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

by Gerald Posner

  41 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 1-2.

  42 Ibid., 72–73. Later, when the Pope died, some noted doctors broke with the tradition of not publicly criticizing physicians in other cases. South African heart transplant pioneer Dr. Christiaan Barnard told Salve, an Italian health magazine, that Pope Paul VI’s life might have been saved. “An acutely sick patient is given intensive therapy. If this was not done for Pope Paul VI, I must say the doctor’s behavior was unacceptable.” See also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 72–73.

  43 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 2. The Pope’s brother was Ludovico Montini, an Italian senator, and the nephew was Marco Martini.

  44 See generally regarding the traditional use of the silver hammer to confirm the death of the Pope, Russell Watson, Loren Jenkins, Paul Martin, and Elaine Sciolino, “A Death in Rome,” Newsweek, October 9, 1978, 70.

  45 Associated Press, Rome, P.M. cycle, August 7, 1978.

  46 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 2-3.

  47 Dennis Redmont, no title, Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, August 6, 1978.

  48 Villot quoted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 78.

  49 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 78.

  50 Claiborne, “Thousands Mourn Pope’s Death,” The Washington Post, August 8, 1978, A1.

  51 Telegram cited in full in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 81. See also “Cardinal Villot Takes the Reins,” Boston Globe, August 7, 1978.

  Chapter 20: The Year of Three Popes

  1 See generally Stephen Schloesser, “Against Forgetting: Memory, History, Vatican II,” Theological Studies 67, no. 2 (June 1, 2006).

  2 Romano Pontifici Eligendo was Pope Paul VI’s 1975 reform of the way the church elected Popes. Besides banning voting by cardinals over the age of eighty, it instituted other rules that governed the pre-conclave gathering (cardinals should not do any politicking but were allowed to get together for permissible “consultations”). Eligendo also set new features for the conclave itself, such as boarding up all windows in the Sistine Chapel (John Paul II abolished that unpopular change in 1996). And although Paul VI had given away the Pope’s triple tiara crown, Eligendo left it up to the successor Popes as to whether they wanted a coronation. John Paul II also eliminated that option in 1996, saying that it was “wrong” since it was “a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes.” See http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19751001_romano-pontifici-eligendo_it.html. See also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 4–5.

  3 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 97. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 326.

  4 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 106. Sometimes it appeared the extra time might be necessary just to educate cardinals who had never before participated in a conclave. Traditionalists grimaced when St. Louis’s Cardinal John Carberry told American reporters, “This is my first conclave. I don’t have a clue as to how we go about it. I don’t even know if we have roundtable discussions or not. I don’t know now, and when I come out I’ll have taken an oath of secrecy so I won’t be able to tell you.” Adding to the irritation of some in Rome, Carberry also was widely quoted for speculating it might be time for an American Pope. “The Italians have been at this job for years.” “Cardinal Unsure on Rules,” The Boston Globe, August 10, 1978, 18.

  5 Pope Paul VI had modified the conclave election rules in 1975. They had been established by Pope Alexander III in 1179, then amended for modern elections first by Pius XII (December 1945), and then John XXIII (October 1962). See also “115 Cardinals to Vote for Pope,” Boston Globe, August 7, 1978.

  6 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 41.

  7 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 104; see also Victor L. Simpson, “Today’s Topic: Inside the Conclave,” Associated Press, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, August 8, 1978. By the time the conclave got under way, Monsignor Macchi had left the Vatican for a small seminary, taking with him “several truckloads” of personal effects accumulated over the years, including “works of art” he had acquired. See generally Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 149.

  8 Cibin’s official title was Inspector General of the Corpo della Gendarmeria.

  9 See generally about security concerns in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 134, 173.

  10 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 134, 172–73; see also Aidan Lewis and Jim Krane, “New Challenge for Papal Conclave: Feast of Spy Technology for Prying Eyes and Ears,” International News, Vatican City, Associated Press, April 11, 2005.

  11 Harry F. Waters and Loren Jenkins, “Cardinal Candidates,” Newsweek, August 21, 1978, 50. See also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 45–46.

  12 Waters and Jenkins “Cardinal Candidates.” The Secretariat for Non-Christians was subsequently renamed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

  13 Tammy Oaks, “Bookmakers Lay Odds on New Pope,” CNN, April 19, 2005, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/18/pope.betting.

  14 Henry Tanner, “Election to Be Held,” The New York Times, August 7, 1978, A1.

  15 Associated Press, Vatican City, The Boston Globe, October 13, 1978, 2.

  16 David Browne, “Ladbrokes Regret but Carry On Taking Bets,” Catholic Herald (UK), August 11, 1978, 5.

  17 When a Labour MP, Simon Mahon, publicly condemned the betting and asked Ladbrokes to stop, a spokesman for the London-based bookmakers refused: “There are a number of precedents for this sort of betting. We opened books on the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1974 and on the Archbishop of Westminster in 1976 without any trouble. And this week the newspapers are full of speculation about ‘frontrunners,’ ‘contenders,’ ‘outsiders’ and so on. All that we are doing is putting prices to the prospects in a sporting way. . . . I am sorry if we have given any offense.” Ladbrokes has continued the tradition unabated since introducing it in 1978.

  18 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 149.

  19 For a detailed breakdown of the votes by ballots, based on a number of sources that subsequently spoke to reporters, see Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 81–82.

  20 Among the changes that Paul VI instituted for the eighty-second conclave was a rule that if the cardinals did not come to an agreement in three days, they would be forced to take a day off for prayer and contemplation before voting again.

  21 In 2012, on the anniversary of what would have been the one hundredth birthday of Luciani, his former priest secretary, Father Diego Lorenzi, gave an hour radio interview on Sat2000, the network of Italian bishops. Lorenzi tried downplaying that Luciani was such a long shot, claiming instead that the cardinal himself knew there was much talk about him before the vote. But no matter what Luciani thought his odds, it is clear his colleagues did not expect him to be a contender. See generally John L. Allen, Jr., “Debunking Four Myths About John Paul I, the ‘Smiling Pope,’ ” National Catholic Reporter, November 2, 2012.

  22 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 63–64, 79–80.

  23 Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 325. Although he had some minor health issues, including occasional bouts of asthma, and was hobbled by phlebitis, a painful circulatory condition, those were not an obstacle to his election. None of the cardinals, especially the older ones, were free of health problems. Luciani’s blood pressure was not made better by the fact that he was a constant worrier. “Pope Had a History of Minor Illnesses,” The Milwaukee Journal, September 29, 1988, 1. A month into his Papacy, at a public blessing of the infirm, the Pope offered them some solace by talking about his own health: “I wish you to know that your Pope understands and loves you very much. You perhaps do not know that your Pope has been eight times to the hospital and has undergone four operations.” The hospital visits had been twice for gallstones, once for an eye infection, and another time to set a broken nose. Watson, Loren, et al., “A Death in Rome,” 70.

  24 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, citing the pastoral letter of Cardinal Joseph Höffner, 77.

  25 The Ro
man numerals that are part of any modern Pope’s name were used for the first time by Gregory III in 731, and didn’t become a firm rule until the eleventh century. Before Gregory, if a Pope took the same name as a predecessor, the appellation junior was used. If a name was used a third time, it became secundus junior. See Philippe Levillain, The Papacy: An Encyclopedia (Oxford: Routledge, 2002), 1065. As for the first original name in one thousand years, see Associated Press, Vatican City, The Boston Globe, August 27, 1978, 1; Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 121.

  26 William Tuohy, “The 263d Pope: John Paul I: The Man A Career Shaped by Simplicity,” The Boston Globe, August 27, 1978, 1; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 217.

  27 His father’s first wife had died, leaving him with two young daughters, both deaf mutes. “Whence Albino Luciani,” Reuters, The Boston Globe, August 28, 1978, 11; Raymond and Lauretta Seabeck, The Smiling Pope: The Life and Teachings of John Paul I (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 1988), 11.

  28 “Whence Albino Luciani,” Reuters, The Boston Globe, 11. See also Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 89–90.

  29 Luciani’s first seminary rector was later interviewed by Kay Withers, a Chicago Tribune reporter. When she asked if the youngster showed any interest in girls, the rector told her none at all since he was enrolled in the seminary. “Well, did he have any interest in boys?” Withers asked. “Well, the priest almost died,” Marcinkus later recalled. Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 11a, provided to author courtesy of Willan.

  30 Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 20; “Whence Albino Luciani,” Reuters, Boston Globe, 11; Official Vatican summary, “Highlights of the Life of His Holiness John Paul I,” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/biography/documents/hf_jp-i_bio_01021997_biography_en.html.

  31 His thesis was “The Origin of the Human Soul According to Antonio Rosmini-Serbati” (a nineteenth-century priest and philosopher). Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 91–92.

  32 Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 22; “A Product of Italy’s Countryside,” Associated Press, Vatican City, A.M. cycle, August 27, 1978.

  33 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 97–99.

  34 “A Product of Italy’s Countryside,” Associated Press.

  35 Tuohy, “The 263d Pope: John Paul I: The Man A Career Shaped by Simplicity,” 1; see also Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 325.

  36 Bernard Nossiter, “The Election: Cardinal Luciani, Patriarch of Venice,” The Boston Globe, August 27, 1978, 1.

  37 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 112–13.

  38 Watson, et al., “A Death in Rome,” 70.

  39 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 42; see also Waters and Jenkins, “Cardinal Candidates.”

  40 Marcinkus quoted in Gurwin, The Calvi Affair, 20, 21.

  41 The date is determined as seventy-five years from the death of John Paul I.

  42 “Pope’s Popularity Helps Improve Financial Situation at Vatican,” Vatican City, Associated Press, August 25, 1979, citing a peak of $15 million in Peter’s Pence at end of John XXIII’s Papacy to only $4 million by the time Paul VI died fifteen years later. In contrast, more than halfway through the Papacy of the popular John Paul II, Peter’s Pence was a robust $67 million in 1992. Reese, Inside the Vatican, 225.

  43 Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 231, 233–34.

  44 The charter is cited at Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 8 (1942), Chirographus, 1.

  45 “Russian Prelate Dies During Papal Audience,” The Boston Globe, September 6, 1978, 66; “Deaths,” Newsweek, September 18, 1978, 93; Edward Magri, “Today’s Focus: The 34 Days,” Associated Press, A.M. cycle, September 29, 1978. Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 236–37.

  46 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 126–27.

  47 There was nothing sinister about the decision not to perform an autopsy since it was a firm policy in the Russian Orthodox faith. Italian law requires a postmortem in the case of a sudden unexplained death in which the deceased person had not recently seen a physician. But the sovereign Vatican had no such rule, and avoided at all times autopsies of its own prelates who died inside the confines of the city-state. For a general discussion of how autopsies are treated differently by various religions, see Walter E. Finkbeiner, Philip C. Ursell, and Richard L. Davis, Autopsy Pathology: A Manual and Atlas (Philadelphia: Saunders, 2009), 21. As for the number of Nikodim’s previous heart attacks, it ranges in published accounts from two to five (Hilmi Toros, Associated Press, A.M. cycle, September 5, 1978).

  48 Hoffman, Anatomy of the Vatican, 35.

  49 Michael Dobbs, “Ukraine Prelate Predicts Legalization of Church; Gorbachev, Pope Expected to Find Accord,” The Washington Post, November 29, 1989, A31. See generally John Koehler, Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union’s Cold War Against the Catholic Church (New York: Pegasus, 2009).

  50 Magri, “Today’s Focus.”

  51 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 334.

  52 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 131–32.

  53 Ibid., 138–39.

  54 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 254.

  55 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 85.

  56 Marcinkus interviewed in ibid., 85, 138.

  57 Shortly before Pope Paul’s death, Canadian archbishop Édouard Gagnon had led a commission that tried to determine which parts of the Curia were redundant or in other cases were bloated and could be trimmed. That report was also waiting for the new Pope. See Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 24–25, 42.

  58 See generally Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 251.

  59 Watson, et. al., “A Death in Rome,” 70.

  60 Luciani quoted in Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 127.

  61 Marcinkus interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 79.

  62 Hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes, 103–04.

  63 Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 70. In a way similar to how Pascalina and Pope Pius XII had been the subject of rumors, so were Luciani and Sister Vincenza. She not only had regular access to the new Pontiff, but he had told his aides that in the case of an emergency, she was the one who had permission to first enter his room. Curialists spent hours dissecting what she said, whether or not she helped write his finely honed speeches, and how he included her in discussions he held over meals. During her first weeks at the Vatican she had set about bringing color into the monotonous beige and gray that was the trademark of Paul’s contemporary decor. There was little doubt that Vincenza had influence with Luciani. The question was how much and how best she could be dealt with.

  64 “Pope Had a History of Minor Illnesses,” 1; see also Paul Hoffman, The Vatican’s Women: Female Influence at the Holy See (New York: St. Martin’s, 2002), Kindle edition, location 2091 of 2992; see also Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 187.

  65 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 234–35. Lorenzi, a member of the Sons of Divine Providence (Orione Fathers), served as Luciani’s private secretary for two years in Venice before moving with him to Rome after the conclave.

  66 Sister Irma interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 215.

  67 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 110; recounted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 258–59.

  68 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 247–48; Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come, 253–54; Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 259.

  69 Buzzonetti and Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 220, 247; see also Christopher Hudson, “20 years ago this week John Paul I died after 33 days as Pope. Now even one of his own cardinals says he may have been poisoned,” Daily Mail (London), August 27, 1998, 11. Also Seabeck, The Smiling Pope, 70.

  70 Recounted in Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 258–60. Sister Vincenza only was interviewed twice, once by a fellow nun, Sister Irma, and another time by author David Yallop. She died on June 28, 1983.

  71 Ma
gee later recalled two other nuns coming to get him, but it was evidently Vincenza, with the other nuns arriving moments later. See Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 247.

  72 Magee interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 248.

  73 Ibid.; see also Thomas and Morgan-Witts, Pontiff, 260. The death of John Paul, on his thirty-fourth day, marked his Papacy as the seventh shortest in church history. Pope Stephen II died only three days after his selection in 752; both Marcellus II, in 1555, and Urban VII, in 1590, died after thirteen days as Pope; Boniface VI’s Papacy was fifteen days in 896; Leo XI served seventeen days in 1605; and Theodore II twenty days in 897.

  74 “He [Villot] used to take a walk every day with John Paul I,” Marcinkus later recalled. “He was destroyed [by the Pope’s death].” Handwritten notes by Philip Willan of audiotaped interviews between John Cornwell and Marcinkus, February 8, 1988, 10b, provided to author courtesy of Willan.

  75 “Cardinal Villot, Holder of Vatican’s Second Highest Post,” The Boston Globe, March 10, 1979, 15; Buzzonetti interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 219.

  76 Lorenzi interviewed in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 104.

  77 John Julius Norwich, “Was Pope John Paul I Murdered?,” The Daily Mail, May 7, 2011. Aside from that, and an interview with the Associated Press a few days later, Dr. da Ros later declined all interviews, citing doctor-patient confidentiality. As a result, it is not clear what type of exam he had conducted with Luciani just a week before his death. The question asked most often by other doctors—and still unanswered—was if da Ros had performed an electrocardiogram, which would have given a good snapshot of the state of the Pontiff’s heart. See generally “Doctor Warned John Paul of Stress,” Associated Press, Vatican City, P.M. cycle, October 4, 1978. See also “Pope Had a History of Minor Illnesses,” The Milwaukee Journal, 1.

  78 Da Ros quoted in Untitled, Hilmi Toros, dateline Vatican City, A.M. cycle, Associated Press, October 16, 1978.

  79 Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, 249.

  80 Norwich, “Was Pope John Paul I Murdered?”; see also John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History (London: Chatto & Windus, 2011).