Book review: Vatican money trail uncovers murder, intrigue, scandal

By Donald D. Breed
Providence Journal
February 1, 2015

http://www.providencejournal.com/features/entertainment/books/20150201-book-review-vatican-money-trail-uncovers-murder-intrigue-scandal.ece

“GOD’S BANKERS: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican,” by Gerald Posner. Simon & Schuster. 728 pages. $30.

“Money is useful to carry out many things,” Pope Francis has said, “but when your heart is attached to it, it destroys you.” As the pope well knows, attachment to money has wreaked much destruction in his own Catholic Church. This is related in a stunning exposé by investigative reporter Gerald Posner.

As exciting as a mystery thriller, “God’s Bankers” starts with an unsolved murder in London and races from one financial scandal to another, explaining how monetary considerations led several popes to disgraceful moral transgressions. It’s long, but the history is so long and intricate that a reader will agree that none of it could be left out. And there’s more than one murder.

The church’s zeal in raising money goes back centuries, whether to finance the lavish lifestyles of some popes or to finance the Crusades. One of the schemes was selling indulgences, which riled Martin Luther and led to the Protestant Reformation.

In the 19th century, the unification of Italy caused the church to lose the Papal States and the income they had raised. But in 1929, after much negotiation, Pius XI concluded the Lateran Pacts with the Fascist government under Benito Mussolini, an avowed atheist. The cynical agreement defined the 108.7 acres in Rome as a sovereign state, and gave the Vatican a big chunk of cash as compensation for Papal States. In return, the pope endorsed the Fascist government.

There’s more. Starting in 1933, and while Jews were being persecuted in the ’30s, Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, a Teutophile who had spent 12 years in Germany, concluded an agreement with the Nazis that, among other things, required German Catholic bishops to swear allegiance to the Third Reich.

And yes, there was money involved: Hitler assessed 8 percent from German Catholics and sent it to the Vatican. Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939, and refused to believe what his priests were telling him about the murder of the Jews. He never even complained when Roman Jews, some of them living 250 yards from his windows, were deported to the gas chambers. But when a stray British bomb happened to hit a Catholic church during the war, Pius XII complained bitterly.

After the Lateran Pacts, the Vatican was more flush, and Pius XI put Bernardino Nogara, a devout layman with a long background in finance, in charge of the church’s money. Nogara was a wheeler dealer who, for example, established accounts in Luxembourg, where they could not be traced, and as a competent money manager he spread his risks around — to America and, not surprisingly, to Germany.

Nogara was a slick operator but he was not a crook. The same can’t be said for his successors: Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi. It’s complex but all spelled out by Posner, who has been doing research for nine years.

It was in 1942, under Nogara, that the Vatican established its own bank, about which much of this book’s narrative is centered. Nogara set it up so that the Allies, who were by that time in Italy, could not keep track of what he was up to. Because it was in a sovereign state, the bank didn’t have to answer to anyone — and it didn’t. High-ranking clerics at the bank were seen carrying out suitcases of cash. Worse than that, the Vatican Bank was used by Italian magnates, politicians and mobsters to launder cash — millions at a crack.

The last major moral failing in the Vatican occurred with the scandals involving pedophile priests, and the bishops who covered up for them, in America and elsewhere. Pope Benedict XVI’s failure to apologize to victims was attributed to fears that it might encourage lawsuits directly against the Vatican, not just the dioceses where the offenses occurred.

In recent years, especially under Pope Francis, great strides have been made to clean up the bank. Francis has fired one set of regulators after another. As the book ends, the bank has just about achieved a clean bill of health from international authorities. Stay tuned.