God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican

by Gerald Posner

  But now Macchi shared with Marcinkus that some damning information independent of Greeley had filtered into the Vatican about how Cody might be running America’s largest diocese into the ground. In July (1978), a two-inch-thick dossier made its way from the United States to Rome. It was the result of a detailed probe Paul VI had ordered.

  As he reviewed the dossier, Paul dismissed much of it as inevitable jealous infighting, including the stories that Cody was a bigot, had a vindictive streak, that he espoused neo-fascist military views, and that he was in regular contact with the right-wing John Birch Society. He was more concerned about the complaint that he had alienated Chicago’s clergy and top laymen with his heavy-handed ways. The file included a remarkable public condemnation of Cody by the Association of Chicago Priests. They charged that the cardinal had lied to them and that he employed a network of informants to maintain his authoritarian rule through fear and intimidation.32 There was even information that Cody might have too close a personal relationship with a Chicago area woman.I

  But the accusations that got Pope Paul’s full attention were about money. One marked Cody as a bad financial manager. While treasurer of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, he had invested millions in Penn Central shortly before its insolvency. The other more troubling charge was that he had refused to account for millions more in diocesan funds. Cody had blocked access to the accounts to both prelates and accountants and there were suggestions that he might have diverted some of the money to a lavish lifestyle.34

  The file did not include a recommendation as to what the Pope should do. On such a sensitive matter, Paul would ordinarily weigh his options for months. But not only was the evidence presented strong, but the complaints from many of the Chicago prelates dated back to 1976. All of Paul’s trusted advisors—including his Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot; Monsignor Agostino Casaroli, secretary of the Council of the Public Affairs of the Church; and Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, the take-no-nonsense Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops—thought Cody should go. Paul even reached out to Florence’s Cardinal Benelli, who had looked into some of the charges when he was still in the Secretary of State’s office. He also thought Cody should resign.

  Who to replace him? Baggio thought the natural choice was Cincinnati’s Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, whom Paul had made the youngest American bishop ever in 1966. The Pontiff liked Bernardin. The bishop had an unblemished reputation as an efficient and decent administrator of the Cincinnati church. While Bernardin shared Paul’s liberal political views, he was also a traditionalist on core theological matters such as clerical celibacy and ensuring that women were not eligible for the priesthood.

  What about Marcinkus, wondered the Pope? He was a Chicagoan and had a strong working relationship with the chief clerics in that diocese. It would seem the ideal way to give Marcinkus a red hat and to ensure that his move from the IOR was a promotion. Baggio advised against it. The Chicago church was a mess in part because it had been directed so poorly. As Marcinkus had never run a diocese, suggested Baggio, this would not be the time for him to learn on the job. The Pope took it under consideration.35

  Paul settled on a plan that would move Cody out in a face-saving way. Baggio—known as “the Pope’s fixer”—flew to Chicago to inform the cardinal that the Pontiff wanted the appointment of a bishop as coadjutor, someone who would be responsible for the diocese’s day-to-day operations. The press release would cite Cody’s poor health as the reason a new bishop was assisting him. And Cody would remain as the cardinal until he reached retirement age in 1982, at which point Bernardin would fully take charge.

  In early August at Cody’s villa in Mundelein, Baggio confronted the Chicago cardinal with the evidence and the Pope’s directive. Cody was not contrite, nor did he agree to a coadjutor. Baggio stormed out after a contentious hour. Baggio’s report to Rome: the cardinal was defiant and in violation of Canon Law for failing to follow a Papal order.36 Monsignor Macchi intercepted Baggio’s report. It arrived at an inopportune time. The Pope was not feeling well, and Mario Fontana, his chief physician, had just placed him on antibiotics because of a suspected urinary tract infection. Paul was running a fever and his hands were shaking. Seventy-four-year-old Fontana told Macchi he should wait a few days before discussing church matters. Macchi held back the news about Cody.37

  By Saturday, August 5, the Pope was not feeling better. Macchi canceled the Pontiff’s Sunday benediction. He was disappointed not to make it. It marked not only the Feast of the Transfiguration, a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, but was the thirty-third anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Paul had prepared a special blessing for world peace.38

  That Saturday night, the Pope felt strong enough to join Macchi and another personal secretary, Monsignor John Magee for dinner. Afterward they prayed for the dozens of Israelis killed and injured earlier that day when a PLO bomb tore apart Tel Aviv’s popular Carmel Market.39 But the Pope cut the prayers short, complaining of intense pain.40 Macchi called Fontana, who ordered more rest. The antibiotics needed more time to be effective, said the physician.

  On Sunday morning, August 6, when Fontana and Macchi walked into the bedroom, the Pontiff was sweating and complaining about pain. This time Fontana was more concerned. The Pope’s temperature had spiked and his blood pressure was low.41

  Fontana telephoned a specialist at Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Hospital. What about transferring the Pontiff by helicopter to Gemelli, asked the specialist? No, Fontana had discussed it with Macchi and the other secretaries. They agreed that Paul should stay at Castel Gandolfo. Taking him to a hospital would be unprecedented. When Paul had his prostate surgery a few years earlier, a surgeon had done it in a makeshift operating room in the Apostolic Palace. What about dispatching Gemelli’s renowned mobile intensive care unit to Castel Gandolfo? The problem, said Fontana, was that their arrival on an otherwise quiet Sunday would alert the press corps. If the Pope’s condition worsened, Fontana assured the Gemelli specialist that he would summon the emergency crew.

  Fontana then told the grim-faced household staff that if Paul survived the next twelve hours, he would pull through.42

  Around 5 p.m. the Pope’s condition worsened. He was still lucid but his blood pressure was more erratic. Paul asked Macchi to summon his brother and his favorite nephew.43 Secretary of State Villot soon arrived. He had brought with him a small silver hammer that had been handed down for more than a thousand years. It was the hammer used in church tradition to determine if a Pontiff was dead.44 Villot was prepared for the worst. The tall French cardinal paced along the edge of the bedroom chamber, as much from anxiety over the Pope’s condition as from being unable to light up one of his trademark Gauloises. No smoking, Fontana politely told the chain-smoking Secretary of State when he arrived at Castel Gandolfo.

  At 6 p.m., Macchi asked the small group to join him in a Mass in the chapel adjoining Paul’s bedroom. In the pew closest to the open door between the rooms, Magee and Fontana kept an eye on the Pope. A few minutes into the Mass, Paul had trouble breathing. Fontana detected a rapid and irregular heartbeat. It was likely a heart attack. He told Macchi the time was short. Rome’s AP bureau got the word and flashed the first wire service story only a few minutes later at 6:15 p.m. that “Pope Paul VI suffered a heart attack. He is semi-conscious.”45

  A grim silence settled over the small gathering. Macchi gave Paul a Communion wafer. Villot administered last rites.46 For the next three hours Paul lapsed in and out of consciousness. At 9:40, it seemed he had stopped breathing. Fontana again put a stethoscope to his chest. “It’s over.”47

  That medical opinion did not suffice by church protocol. Villot retrieved the silver hammer. He tapped the Pontiff in the middle of his forehead with the flat head of the hammer. “Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria, are you dead?” Silence. A minute later Villot repeated the ritual. Again silence. And then he did it a third time. The Pope did not move.

  Villot turned to those in the
room. “Pope Paul is truly dead.”48,II

  Villot was now Camerlengo, the cardinal responsible for running the church until the next Pope was elected.50 Clerics in the Secretary of State’s office began sending telegrams in Italian and French to all the cardinals. They said: “THE POPE IS DEAD. COME AT ONCE. VILLOT.”51

  The politicking to select the 263rd Pontiff in the church’s history would soon begin.

  * * *

  I. Compared to the many other charges of impropriety, the suggestion that Cody might have broken his celibacy vows did not then seem important. But in a couple of years it was that relationship—with Helen Dolan Wilson—that would be the basis for a federal grand jury investigation of Cody and whether he had diverted more than $1 million in church funds to the sixty-six-year-old divorcée. At the time, the Pope did not know that Cody had brought Wilson—who was the cardinal’s step-cousin—to Rome for his coronation as a cardinal; loaned her money to buy a vacation home in Boca Raton, Florida; put her on the payroll of the archdiocese; padded her work records so she got a larger pension; and steered the life insurance business of many Chicago priests to Wilson’s insurance-agent son.33

  II. Part of Villot’s duties was to take custody of the Fisherman’s Ring that is custom-made for each Pope. During the upcoming Conclave of Cardinals, the Secretary of State was required to smash that ring with other cardinals as witnesses. In ancient times, when wax seals were the mark of authenticity on official documents, it was important to destroy the deceased Pope’s ring and all his seals to guarantee that no one could impersonate the dead Pontiff. Villot was stunned to see the ring missing from Paul’s right hand. Villot ordered Macchi to find it before the conclave. He did, four days later, stuffed under some papers in the back of a desk drawer in the Pope’s study.49

  20

  The Year of Three PopesI

  Paul VI had been Pope for fifteen years. Only eleven cardinals who were at the 1963 conclave were still alive. Genoa’s Giuseppe Siri was still a darling of conservatives. A few months before the Pope’s death, Siri had turned seventy-two but that did not prevent traditionalists from promoting him. After the liberal slide for which they blamed Paul VI, the church needed a turn to the right, even if Siri’s age meant it would be a short one. The progressives were enthusiastic about another veteran, seventy-three-year-old Vienna’s Franz König. He had polished his reformer reputation at the Second Vatican Council. In recent years he had established a dialogue between the church and Eastern European communist regimes.1 And although Secretary of State Jean-Marie Villot was just short of his seventy-third birthday, nobody counted him out.

  Vaticanologists handicapping the race knew that a slate of younger cardinals was as papabile as any of the veterans. There was plenty of time for speculating. That is because Villot set a slow schedule, picking August 25 for the conclave, nineteen days after the Pope’s passing. It was the last possible date allowed under rules Paul VI set for the selection of his successor.2

  The Italians grumbled that Villot had stretched out the process to allow the foreign cardinals enough time to build a coalition to elect the first non-Italian since Hadrian VI had died in 1523.3 The foreign cardinals on the other hand had the opposite worry, that Villot’s leisurely pace was crafted to allow the Italian prelates extra time to consolidate their support for a single, unbeatable candidate.4

  Pope Paul had expanded the College of Cardinals to an unprecedented 130. Fifteen were barred from voting since they were older than eighty (although they could still be elected Pope themselves).5 Four others were too ill to attend. Of the remaining 111 elector-cardinals, a bare majority (fifty-seven) were European.6

  Villot methodically set about protecting Paul’s legacy. When he learned that Paul’s executor, Monsignor Macchi, was about to destroy the late Pontiff’s private papers, he intervened. Villot dispatched many of the documents to the Secret Archives. As for the Pope’s file about Cardinal Cody, Villot told Macchi, that must go to the next Pontiff.7

  Villot wanted to ensure that the upcoming conclave was free from prying eyes. A few months earlier a sweep by Camilio Cibin—Inspector General of the Corpo della Gendarmeria, the Vatican security and police force—had uncovered eleven American- and Russian-made bugs.8 A 1973 bestselling book by two Italian journalists, Sex in the Confessional, based on bugged confessionals, fanned Villot’s apprehension. So Villot directed Cibin to ensure that there were no listening devices in the conclave. Cibin returned in a day with alarming news: the church-run Vatican Radio planned to bug the conclave so it could get the scoop on the Pope’s election. There might be other such plans afoot, Cibin warned.9,II

  Since there had not been a Papal election in fifteen years, there was a more intense press scrutiny. As the conclave’s opening date drew near, the speculation about the supposed frontrunners ramped up. That the published reports usually selected different candidates was good evidence that it was a guessing game.

  Although some thought that Giovanni Benelli was too young at fifty-seven, the brusque Tuscan, who had been a Curial powerhouse before Paul dispatched him to Florence, seemed to be on most shortlists.11 Many supported him since they thought he was the most electable progressive. A German newspaper ran a large front-page photo of Benelli, under the headline “The Next Pope?”

  If a favorite were determined just by the number of press mentions, it was probably sixty-eight-year-old Sergio Pignedoli, the influential Chief of Secretariat for Non-Christians.12 The Paul VI protégé had enough Curial experience, combined with a widespread reputation as a moderate not afraid to make tough decisions, to attract a solid centrist following. The Curial rumor was that Pignedoli was so confident of winning that he had gone on a crash diet to look his best in the ceremonial white cassock he would don when elected.13

  The New York Times relied on “Vatican sources” to name four cardinals who the paper claimed had pulled away from other contenders: Florence’s Benelli; the conservative Pericle Felici; and progressives Sebastiano Baggio and Turin’s Anastasio Ballestrero.14 The night before the conclave, an Italian newspaper published the results of a first ever computer forecast: Cardinal Baggio would be the next Pontiff.15 In London, Ladbrokes, the betting syndicate, irritated the Vatican by allowing gamblers to bet on the outcome for the first time.16 The British odds? Sergio Pignedoli—missed entirely by The New York Times and the Italian computer program—was the favorite at 5–2; Baggio and Ugo Poletti, the Vicar of Rome, 7–2; Florence’s Benelli, 4–1; Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, 8–1; Argentine Eduardo Pironio, 12–1; Austrian Cardinal König, 16–1; Basil Hume of England, 25–1; and the long shots were Brazil’s Aloísio Lorscheider, Pakistani Cardinal Joseph Cordeiro, and the progressive Cardinal of Brussels, Leo Josef Suenens, 33–1.17

  If Marcinkus had a favorite, he never shared it with anyone. One of the few issues on which many progressives and conservatives found common ground was the belief that the unchecked Vatican Bank had grown too powerful and that the next Pope needed to make it more accountable. Malachi Martin, the former Jesuit and Vatican insider, had published a widely cited book only a few months earlier (The Final Conclave), which discussed Sindona at length. It revived many of the unpleasant questions still lingering over that scandal and the IOR.

  All the cardinal-electors were aware that nine months earlier a U.S. federal judge had ordered Sindona extradited to Italy. Although Sindona’s top-flight legal team had appealed that decision, it was only a matter of time before the Sicilian financier stood in the docket of an Italian courtroom. His Vatican dealings would again be grist for salacious media coverage. Marcinkus realized a new Pope might well consider his continued tenure at the IOR an unnecessary distraction from the business of running the rest of the Roman church. Even Cardinal Cody, clinging to power in Chicago, had backed off his unwavering support for Marcinkus by suggesting the next Pope should clean up the IOR’s financial morass.18

  As the conclave got under way, Siri polled the most votes on the first ballot.19 The Genovese
cardinal had been in the same spot in 1958 and 1963. And once again he was unable to build any momentum. Siri faded during four ballots over two days, as did the original progressive frontrunners discussed most often before the voting started.20 To everyone’s surprise, the Papacy went to the sixty-five-year-old Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Albino Luciani. He had been on few shortlists (British bookmakers had not even listed him).21 Vaticanologists had not considered him since he had dropped in the church’s power hierarchy in 1972 after Paul VI, Benelli, and Marcinkus rebuffed his last-minute appeals to reverse the sale of Venice’s revered Banca Cattolica to Calvi.

  Luciani’s winning coalition appreciated his reputation as someone who trimmed the fat of the Venetian curia.22 In the last years of his Papacy, Paul VI had bemoaned his own failure to streamline the Curia or to curtail its power. His 1967 efforts at simplifying the Vatican’s finances had the unintended consequence of creating more bureaucracy and leading to two parallel financial fiefdoms, APSA and the IOR. Every time Paul pushed for change, entrenched Curialists pushed back harder. Maybe an outsider could do better. Another plus for Luciani was that his warm, personal style harked back to the friendlier, charismatic John XXIII, the type of leader many cardinals believed could energize the faithful following fifteen years of Paul’s cool remoteness.23