, Calvi, financier Licio Gelli known as the head of the P-2 lodge. Although I could never pinpoint or verify the secret Vatican ceremonies, enough information surfaced to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Vatican functioned as the nerve center of the Illuminati, as the appointment of John Paul II revealed he never followed through on his predecessors final orders to investigate the operations of the Vatican Bank, Marcinkus and ties to the mafia and the Illuminati. Instead, John Paul II protected Marcinkus, quashed any investigations to be carried out by John Paul I's secretary of state Cardinal Jean Villot and buried all the people on Villot's list to be relieved of Church duties or transferred, all the people on thelist suspected of being members of the Freemason's P-2 group and the Illuminati. Gangster Mario Cuomo Although I didn't know it at the time, a Cuomo, who drove a Mazzerati, lived in a huge villa, dressed to the 9's and who I knew as a land investor, made it a habit every time he saw me to practice his English, buy me coffee or dinner while, at the same time, telling me "when I was playing with fire" regarding the Calvi murder and its ties to the mafia and the Vatican. His sound advice perhaps frightened me away from some doors I never walked through, but looking back, they were probably dangerous doors better left closed as I probably would have never walked out of them or seen the light of day ever again. Editor's Note: Read Part II of Greg's series on the Illuminati, coming this week, as he talks with a
Story Updates, Notes and Important Timeline:
Cardinal Marcinkus
He is still alive, saying Mass and living in Among those linked to the Calvi murder and who Italian authorities are still seeking to question, Marcinkus was originally ordained in He rapidly moved up the The Vatican Bank, through Sindona, was suspected of laundering money from associates in organized crime, funneled huge sums of money through Banco Ambrosiano and the The Vatican Bank also has worked closely with the A 1982 story in the foreign edition of Time magazine had this to say about the relation between Sindona, Calvi and Marcinkus: "In 1971, Sindona introduced Calvi to Marcinkus. Sindona and Calvi hoped to use Marcinkus for their own purposes, and the bankers and the churchman obviously found it advantageous to do business together. Although the Vatican bank denies it had much to do with either Sindona or Calvi, the le Opere di Religione (I.O.R. or Vatican Bank) eventually became Banco Ambrosiano's fourth-largest stockholder, acquiring over the years at least 794,390 shares, or 1.589% of the bank's stock. "A few months after Sindona and Calvi set up the Bahamian bank in 1971, a "Mr. Paul Marcinkus" was listed as a director. "We used his name a lot in business deals," Sindona said. "I told him clearly that I put him in because it helps me get money." The Calvi Murder Trial
In April, 2005, a Sicilian mobster, a Roman crime boss and two others were indicted in connection with the 1982 hanging of Roberto Calvi, a financier dubbed "God's banker" for his close ties to the A Reuters story added: "Calvi, once thought to have committed suicide, was found hanging from scaffolding under "But in the latest twist to the saga, prosecutors now say the Mafia killed Calvi for stealing from them and from Italian financier Licio Gelli. Gelli was the head of the P2 lodge -- a shadowy Masonic organization whose members once included prominent politicians, businessmen and military officers. "The judge said the trial will start on Oct 6 and will involve the convicted Cosa Nostra treasurer Pippo Calo, Roman crime boss Ernesto Diotallevi, Sardinian financier Flavio Carboni and his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig. "The prosecutors' inquiry has focused on millions of dollars that flowed through the bank's offshore accounts in the weeks preceding Calvi's death. "Shortly before Calvi's hanging, the bank he headed at the time, Banco Ambrosiano, had gone bankrupt. It was then Without question, one of the strangest characters in the Calvi saga, with ties to Marcinkus and Sindona, was Liccio Gelli. A former member of the fascist Black Shirts Battalion and connected to the Mussolini regime and the Herman Goring SS Division in World War II, Gelli survived the conflict and amassed tremendous amounts of money and influence. Considered the head of the P-2 Masonic Lodge, he was also privy to sensitive information on hundreds of key political, military and financial figures not only in It was common knowledge in
Important Timeline (Reprinted from The Financial Post, Victor Golancz Ltd. 1983.)
Early September 1978: Pope John Paul I asks his secretary of state, Cardinal Jean Villot, to initiate an investigation into September 28, 1978: John Paul I presents Cardinal Villot with a list of people who are to be transferred, asked for their resignations, or reassigned. All the people on the list are suspected to be members of the Freemason's group "P2." The reshuffle of power will have major implications for the existing September 29, 1978: John Paul I found dead in his bed. Villot issues false statements to the press about the circumstances surrounding the death, removes key evidence from John Paul's room, and orders the body to be embalmed immediately without an autopsy. October 1978: John Paul II to replace John Paul I. None of John Paul I's instructions to Villot before his death are carried out. January 21, 1979: Murder of Judge Emilio Alessandrini, the March 20, 1979: Murder of Mino Pecorelli, an investigative journalist in the process of publishing articles exposing the membership and dealings of "P2" -- a powerful group of Freemasons whose membership was involved in Vatican financial dealings, and whose founder, Lucio Gelli, was deeply connected with Roberto Calvi. March 25, 1979: Arrests on false charges of Mario Sarcinelli and Paolo Baffi of the Bank of Italy. The two men were pressing for action on the investigation of the financial dealings of Roberto Calvi and Banco Ambrosiano. July 11, 1979: Murder of Giorgio Ambrosioli following his testimony concerning Michele Sindona's financial dealings with Calvi and other Vatican interests, the activities of P2 and its members among powerful government and business circles, and the connections between Calvi, Sindona, and Bishop Paul Marcinkus of the Vatican Bank. July 13, 1979: Murder of Lt. Col. Antonio Varisco, head of the July 21, 1979: Murder of Boris Guilano, the October 1979: Bomb explosion at the apartment of Enrico Cuccia, managing director of Mediobanca and witness to Sindona's threat to the life of Giorgio Ambrosioli. February 2, 1980: The Vatican withdraws at the last moment its agreement that Cardinals Guiseppe Caprio and Sergio Guerri and Bishop Paul Marcinkus will provide videotaped depositions on behalf of Michele Sindona in his trial in the May 13, 1980: Michele Sindona attempts suicide in jail. June 13, 1980: Michele Sindona sentenced to 25 years. July 8, 1980: Roberto Calvi attempts suicide while in jail on charges of fraud, etc. Later released on bail and reconfirmed as chairman of Banco Ambrosiano. September 1, 1981: The Vatican Bank, apparently at the request of Roberto Calvi, issues "letters of comfort" acknowledging its controlling interest in, and assuming responsibility for, a more than 1 billion dollar debt of a number of banks controlled by Calvi. January 12, 1981: A group of shareholders in Banco Ambrosiano send a letter to John Paul II outlining the connections between the Vatican Bank, Roberto Calvi and the P2 and the Mafia. The letter is never acknowledged. April 27, 1982: Attempted murder of Roberto Rosone, general manager and deputy chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, who was trying to "clean up" the bank's operation. June 17, 1982: Roberto Calvi found hanged to death from a bridge in October 2, 1982: Guiseppe Dellacha, executive at Banco Ambrosiano, dead of a fall from a window of Banco Ambrosiano, in March 23, 1986: Michele Sindona found dead of poisoning in the Italian jail to which he had been extradited on charges of ordering the murder of Giorgio Ambrosioli. Albino Luciano, Pope John Paul I
List of Masons in the
The following is a Mason list reprinted from the Bulletin de l'Occident Chretien Nr.12, July, 1976, (Directeur Pierre Fautrad a Fye - 72490 Bourg Le Roi.) If still alive, it should be noted with interest that all of the men on this list, are subject to excommunication by Canon Law 2338. Each man's name is followed by his position, if known; the date he was initiated into Masonry, his code #; and his code name, if known: Albondi, Alberto. Bishop of Livorno, ( Abrech, Pio. In the Sacred Congregation Bishops. 11-27-67; # 63-143. Acquaviva, Sabino. Professor of Religion at the Alessandro, Father Gottardi. (Addressed as Doctor in Masonic meetings.) President of Fratelli Maristi. 6-14-59. Angelini Fiorenzo. Bishop of Messenel Argentieri, Benedetto. Patriarch to the Holy See. 3-11-70; # 298-A. Bea, Augustin. Cardinal. Secretary of State (next to Pope) under Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. Baggio, Sebastiano. Cardinal. Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops. (This is a crucial Congregation since it appoints new Bishops.) Secretary of State under Pope John Paul II from 1989 to 1992. 8-14-57; # 85-1640. Masonic code name "SEBA." He controls consecration of Bishops. Balboni, Dante. Assistant to the Biblical Studies. 7-23-68; # 79-14 "BALDA." Baldassarri Salvatore. Bishop of Balducci, Ernesto. Religious sculpture artist. 5-16-66; # 1452-3. Basadonna, Ernesto. Prelate of Batelli, Guilio. Lay member of many scientific academies. 8-24-59; # 29-A. "GIBA." Bedeschi, Lorenzo. 2-19-59; # 24-041. "BELO." Belloli, Luigi. Rector of Seminar; Belluchi, Cleto. Coadjutor Bishop of Bettazzi, Luigi. Bishop of Bianchi, Ciovanni. 10-23-69; # 2215-11. "BIGI." Biffi, Franco, Msgr. Rector of Bicarella, Mario. Prelate of Bonicelli, Gaetano. Bishop of Boretti, Giancarlo. 3-21-65; # 0-241. "BORGI." Bovone, Alberto. Substitute Secretary of the Sacred Office. 3-30-67; # 254-3. "ALBO." Brini, Mario. Archbishop. Secretary of Chinese, Oriental, and Pagans. Member of Pontifical Commission to Bugnini, Annibale. Archbishop.Wrote Novus Buro, Michele. Bishop. Prelate of Pontifical Commission to Cacciavillan, Agostino. Secretariat of State. 11-6-60; # 13-154. Cameli, Umberto. Director in Office of the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Italy in regard to education in Catholic doctrine. 11-17-60; # 9-1436. Caprile, Giovanni. Director of Catholic Civil Affairs. 9-5-57; # 21-014. "GICA." Caputo, Giuseppe. 11-15-71; # 6125-63. "GICAP." Casaroli, Agostino. Cardinal. Secretary of State (next to Pope) under Pope John Paul II since July 1, 1979 until retired in 1989. 9-28-57; # 41-076. "CASA." Cerruti, Flaminio. Chief of the Office of the Ciarrocchi, Mario. Bishop. 8-23-62; # 123-A. "CIMA." Chiavacci, Enrico. Professor of Moral Theology, Conte, Carmelo. 9-16-67; # 43-096. "CONCA." Csele, Alessandro. 3-25-60; # 1354-09. "ALCSE." Dadagio, Luigi. Papal Nuncio to D'Antonio, Enzio. Archbishop of Trivento. 6-21-69; # 214-53. De Bous, Donate. Bishop. 6-24-68; # 321-02. "DEBO." Del Gallo Reoccagiovane, Luigi. Bishop. Del Monte, Aldo. Bishop of Faltin, Danielle. 6-4-70; # 9-1207. "FADA." Ferraioli, Giuseppe. Member of Sacred Congregation for Public Affairs. 11-24-69; # 004-125. "GIFE." Franzoni, Giovanni. 3-2-65; # 2246-47. "FRAGI." Gemmiti, Vito. Sacred Congregation of Bishops. 3-25-68; # 54-13. "VIGE." Girardi, Giulio. 9-8-70; # 1471-52. "GIG." Fiorenzo, Angelinin. Bishop. Title of Commendator of the Holy Spirit. Vicar General of Giustetti, Massimo. 4-12-70; # 13-065. "GIUMA." Gottardi, Alessandro. Procurator and Postulator General of Fratelli Maristi. Archbishop of Gozzini, Mario. 5-14-70; # 31-11. "MAGO." Grazinai, Carlo. Rector of the Gregagnin, Antonio. Tribune of First Causes for Beatification. 10-19-67; # 8-45. "GREA." Gualdrini, Franco. Rector of Capranica. 5-22-61; # 21-352. "GUFRA." Ilari, Annibale. Abbot. 3-16-69; # 43-86. "ILA." Laghi, Pio. Nunzio, Apostolic Delegate to Lajolo, Giovanni. Member of Council of Public Affairs of the Church. 7-27-70; # 21-1397. "LAGI." Lanzoni, Angelo. Chief of the Office of Secretary of State. 9-24-56; # 6-324. "LANA." Levi, Virgillio (alias Levine), Monsignor. Assistant Director of Official Lozza, Lino. Chancellor of Lienart, Achille. Cardinal. Grand Master top Mason. Bishop of Macchi, Pasquale. Cardinal. Pope Paul's Prelate of Honour and Private Secretary until he was excommunicated for heresy by Pope Paul VI. Was reinstated by Secretary of State Jean Villot, and made a Cardinal. 4-23-58; # 5463-2. "MAPA." Mancini, Italo. Director of Sua Santita. 3-18-68; # l551-142. "MANI." Manfrini, Enrico. Lay Consultor of Pontifical Commission of Sacred Art. 2-21-68; # 968-c. "MANE." Marchisano, Francesco. Prelate Honour of the Pope. Secretary Congregation for Seminaries and Universities of Studies. 2-4-61; 4536-3. "FRAMA." Marcinkus, Paul. American bodyguard for imposter Pope. From Cicero, Illinois. Stands 6'4". President for Institute for Training Religious. 8-21-67; # 43-649. Called "GORILLA." Code name "MARPA." Marsili, Saltvatore. Abbot of Order of St. Benedict of Finalpia near Modena, Italy. 7-2-63; # 1278-49. "SALMA." Mazza, Antonio. Titular Bishop of Velia. Secretary General of Holy Year, 1975. 4-14-71. # 054-329. "MANU." Mazzi, Venerio. Member of Council of Public Affairs of the Church. 10-13-66; # 052-s. "MAVE." Mazzoni, Pier Luigi. Congregation of Bishops. 9-14-59; # 59-2. "PILUM." Maverna, Luigi. Bishop of Chiavari, Genoa, Italy. Assistant General of Italian Catholic Azione. 6-3-68; # 441-c. "LUMA." Mensa, Albino. Archbishop of Vercelli, Piedmont, Italy. 7-23-59; # 53-23. " MENA." Messina, Carlo. 3-21-70; # 21-045. "MECA." Messina, Zanon (Adele). 9-25-68; # 045-329. " AMEZ." Monduzzi, Dino. Regent to the Prefect of the Pontifical House. 3-11 -67; # 190-2. "MONDI." Mongillo, Daimazio. Professor of Dominican Moral Theology, Holy Angels Institute of Roma. 2-16-69; # 2145-22. "MONDA." Morgante, Marcello. Bishop of Ascoli Piceno in East Italy. 7-22-55; # 78-3601. MORMA." Natalini, Teuzo. Vice President of the Archives of Secretariat of the Vatican. 6-17-67; # 21-44d. "NATE." Nigro, Carmelo. Rector of the Seminary, Pontifical of Major Studies. 12-21-70; # 23-154. "CARNI." Noe, Virgillio. Head of the Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship. He and Bugnini paid 5 Protestant Ministers and one Jewish Rabbi to create the Novus Ordo Mass. 4-3-61; # 43652-21. "VINO." Palestra, Vittorie. He is Legal Council of the Sacred Rota of the Vatican State. 5-6-43; # 1965. "PAVI." Pappalardo, Salvatore. Cardinal. Archbishop of Palermo, Sicily. 4-15-68; # 234-07. "SALPA." Pasqualetti, Gottardo. 6-15-60; # 4-231. "COPA." Pasquinelli, Dante. Council of Nunzio of Madrid. 1-12-69; # 32-124. "PADA." Pellegrino, Michele. Cardinal. Called "Protector of the Church", Archbishop of Torino (Turin, where the Holy Shroud of Jesus is kept). 5-2-60; # 352-36. "PALMI." Piana, Giannino. 9-2-70; # 314-52. "GIPI." Pimpo, Mario. Vicar of Office of General Affairs. 3-15-70; # 793-43. "PIMA." Pinto, Monsignor Pio Vito. Attache of Secretary of State and Notare of Second Section of Supreme Tribunal and of Apostolic Signature. 4-2-70; # 3317-42. "PIPIVI." Poletti, Ugo. Cardinal. Vicar of S.S. Diocese of Rome. Controls clergy of Rome since 3-6-73. Member of Sacred Congregation of Sacraments and of Divine Worship. He is President of Pontifical Works and Preservation of the Faith. Also President of the Liturgical Academy. 2-17-69; # 32-1425. "UPO." Rizzi, Monsignor Mario. Sacred Congregation of Oriental Rites. Listed as "Prelate Bishop of Honour of the Holy Father, the Pope." Works under top-Mason Mario Brini in manipulating Canon Law. 9-16-69; # 43-179. "MARI," "MONMARI." Romita, Florenzo. Was in Sacred Congregation of Clergy. 4-21-56; # 52-142. "FIRO." Rogger, Igine. Officer in S.S. (Diocese of Rome). 4-16-68; # 319-13. "IGRO." Rossano, Pietro. Sacred Congregation of Non-Christian Religions. 2-12-68; # 3421-a. "PIRO." Rovela, Virgillio. 6-12-64; # 32-14. "ROVI." Sabbatani, Aurelio. Archbishop of Giustiniana (Giusgno, Milar Province, Italy). First Secretary Supreme Apostolic Segnatura. 6-22-69; # 87-43. "ASA" Sacchetti, Guilio. Delegate of Governors - Marchese. 8-23-59; # 0991-b. "SAGI." Salerno, Francesco. Bishop. Prefect Atti. Eccles. 5-4-62; # 0437-1. "SAFRA" Santangelo, Franceso. Substitute General of Defense Legal Counsel. 11-12-70; # 32-096. "FRASA." Santini, Pietro. Vice Official of the Vicar. 8-23-64; # 326-11. "SAPI." Savorelli, Fernando. 1-14-69; # 004-51. "SAFE." Savorelli, Renzo. 6-12-65; # 34-692. "RESA." Scanagatta, Gaetano. Sacred Congregation of the Clergy. Member of Commission of Pomei and Loreto, Italy. 9-23-71; # 42-023. "GASCA." Schasching, Giovanni. 3-18-65; # 6374-23. "GISCHA," "GESUITA." Schierano, Mario. Titular Bishop of Acrida (Acri in Cosenza Province, Italy.) Chief Military Chaplain of the Italian Armed Forces. 7-3-59; #14-3641. "MASCHI." Semproni, Domenico. Tribunal of the Vicarate of the Vatican. 4-16-60; # 00-12. "DOSE." Sensi, Giuseppe Mario. Titular Archbishop of Sardi (Asia Minor near Smyrna). Papal Nunzio to Portugal. 11-2-67; # 18911-47. "GIMASE." Sposito, Luigi. Pontifical Commission for the Archives of the Church in Italy. Head Administrator of the Apostolic Seat of the Vatican. Suenens, Leo. Cardinal. Title: Protector of the Church of St. Peter in Chains, outside Rome. Promotes Protestant Pentecostalism (Charismatics). Destroyed much Church dogma when he worked in 3 Sacred Congregations: 1) Propagation of the Faith; 2) Rites and Ceremonies in the Liturgy; 3) Seminaries. 6-15-67; # 21-64. "LESU." Trabalzini, Dino. Bishop of Rieti (Reate, Peruga, Italy). Auxiliary Bishop of Southern Rome. 2-6-65; # 61-956. "TRADI." Travia, Antonio. Titular Archbishop of Termini Imerese. Head of Catholic schools. 9-15-67; # 16-141. "ATRA." Trocchi, Vittorio. Secretary for Catholic Laity in Consistory of the Vatican State Consultations. 7-12-62; # 3-896. "TROVI." Tucci, Roberto. Director General of Vatican Radio. 6-21-57; # 42-58. "TURO." Turoldo, David. 6-9-67; # 191-44. "DATU." Vale, Georgio. Priest. Official of Rome Diocese. 2-21-71; # 21-328. "VAGI." Vergari, Piero. Head Protocol Officer of the Vatican Office Segnatura. 12-14-70; # 3241-6. "PIVE." Villot, Jean. Cardinal. Secretary of State during Pope Paul VI. He is Camerlengo (Treasurer). "JEANNI," "ZURIGO." Zanini, Lino. Titular Archbishop of Adrianopoli, which is Andrianopolis, Turkey. Apostolic Nuncio. Member of the Revered Fabric of St. Peter's Basilica.
For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com. |
his catchphrase was: "you can't run the Catholic church on HailMarys" During the 1970s, Marcinkus, a keen golfer, took advice on investment policy from two Italian bankers who had become his golfing chums. They later turned out to be MAFIA. Michele Sindona, a Sicilian banker sentenced to 25 years in jail in the United States for bank fraud, died of poisoning in an Italian jail after being extradited back home. Roberto Calvi, a Catholic banker whose Banco Ambrosiano went into liquidation causing losses to the Vatican Bank of $240 million (£137m) was found dead in London. |
Scandal-hit Vatican banker dies
Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was involved in one of the biggest financial scandals to hit the Vatican, has died, church officials say.
The 84-year-old American had been living in Sun City, Arizona. Marcinkus was head of the Vatican Bank at the time of the fraudulent collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, with which it had close ties. He denied any wrongdoing. Although he was sought for questioning, he was granted immunity as a Vatican employee.
Massive losses
Archbishop Marcinkus was found dead at his home on Monday evening, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, in Arizona, said. The cause is unclear. He retired in 1990, but had remained active in the local ministry.
Born in 1922 in a suburb of Chicago, he was ordained as a priest in 1947 and then as an archbishop in 1969.
An imposing 1.9m (6ft 4in) tall, he acted as a bodyguard to Pope John Paul II during his early foreign travels. Archbishop Marcinkus was appointed to the Institute for Religious Works, known as the Vatican Bank, in 1971 and worked there until 1989. The bank was the main shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano.
The head of Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London shortly after the bank's collapse with debts of $1.3bn (£750m). The missing money was traced to loans made to 10 dummy companies in Latin America, and the speculation was that the Mafia were involved.
Five people are currently on trial in Italy for Calvi's murder. - BBC
|
|
Archbishop Marcinkus
(Filed: 22/02/2006) The Most Reverend Paul Marcinkus, who was found dead at his home in Arizona on Monday evening aged 84, caused enormous harm to the reputation of the Catholic Church through his stewardship of the Vatican bank, which he headed for 18 years.
Nicknamed "the Gorilla", the burly American prelate was best known for his involvement in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, a banking crash that cost the Vatican around $500 million and did untold damage to its prestige. Ambrosiano's chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in June 1982, shortly before Italy's largest private bank went bust with debts of $1.3 billion. Embarrassingly for Marcinkus, the Pope's bank, the Institute for Religious Works, had been an active partner in Calvi's hazardous financial adventures.
The fallout from the scandal lasted for more than a decade. In 1984 the Vatican agreed to make a $240 million goodwill payment to creditors of the Banco Ambrosiano, while denying any responsibility for the fraudulent collapse of the Milan-based bank. The payment did little to salvage the Holy See's reputation, and Marcinkus himself consistently opposed it. It also failed to mollify the Milan magistrates investigating the case, who issued a warrant for Marcinkus's arrest in 1987.
This decision was followed by a protracted legal tug-of-war between the Vatican and Italian judicial authorities, which resulted in Marcinkus and two of his aides at the bank spending long periods holed up in the Vatican for fear they might be arrested if they set foot on Italian territory.
The dispute was finally settled by the Italian Court of Cassation, which ruled that Italian courts had no jurisdiction over Marcinkus and his colleagues, saying that officials of the central agencies of the Church were exempt from Italian state interference under the terms of the 1929 Lateran Pact. The attempt to arrest Marcinkus for alleged complicity in fraudulent bankruptcy came as a severe shock to millions of Catholics around the world.
Paul Casimir Marcinkus was born at Cicero, Illinois, on January 15 1922. The son of a Lithuanian immigrant who worked as a window cleaner, he studied at Quigley Preparatory Seminary and then at St Mary of the Lake Seminary at Mundelein, Illinois. He was ordained priest in 1947.
Having worked briefly as a curate in a Chicago parish, he moved to Rome in 1950 to study canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University. A temporary holiday relief job at the Vatican Secretariat of State subsequently turned into a permanent job and enabled him to make friends with Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.
In 1955 Marcinkus went to Bolivia to work as secretary to the Apostolic Nuncio there; he was transferred to the Vatican delegation in Ottawa the following year. In 1959 he returned to the Secretariat of State to begin a 30-year stint in the central government of the Church, which led to his becoming secretary of the Institute for Religious Works in 1969 and president of the bank in 1971 - this despite the fact that he had no previous banking or business experience.
Marcinkus's success in climbing the rungs of the Vatican hierarchy was attributed to his friendship with Pope Paul VI, who appreciated his services as an interpreter fluent in Italian, French, Spanish and Lithuanian, and his skill in organising papal trips abroad. Paul VI made him Prefect of the Economic Affairs for the Holy See with a brief to examine Vatican financial affairs. Later he made Marcinkus president of the bank. It was a time when Paul VI was in dispute with Italian authorities over Vatican taxes and anxious to begin shifting Vatican investments out of the Italian market and into foreign holdings.
Thus Marcinkus - who once said: "My only previous financial experience was handling the Sunday collection" - became involved in years of controversy over the baffling international complexities of the Ambrosiano affair and over the dispute about whether he had sold a major shareholding of Banca Cattolica de Veneto to Roberto Calvi.
He remained head of the Vatican bank despite rumours that John Paul I, in his 33-day pontificate, was trying to get rid of him, continued in the post under John Paul II, and was appointed titular Archbishop of Orta in 1981. But he became virtually a prisoner in the Vatican himself after the Ambrosiano scandal exploded in 1982 and thereafter did not accompany the pope on foreign trips.
Standing 6 ft 4 in tall and a lifelong sportsman with a particular predilection for tennis and golf, Marcinkus became an unofficial papal bodyguard and was among those responsible for saving Paul VI's life when a deranged Bolivian painter lunged at him with a knife during a visit to the Philippines in 1970. He was also a close friend of the Pope's influential secretary, Monsignor Pasquale Macchi.
If these friendships helped to promote his ecclesiastical career, which culminated in his being made acting governor of the Vatican City State, other, more controversial friendships ended up by denying him the cardinal's red hat which otherwise would have been his by right.
The first was that with Michele Sindona, the Sicilian financier who committed suicide in an Italian jail in 1986 after being convicted of commissioning the murder of the Italian official who had been investigating his affairs. Sindona had been previously convicted in the United States for his role in the fraudulent collapse of the Franklin National Bank.
But Marcinkus's most damaging association was that with Roberto Calvi. Like Sindona, Calvi was a member of the sinister P2 masonic lodge, so hardly a suitable business partner for a senior church official.
By issuing "letters of patronage" covering some of the shell companies used by Calvi to syphon off money from the Banco Ambrosiano, Marcinkus became a key accomplice in Calvi's ruinous fraud. Marcinkus used to acknowledge that "you can't run the Church on Hail Marys", but his excessive pragmatism ended up by doing both moral and financial harm to the Church.
In 1990 he left the Vatican for Chicago, then went to work as an assistant parish priest in Sun City, Arizona. He lived in a white cinderblock house on the edge of a golf course and was popular with his parishioners.
Marcinkus was portrayed by Rutger Hauer in an Italian film, called Il Banchieri Di Dio, which was released in 2002.
Four people are currently on trial in Italy charged with murdering Roberto Calvi; there had been speculation that the accused might attempt to call Marcinkus as a witness, although his diplomatic status would have made this difficult.
Despite the efforts of prosecutors in several countries, Marcinkus was never questioned about claims of money laundering, shell companies, the collapse of the Vatican Bank or the death of Calvi.
Some even implicated Marcinkus in the supposed murder of Pope John Paul I, who died a month after his election in 1978. The motive for murder was allegedly the Pope's determination to clean up the Vatican's finances.
According to David Yallop, whose book In God's Name (1984) articulated the theory of John Paul I's "murder": "Marcinkus is a crook, a criminal, a man who in the normal world would have served a long prison sentence for his part in a whole array of financial crimes."
Marcinkus always denied any wrongdoing. On his departure from Rome, he had provided journalists with his own candid epitaph: "I have no doubt that I will be remembered as the villain in the Calvi affair."
To what extent he was villain or dupe remains unclear; he himself was never willing to assist those who attempted to shed light on the issue.
- telegraph.co.uk
|
Down with Murder inc.