God’s Banker

25 May 1984

The answer first. In June 1982 Banco Ambrosiano of Milan failed, with about $1.2 billion owed by shell companies, and its chairman Roberto Calvi, whom the press called “God’s banker”, was found hanging in London. In 1984 the Vatican agreed to pay creditors $244 to $250 million and denied legal responsibility; in the sources read, no court ruled on that. The five people tried in Rome for Calvi’s death were acquitted for lack of evidence. But the 2007 court called a mob punishment more credible than suicide, and the 2010 appeal court wrote that he was killed. Neither named a killer.

2021

Linked, but not one body. The Vatican’s bank is the Institute for the Works of Religion, the IOR, founded in 1942 by TIME’s account, 1887 by the Financial Times’s. It is a separate institution, but MONEYVAL says it is “ultimately controlled by the HS/VCS”, the Holy See and Vatican City State. In 1982 its president, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, also ran the city-state’s administration. The Holy See, the Church, the bank and one clergyman are different actors, and this story names each for what it did.

1971

The financier. Michele Sindona, a financier and one-time Vatican adviser, bought New York’s Franklin National Bank in 1972 and saw it fail in 1974. TIME reported in 1982 that he introduced Calvi to Marcinkus in 1971, and that a “Mr. Paul Marcinkus” was listed as a director of their Bahamian bank; Sindona said he used the name to get money. Vatican officials denied the IOR had much to do with either man, or moved funds abroad for Italians. In 1980 a New York jury found Sindona guilty on 65 of 69 counts; the appeals court affirmed. He was serving 25 years.

1981

Milan. Calvi became director-general of Banco Ambrosiano in 1971, later its president. By TIME’s account the group lent at least $800 million to thinly capitalised shell companies in Panama, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. In July 1981 Calvi was found guilty of illegally exporting capital and sentenced to four years, free pending appeal; Marcinkus’s defence was that the Bank of Italy had approved the bank’s 1981 balance sheet. When it failed, more than 200 institutions held the loans, TIME said, the Bank of Italy covered about half the missing money, and Cardinal Martini wrote that many in Milan lost savings.

Jun 1982

The letters. The IOR was Ambrosiano’s fourth-largest shareholder, with 1.589% by TIME’s count. It issued letters of patronage saying it controlled the shell companies, in effect vouching for Calvi, TIME said; Vatican officials said they were for “internal use”, written after the loans. Calvi’s “liberating letter”, five days earlier, relieved the IOR; the lenders were never told, which TIME said gave the arrangement the appearance of a conspiracy. Accounts differ on who owned the shells. A parliamentary report adds a $184 million credit backed by an IOR letter. Marcinkus refused to renew the letters, which expired in June 1982.

17 Mar 1981

The list. On 17 March 1981 Milan judges investigating Sindona had Licio Gelli’s offices searched and found the lists of the lodge Propaganda Due, P2. Calvi’s name was on them, and Sindona’s. Italy’s parliamentary majority report of 1984 called P2 a secret association and, in the Sindona and Calvi affairs, a privileged meeting place. It records IOR money in a 1977 capital increase at Rizzoli, publisher of the Corriere della Sera, under Gelli’s and Ortolani’s direction. It does not name Marcinkus or call the IOR a member. Gelli was later sentenced to 12 years for the Ambrosiano bankruptcy.

18 Jun 1982

The last week. Calvi fled Italy on a false passport, by way of Austria to London, with the businessman Flavio Carboni. On 17 June Ambrosiano’s board stripped him of his powers and the Bank of Italy appointed a commission to run the bank. That day his secretary, Graziella Corrocher, 55, plunged to her death from its Milan headquarters. On 18 June Calvi was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge; his pockets held about $13,000 and 12 lb of bricks and stones. Some Italians read the bridge as a sign, since P2 members were said to call each other “friar”; no court found that.

27 Jun 1983

Inquests, then experts. A first British inquest ruled Calvi’s death a suicide; on 27 June 1983 a second replaced it with an open verdict, which does not say how he died. A BBC text says Calvi had attempted suicide in jail in 1981. In October 2002 forensic experts appointed by Italian judges concluded he was murdered: his neck lacked the injuries usually seen in hanging and his hands had never touched the stones in his pockets. British police reopened the case in 2003, the Los Angeles Times said. Experts’ findings are not a court’s.

8 Oct 1982

The Vatican’s answer. Italy had Ambrosiano liquidated. On 8 October 1982 its Finance Minister, Beniamino Andreatta, told the Chamber that the IOR was responsible under its letters and presented a bill of $1,159 million, an Italian press report says. Marcinkus and two lay managers were under investigation. The Vatican declined to cooperate, citing sovereignty, though its Secretary of State named three bankers to examine the IOR; Marcinkus stayed inside the Vatican. Vatican officials said it was normal banking and the IOR an unwitting victim of Calvi. Marcinkus said Calvi had released him in writing; in 1990: “I have never done anything wrong.”

25 May 1984

The payment. An agreement signed in Geneva on 25 May 1984 had the Vatican’s bank pay Ambrosiano’s 120 bank creditors $244 million (TIME, Financial Times) or $250 million (others), in exchange for dropping further claims. An Italian press report on the Vatican’s papers says Secretary of State Casaroli decided the Holy See would pay as moral compensation, backed by John Paul II, over Marcinkus’s resistance; he later said the Church should not have paid. TIME says a construction stake was sold and London banks borrowed from; that report says IOR holdings and the staff pension fund paid. A settlement is not a ruling.

18 Mar 1986

The liquidator. UPI reported that the Vatican lost an estimated $46 to $200 million in Sindona’s enterprises; nothing read ties the IOR to what followed. Giorgio Ambrosoli, liquidating Sindona’s bank, refused pressure and was shot in July 1979. On 18 March 1986 a Milan court, at first instance, sentenced Sindona to life for paying a hired killer, William Arico. Two days later he drank cyanide-laced coffee in his cell and died on 22 March. Investigators recorded suicide, Il Manifesto wrote in 2003, and two authors back that; ANSA writes that he was killed.

17 Jul 1987

The warrants. On 20 February 1987 Milan prosecutors had warrants issued for Marcinkus and two lay managers, alleging the IOR knew or should have known of fraud. A Vatican tribunal refused extradition, citing the treaty with Italy and calling the charges “conjectural”. On 17 July the Court of Cassation, overturning an appeals court, invalidated the warrants; Italian courts, it held, had no jurisdiction over central church bodies. The Constitutional Court declined, as too late, to rule on the challenge. No court judged the charges. Marcinkus: “I’m happy, and I still have faith in justice.”

6 Jun 2007

Five acquitted. Rome prosecutors reopened the case in 1998. Five stood trial from October 2005, among them Giuseppe Calò, a Sicilian mafia boss serving life for other crimes, whom prosecutors alleged ordered the killing; the alleged motive was that Calvi had lost mob money he was laundering. The defence argued suicide, or that murder was unproven. The court acquitted all five. Its reasons, Reuters reported, called a mob punishment “more credible”, but said witnesses were now dead. AP reported that 2003 shoe tests indicated Calvi “was killed elsewhere”. The family’s lawyer noted the court said only that the defendants had not done “the deed”.

7 May 2010

The appeal. On 7 May 2010 the appeal court upheld the acquittals of Carboni, Calò and Diotallevi. Its reasons say Calvi was killed, not a suicide, but that there were too many possible motives and parties, among them the mafia, the camorra, P2, the IOR, politicians and secret services, and that informants only relayed what they had heard. Substantial indications weighed on Carboni, it said, but no motive pointed to him in particular; he called the case a judicial error and says Calvi killed himself. The Court of Cassation turned down the prosecutor’s appeal. In 2015 prosecutors asked to shelve the rest of the probe; the outcome was not found.

21 Sep 2010

September 2010. Italian police seized about $30 million (€23 million, the Financial Times said) of IOR funds at an Italian bank after the Bank of Italy raised concerns about two transfers; prosecutors placed its chairman and another official under investigation for alleged mistakes in applying anti-laundering rules. The Vatican said it was perplexed and surprised. On 30 December Pope Benedict XVI promulgated an anti-laundering law, which its text says implements the Vatican’s 2009 monetary convention with the EU, extended it to the Roman Curia, and set up a financial authority. How the investigation ended is not in the sources read.

Jul 2012

The examination. In February 2011 the Vatican’s Secretary of State asked the Council of Europe’s MONEYVAL committee to evaluate the Holy See. Its 2012 report said the authorities had “come a long way in a very short period of time”, but that effectiveness was not yet shown: there had been no money-laundering investigations, prosecutions or convictions. A later MONEYVAL report rates the Holy See compliant or largely compliant on 8 of 16 core and key recommendations in 2012.

8 Jul 2014

The review. In June 2013 Pope Francis set up a commission to gather information on the IOR’s legal status and activities. In July 2014 its president, Ernst von Freyberg, said a team of 30 had checked more than 16,000 accounts in twelve months; 3,000 were closed, 2,600 of them dormant, plus 400 lay accounts he called perfectly fine. The Telegraph reported over 2,000 accounts blocked, €44 million out, and profit down from €86.6 million to €2.9 million. He said the IOR had been associated with scandals and that nearly every rumour was untrue. These are the bank’s figures, unchecked here.

21 Jan 2021

The bank’s former head. Angelo Caloia was appointed IOR president in 1989, the Financial Times says, and left in 2009 (Crux says he began in 1999). On 21 January 2021 the Vatican Tribunal, the Holy See Press Office said, found him and a lawyer, Gabriele Liuzzo, guilty of embezzlement and self-laundering over IOR property sales in 2002–2007; about €19 million was found appropriated; each got eight years and eleven months. MONEYVAL says the case began with 2014 complaints from the Vatican’s financial authority and the IOR, which was the plaintiff. Crux reports the appeal court cut the terms by five months in July 2022. His own answer is not in the sources read.

16 Dec 2023

A different office. The Becciu trial was about the Secretariat of State’s money, not the IOR. On 16 December 2023 the Vatican Tribunal sentenced Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months: for three counts of embezzlement, Vatican News says; for two of embezzlement and one of aggravated fraud, ANSA says. Nine of ten defendants were convicted, among them the former president and director of the Vatican’s financial authority, cleared of abuse of office but found guilty of failing to report a suspect transaction. On 17 March 2026 the Court of Appeal ordered parts redone. A hearing on 29 October 2026 lasted eleven minutes; the next are 26–29 January 2027.

2021

What stays open. MONEYVAL’s 2021 report called the Vatican’s court results “modest” and money-laundering sanctions “rather minimal”, and disagreed with authorities who rated insider abuse a low risk. In May 2024 the Holy See Press Office said a first follow-up report was positive; this story did not read it. Still open: whether the IOR was legally liable, which no court in the sources read decided; who killed Calvi, if anyone; the Becciu retrial. Sindona’s death was recorded as suicide, which others dispute.