God's Banker (35 page)

Admittedly, Milan in recent years had grown used to the spectacle of financiers in handcuffs: Calvi himself had spent two months in jail in 1981, and the ritual of the dawn arrest had become familiar enough to earn the nickname of the
assegno delle sette,
the "Seven o'clock ticket"; many, moreover, had suspected that it would be the turn of Rizzoli and Tassan Din before long. Even so, it was a sad way for the old Rizzoli to go. Once it had been Italy's most prosperous publishing group, an advertisement for Milanese enterprise. Now the company was discredited and of uncertain future.

Only for the
Corriere
, perhaps, was this miserable denouement a kind of liberation, putting conclusive end to its association with Gelli and the P-2, to which both Rizzoli and Tassan Din—as well as Calvi—had belonged. There were hopes that the issue of its owner­ship might be at last resolved to the satisfaction of itself and that of the politicians, after the general election of June 1983.

Less vivid, but perhaps of greater implication for Italian finance, were the repercussions of the Ambrosiano bankruptcy for Carlo Pesenti, oldest of the Vatican's financial allies. Italmobiliare had been the largest single Italian shareholder in the liquidated Ambro­siano. By all accounts, many of its assets had been mortgaged to Calvi's banks, to secure loans helping Italmobiliare finance debts of some 1,000 billion lire.

The bankruptcy had meant that Pesenti lost 100 billion lire on his four per cent shareholding in Ambrosiano alone, and action could be put off no longer. Six weeks after Calvi died, Pesenti sold his biggest bank, Istituto Bancario Italiano, to Cariplo, the savings bank repre­senting the provinces of Lombardy, for 550 billion lire. The transac­tion further enlarged the presence of the public sector within the Italian banking system. But many doubted that it alone would suffice to free Pesenti from his difficulties. A greater political adroitness than Calvi and the ownership of some sound industrial companies had for years enabled him to confound predictions of financial demise. However, Pesenti was now not only a victim of Ambrosiano's down­fall, but also 75 years old and suffering from heart troubles.

There was an additional discomfort too. Milan magistrates were again scrutinizing that peculiar 50 billion lire loan of a decade earlier from the IOR, so suspiciously indexed to the Swiss franc. For Marcinkus and the Vatican bank, on the other hand, that was the least of their worries.

Those whom Paul
Marcinkus numbered as his friends received at the end of 1982 a small postcard of Christmas greetings. On one side there were images of the Madonna and child, on the other a brief message, speaking of the ups and downs of a "difficult" year. But that was to put his problems mildly; nor was there much sign that they would disappear with the old year.

Marcinkus could hardly have imagined that his blunt refusal of assistance to the three Ambrosiano commissioners on July 2 would have closed the affair. Indeed, far from blowing itself out, the storm in Italy and abroad was only gathering. Cardinal Casaroli had already seen enough to realize that outside expertise would be needed to help sort out the muddle, and had appointed his own three "wise men" to assess the IOR's involvement.

From the Italian press, meanwhile, Marcinkus had learnt to expect little sympathy, and he received none. "The super-Calvi in the Vatican", read one headline of those days. "Marcinkus: angel or devil?" ran another. More seriously, those stern magistrates in Milan evidently felt the same.

Formal notification was issued to Marcinkus, De Stroebel and Mennini (along with a score of senior former officials of Ambrosiano) at the end of July, warning them that they might face charges arising from the collapse of Ambrosiano. The Vatican refused on procedural grounds to take delivery of the three
comunicazioni giudiziarie,
arguing that since the Floly See was a foreign state, they should first have been channelled through the Italian Foreign Ministry and the Italian Embassy to the Vatican.

Little more was heard of the episode—but for months afterwards Marcinkus would remain a virtual prisoner within the square mile of the Vatican city state, apprehensive that the notification would be delivered if he crossed on to Italian soil. He was forced to abandon his flat in Villa Stritch, the traditional residence of American priests in Rome, for the spacious but impersonal apartments which fell to him as Governor of the Vatican city.

Nonetheless, in those early weeks, as Casaroli's appointees began their work, Marcinkus appeared comparatively cheerful. The Vati­can's position remained his own—that everything should be denied, not least because the slightest concession would be taken as admis­sion of guilt. Even the normally restrained
Osservatore Romano
, the Vatican newspaper, was moved to complain vehemently at the harassment from the Italian press. From mid-August on, however, Marcinkus became steadily more isolated.

Casaroli, just back from a ten-day visit to the United States (during which he was suspected of contacting informally leading American banks about assistance for the IOR) gave an interview resounding with faint praise. More outspoken was Cardinal Giovanni Benelli of Florence, among the most powerful voices in the Italian church and long an opponent of the American Archbishop within the Curia. If the IOR had been imprudent, Benelli remarked, then that was due to "incapacity and inexperience". Marcinkus, in other words, had been a fool.

Next came the loss of his job as organizer and unofficial bodyguard on Papal journeys abroad. The attentions of the magistrates were, of course, one reason. At least an equal consideration, however, must have been the unflattering publicity Marcinkus would have received, distracting attention from the pastoral and spiritual purpose of a Pope's travels. For the Ambrosiano affair had made him a most unspiritual celebrity around the world. When John Paul II went to Spain that October, Marcinkus for the first time was absent from his shoulder.

Marcinkus was paying the price, not only of his indiscretions with Calvi, but also of the jealousies held by many within the predomi­nantly Italian administration of the Vatican, who had never come to terms with a forthright, demanding, but so successful outsider. In the past this resentment had been stifled by unswerving support from the Pope. But now Marcinkus would attract criticism aimed at John Paul

II himself; of his unquestioning trust of the American archbishop; and of how his travels had prevented him from listening to more sober counsel at home—especially about the bad name of the IOR's financial partner.

The person of the Pope was soon to be drawn into the Ambrosiano scandal again—this time by Andreatta, the Treasury Minister. On October 7, in a second parliamentary statement on the scandal, he once more made no bones about the involvement of the Vatican bank, but pointed out that the Italian authorities were powerless to act against a foreign bank on foreign soil. On the other hand, Andreatta observed, the Pope could intervene, if he wished, to oblige the IOR to "behave in a specific fashion".

He had stated no more than the obvious; but to some in his own Christian Democrat party the words appeared unacceptable
lese- papaute,
and talk of a "trial" by his party peers was briefly heard.

Fortunately, the hubbub quickly faded, and the inquisition never materialized. In any case the Vatican in its secretive fashion was hinting at possible accommodation. An understanding had evidently been reached to set aside the judicial threat to Marcinkus, for that Christmas he flew back to Chicago to see more trusted friends. And in the quiet of Christmas Eve, Italy and the Vatican announced that they had established a joint commission to evaluate responsibility for the Ambrosiano bankruptcy.

The Vatican's new found willingness to talk reflected several consid­erations.

Firstly, it was aware that serious breach with Italy would endanger what chances there were of an agreed revision to the Concordat, on which negotiations had been laboriously proceeding for five years. Secondly, its researches had suggested that the IOR's innocence might be less clear-cut than earlier maintained. Nothing more was heard, for example, of the notorious "counter-letter" given by Calvi in August 1981, the most glaring evidence of connivance in the continuation of a fraud.

Finally—and most important—an assembly of Cardinals would gather in Rome in November, to discuss, among other things, the Church's precarious finances. And already complaint was wide­spread among Catholics about the IOR's links with Calvi, and the failure of the Vatican's statements to keep pace with evident facts. A much fuller account would have to be provided, along with proof that the IOR's house was being set in order. Meanwhile, a propitious occasion to prepare the ground further was offered by a meeting between John Paul II and President Sandro Pertini.

In the middle of October the two lunched together at a hunting lodge once of the royal house of Savoy, but now for the use of the Republic's Head of State. The meeting was a deliberate demonstra­tion that relations between Italy and the Vatican, at the highest level at least, were in excellent order. It also allowed John Paul II to tell Pertini of his intention to make 1983 a Holy Year.

The announcement was made only at the end of the Cardinals' meeting on November 26. It drew some surprise, not least because of the shortness of the notice, and because only eight years had elapsed since the last Holy Year. The Jubilee would be dedicated to "Re­demption", and mark the 1,950th anniversary of the death of Christ. On spiritual grounds, this latest "extraordinary" Holy Year in Catholic history could be amply justified as a sign of the Church's commitment to peace and justice at a time of much tension in international affairs.

But it almost certainly had secular meaning as well—as a sizeable olive branch from the Vatican in the Ambrosiano dispute. The pilgrims who would travel to Rome in search of indulgence would spend foreign currency, perhaps many hundreds of millions of dollars, for the benefit of the Italian economy. In this elegantly indirect way, both the IOR and its "debts" to the Ambrosiano of Roberto Calvi might be redeemed.

For the Vatican was now forced to admit publicly what the Italian authorities, Ambrosiano's old directors in Milan, Nassau and Lima and the world's press had long been insisting: that the IOR owned the tiny companies which owed almost $1,100 million to Ambrosiano.

The six-page statement with which Casaroli explained the
imbroglio
to the College of Cardinals on November 26 constituted the Vatican's one and only detailed account of the fraud since it was exposed five months before. It should therefore be studied carefully.

First, Casaroli listed the five main conclusions reached by the experts appointed in July.

They were 1) the IOR had received nothing from Calvi or Ambro- siano, and therefore had nothing to repay; 2) the IOR had never run the companies which owed so much money to Ambrosiano, and had no idea of what they were doing; 3) all the money was made over to these ten companies
before
the letters of patronage were issued; 4) for this reason the letters had no bearing on the loans themselves; and 5) the IOR had documentary evidence to support these assertions. So what did happen? Casaroli gave his version.

The IOR, he said, had always trusted Ambrosiano, believing it to be a serious Catholic bank, of undisputed soundness. But when its troubles started, the Vatican bank found out that this trust had been abused, in a long series of apparently unconnected operations. Each on its own seemed perfectly normal, but from them had been built a "secret project" for which the IOR's name had been used as cover.

"In particular," said Casaroli, "the bank found itself the
direct owner of two companies, and the indirect owner of eight more."
But, he repeated, the IOR had never run them, and knew nothing of what they did. In July 1981, the IOR learnt it had the "juridical control" of all ten companies. Therefore the IOR issued the letters of comfort to the directors of Ambrosiano's Lima and Managua subsidiaries "to freeze their debt position", while the IOR disposed of the ownership. Apart from interest accrued, the debts had not risen since the issue of the letters of comfort in September 1981. The IOR, therefore, was technically blameless. It was accepted in the international banking community, Casaroli added, that letters of comfort had no legal value.

Thus did Casaroli set out the Vatican's starting position for the discussions with the Italian authorities. In a word, the IOR was maintaining that Calvi had taken it for a colossal ride. Its sins, if any, were those of naivety and inexperience.

The 107 Cardinals returned home still rather bemused. But they were reassured by the Pope's promises that the Vatican would rely less on the IOR, and more on the "St Peter's Pence" offerings of the faithful to balance its books, and that the bank would be more tightly supervised. For Marcinkus the outcome was a setback, even though he would still insist to visitors, fretful and more downcast than in August, that he "would see this thing through".