In God's Name (52 page)

Indeed they were. The two banks were completely interlocked. They had been for years. Bishop Marcinkus was in a bind. To tell the truth would bring down on the Vatican the wrath of Italy. The alternative was to leave Calvi unsupported in the hope that the Vatican’s deep and continuing involvement would remain secret and that after Calvi’s trial it would be a case of business as usual. Bishop Marcinkus took the latter course. Undoubtedly this decision was based on the fact that, of all the crimes perpetrated by Calvi, the charges he now faced involved only two of his illegal transactions, when Calvi had sold himself shares in Toro and Credito Varesino that he already happened to own, at vastly inflated prices. This had involved illegally exported currency out of Italy and that was the offence the Milan magistrates were hoping would enable them to convict Calvi. Marcinkus reasoned that if everyone kept calm the game could continue. Calvi, sitting in Lodi prison, was unimpressed by the messages from his sanguine
partner in the Vatican. International bankers shook their heads in disbelief as Calvi continued to run Banco Ambrosiano from inside prison.

On July 7th, the Italian Government charged Michele Sindona with ordering the murder of Giorgio Ambrosoli. Calvi’s reaction to the news was particularly interesting. He tried to commit suicide the following evening. He swallowed a quantity of barbiturates and slashed his wrists. He later explained his reasons: ‘Because of a kind of lucid desperation. Because there was not a trace of justice in all that was being done against me. And I am not talking about the trial.’ If, of course, he had really wanted to end his life, he had merely to obtain the quantity of digitalis recommended by Gelli by having it smuggled into prison. His trial judges were unimpressed.

On July 20th he was sentenced to four years imprisonment and a fine of 16 billion lire. His lawyers immediately lodged an appeal and he was freed on bail. Within a week of his release, the board of Banco Ambrosiano unanimously reconfirmed him as chairman of the bank and gave him a standing ovation. The international bankers again shook their heads in disbelief. As Marcinkus had predicted, it was indeed business as usual. P2 was a continuing power. The Bank of Italy allowed Calvi to return. The Italian Government made no move to end the extraordinary spectacle of a man convicted of banking offences running one of the country’s biggest banks.

One banker did raise objections. Ambrosiano’s general manager Roberto Rosone pleaded with the Bank of Italy to approve the removal of Calvi and replace him with the previous chairman, Ruggiero Mozzana. The Bank of Italy, with its eyes still firmly fixed on the power of P2 and the political muscle that Calvi had bought over the years, declined to intervene.

The second threat to Calvi’s banking empire came from Peru and Nicaragua. To counter it, Calvi enlisted the help of Marcinkus. The Bishop had declined to give Calvi any support, public or private, during his trial but he was now about to give him every assistance to ensure that the criminal fraud perpetrated by both men should remain secret.

During the time of Calvi’s trial the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul II had appointed a commission of fifteen cardinals to study the finances of the Roman Catholic Church. The function of the commission was to recommend improvements that would increase Vatican revenue.

Bishop Paul Marcinkus was not included as a member of the
commission but he obviously felt that as head of the Vatican Bank he could nevertheless make a powerful contribution to the vexed question of Vatican finances. He held a number of secret meetings with the convicted Calvi which resulted in the Vatican Bank officially admitting an increase in its outstanding debts of nearly one billion dollars. This was the sum that was owed to the Calvi banks in Peru and Nicaragua, as a result of their having loaned on Calvi’s instructions hundreds of millions of dollars to Bellatrix, Astolfine, etc. Peru and Nicaragua, in spite of being Calvi subsidiaries, were finally displaying a little independence. The securities backing these enormous loans were negligible.

Peru and Nicaragua wanted greater cover. Who picked up the bill in the event of a default? Who exactly owned these mysterious Panamanian companies? Who had borrowed so much with so little? The gentlemen from Peru were particularly anxious, having loaned some 900 million dollars.

At this stage, in August 1981, Calvi and Marcinkus perpetrated their biggest fraud. The documents would become known as ‘letters of comfort’. They offer no comfort to any Roman Catholic; no reassurance to any who believe in the moral integrity of the Vatican. The letters were written on the headed paper of the Instituto per le Opere di Religione, Vatican City and were dated September 1st, 1981. They were addressed to Banco Ambrosiano Andino in Lima, Peru and Ambrosiano Group Banco Comercial in Nicaragua. On the instructions of Bishop Paul Marcinkus, they were signed by Luigi Mennini and Pellegrino De Strobel. They read:

Gentlemen:

This is to confirm that we directly or indirectly control the following entries:

Manic SA Luxembourg

Astolfine SA Panama

Nordeurop Establishment, Liechtenstein

UTC United Trading Corporation, Panama

Erin SA Panama

Bellatrix SA Panama

Belrosa SA Panama

Starfield SA Panama

We also confirm our awareness of their indebtedness towards yourself as of June 10, 1981 as per attached statement of accounts.

The attached accounts showed that the ‘indebtedness’ to the Lima branch alone was 907 million dollars.

The directors in Nicaragua and Peru relaxed. They had now clear admission that the massive debts were the responsibility of the Vatican Bank. The Holy Roman Catholic Church was the guarantor. No banker could wish for a better security. There was just one small problem. The directors in Peru and Nicaragua knew only half of the story. There was another letter. This one was from Roberto Calvi to the Vatican Bank, dated August 27th, 1981. It was safely in Marcinkus’s hands before he acknowledged that the Vatican Bank was liable for the debts of one billion dollars. Calvi’s letter made a formal request for the letters of comfort in which the Vatican would admit that it owned the Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Panamanian companies. This admission, Calvi assured the Vatican, ‘would entail no liabilities for the IOR.’ His letter concluded with a paragraph confirming that whatever happened the Vatican Bank would ‘suffer no future damage or loss’. Hence the Vatican Bank was secretly absolved from debts to which it was about to admit.

For Calvi’s secret letter to Marcinkus to have any legal validity, its existence and precise contents would have had to be revealed to the directors in Peru and Nicaragua. Further, the arrangement between Calvi and Marcinkus would have had to be agreed upon by the majority of the directors in Milan. Moreover, to have been a legal agreement, it would have been essential for the contents of both letters to have been public knowledge to all the shareholders of Banco Ambrosiano, including the many small shareholders in the Milan area.

The two letters and the agreement between Calvi and Marcinkus constitute a clear case of criminal fraud by both men. That all of this should have transpired on the third anniversary of the election of Albino Luciani to the Papacy adds to the obscenity. Luciani, a man committed and dedicated to the elimination of corruption within the Vatican, had been succeeded by Pope John Paul II, a man who wholeheartedly approved of Bishop Paul Marcinkus.

This appalling effrontery grew when on September 28th, 1981, the third anniversary of Luciani’s death, Marcinkus was promoted by the Pope. It was announced that he had been appointed Pro-President of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City. This virtually made him Governor of Vatican City. He still retained his position as
head of the Vatican Bank and the new post gave him automatic elevation to Archbishop.

Through his Lithuanian origins, his continual espousal, in fiscal terms, of Poland’s needs and his close proximity to the Pope because of his role as personal bodyguard and overseer of all security on foreign trips, Marcinkus had discovered in the person of Karol Wojtyla the most powerful protector a Vatican employee could have. Sindona, Calvi and others like them are, according to the Vatican, wicked men who have deceived naive, trusting priests. Either Marcinkus has misled, lied to and suppressed the truth from Pope John Paul II since October 1978, or the present Pope also stands indicted.

While Karol Wojtyla displays remarkable charisma and tells the world that a man who looks at his wife with desire could well be committing adultery of the heart, Marcinkus has continued to seduce many of the world’s bankers. While the Pope from Krakow demonstrates his preoccupation with maintaining the Roman Catholic status quo by his declarations that divorced Roman Catholics who had remarried could only be given Holy Communion if they totally abstained from sexual relationships with their married partners, the Pope’s bankers have shown themselves to be less fastidious about whom they sleep with. While Pope John Paul II has justified the Roman Catholic Church’s continuing treatment of women as second class citizens with assertions such as ‘Mary, the mother of God, was not among the Apostles at the Last Supper’, the men from Vatican Incorporated have continued to display a more liberated attitude: they will steal and embezzle from either sex.

In the years since the election of Wojtyla, Licio Gelli, the unbeliever, has continued to demonstrate his own power and charisma. None would call him God’s representative but many would continue to jump when the Puppet Master tugged the string.

From the sanctuary of his home in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, Licio Gelli remained in contact with Calvi. Still pulling that particular string, still extorting huge amounts of money from the banker, he would frequently telephone when Calvi was at his villa in Drezzo. His wife Clara and his daughter Anna have confirmed that the number was known only to Gelli and Umberto Ortolani – a P2 hotline. Gelli would never give his name when the Calvi family would ask who was calling. It was always the special codename: ‘Luciani’.

Why would the Grand Master of P2 ascribe to himself Albino Luciani’s name – a name Gelli had used since 1978 when contacting Calvi? Was it a constant reminder of a certain event? A constant
threat that this master blackmailer might reveal details of that event unless the money kept pouring into Gelli’s bank accounts? Undoubtedly the money did continue to flow to Gelli. Right until the end, Calvi was still paying Gelli off. With the Grand Master disgraced and in hiding in South America, wanted by the Italian authorities on a variety of charges, his protection of Calvi was limited. Why then the millions of dollars that each mention of the name ‘Luciani’ sent pouring into Gelli’s pocket? Calvi personally estimated that Gelli and Ortolani eventually were worth over 500 million dollars each.

Months before the P2 scandal broke, when the Grand Master was still in Italy, Calvi was clearly attempting to break all links with Gelli. Why did Calvi avoid the phone calls? Tell his family to say he was ill or was not there? From the accounts of the Calvi family Gelli, the insatiable collector of secrets and information, had a frightening hold over Roberto Calvi. What was the ultimate secret that Gelli knew which sent Calvi into fits of perspiring terror at the mere mention of Gelli’s name?

Gelli’s hold on Calvi continued until the end of the banker’s life. When he whistled Calvi danced. Late in 1981 Carlo De Benedetti, chief executive of Olivetti, became deputy chairman of Banco Ambrosiano at Calvi’s request. It gave his Bank’s tattered public image a healthy injection of respectability. In Uruguay Gelli and Ortolani heard the news with alarm. An honest deputy chairman was not consistent with their plans to continue the plunder of Banco Ambrosiano. ‘Luciani’ picked up his telephone and dialled the private number at the Drezzo villa. Having persuaded De Benedetti to join his bank, Calvi then made life impossible for the man from Olivetti. ‘You must take the greatest care,’ he said to Benedetti. ‘The P2 is preparing a dossier on you. I advise you to take care, because I know.’ Little more than a month later De Benedetti had left.

A long letter of complaint, complete with highly detailed appendices, from a group of Milanese shareholders in Banco Ambrosiano was sent to John Paul II. The letter, dated January 12th, 1982, was a slashing attack on the Bank. It set out the links between Marcinkus, Calvi, Gelli and Ortolani. The shareholders were particularly distressed that the previously staid Catholic Ambrosiano and the Vatican Bank had bred such an unholy alliance. As the troubled Catholics of Milan observed:

The IOR is not only a shareholder in the Banco Ambrosiano. It is an associate and partner of Roberto Calvi. It is revealed by a
growing number of court cases that Calvi stands today astride one of the main crossroads of the most degenerate Freemasonry (P2) and of Mafia circles, as a result of inheriting Sindona’s mantle. This has been done once again with the involvement of people generously nurtured and cared for by the Vatican, such as Ortolani, who moves between the Vatican and powerful groups in the international underworld.

Being a partner of Calvi means being a partner of Gelli and Ortolani, given that both guide and influence him strongly. The Vatican is therefore, whether it likes it or not, through its association with Calvi also an active partner of Gelli and Ortolani.

The letter contained an appeal to Pope John Paul II for help and guidance. Though the Pope speaks many languages, including Italian, the Milanese thoughtfully had the letter translated into Polish and also took steps to ensure that neither the Curia in general nor Villot’s replacement Casaroli should prevent the letter reaching the Pope. In any event the letter was ignored. The Milanese shareholders were not even graced with a formal acknowledgment.