Collapse of Banco Ambrosiano

On June 17, Banco Ambrosiano's board of directors voted to strip Calvi of his powers, and the Bank of Italy appointed a commission to run Ambrosiano.

By June 1982 the shell companies owed Banco Ambrosiano banks about $1.2 billion

In these years the banks lent at least $800 million to low-capitalized shell companies in Panama, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

The failure of Italy's huge Banco Ambrosiano, which has left more than 200 international financial institutions holding the bag for millions in loans.

plunged to her death from the fourth floor of the bank's Milan headquarters

She left behind an apparent suicide note saying, "May Calvi be double-cursed for the damage he has caused to the bank and its employees."

Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican's Secretary of State, has named three respected international bankers, all prominent Catholic laymen, to examine the I.O.R.'s role in the scandal.

Marcinkus has remained inside the Vatican, where he cannot be questioned by the government.

Calvi was found guilty in July 1981, fined a total of $11.7 million and sentenced to four years in jail.

Though he had been convicted of a financial crime, Calvi was still made welcome at the Vatican bank and other banks.

The I.O.R. supplied Calvi with "letters of patronage" (called comfort letters by bankers), documents stating that the shell companies were controlled, either directly or indirectly, by the I.O.R.

a "liberating letter," written by Calvi to the I.O.R. five days before the letters of patronage were issued

The liberating letter in effect negates the letters of patronage and relieves the Vatican bank of any responsibility for the companies in question.

Yet this letter was never made known to the Ambrosiano Latin American banks that lent money to Calvi's shell firms.

When Calvi asked the I.O.R. to renew the letters, which expired in June 1982, Marcinkus turned him down.

By issuing such letters, the Vatican bank was in effect vouching for Calvi's creditworthiness.

The letters were written after loans had been made to the shell companies

Marcinkus claimed the letters were for "internal use."

The liberating letter thus gives the arrangement between Calvi and the I.O.R. the appearance of a conspiracy to withhold essential information from the lending banks.

Marcinkus did not sign the letters, but he has taken full responsibility for them.

In 1971, Sindona introduced Calvi to Marcinkus.

Although the Vatican bank denies it had much to do with either Sindona or Calvi

A few months after Sindona and Calvi set up the Bahamian bank in 1971, a "Mr. Paul Marcinkus" was listed as a director.

Vatican officials flatly deny that the I.O.R. ever helped transfer funds abroad for Italians.

The Vergil who first guided Calvi through the descending circles of these and other transactions was Michele Sindona.

Archbishop Marcinkus and his two principal lay assistants, Managing Director Luigi Mennini, 71, and Chief Accountant Pellegrino de Strobel, 70, are under investigation by Italian authorities in connection with the possibly fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano.

Marcinkus' defense is that he was newly reconfirmed as president of Banco Ambrosiano, and the bank's balance sheet was approved at the end of 1981 by the Bank of Italy.

So far no one has openly accused Marcinkus of any illegal acts.

the Vatican claims its relationship with Calvi and Banco Ambrosiano involved only normal banking operations

The Vatican, citing its status as a sovereign state, has so far declined to cooperate with the Italian authorities

Something like half of the missing money was made good by the Bank of Italy.

nella quale molte persone hanno perso i loro risparmi a causa della bancarotta del Banco Ambrosiano

il ministro delle Finanze Beniamino Andreatta, nella seduta alla Camera di venerdì 8 ottobre 1982, dopo il crack dell’istituto di piazzetta Ferrari, aveva presentato al Vaticano un conto di 1.159 milioni di dollari

Andreatta stabilì la responsabilità dello Ior sulla base delle lettere di “patronage” esibite da Calvi.

assistita da una « lettera di patronage » rilasciata dall'IOR

The archbishop, who was known for saying that "You can't run the church on Hail Marys," was kept a virtual prisoner in the Vatican for long stretches in the 1980s.

The archbishop said Calvi had released him in writing from any such liabilities.

"The Italians should have looked into their own banking system," he told reporters in 1990. "I have never done anything wrong."

The Institute owns several companies that had received loans from Banco Ambrosiano that were part of the missing $1.3 billion.

The church has always insisted that it has no legal or financial responsibility for the Ambrosiano losses.

unrecovered loans to Panamanian companies nominally owned by the Vatican bank

The Vatican has always maintained that the Institute for Religious Works was an unwitting victim of a hidden financial scheme hatched by then-Banco Ambrosiano President Roberto Calvi.