From 'black hole' to IOR, a new book on the popes' coffers
Players and mysteries of the Vatican bank, by Aldo Maria Valli
(by Elisa Pinna.)(ANSAmed) - ROME, APRIL 30 - First they called it the Black Hole, then it became the Institute for Religious Works (IOR). But the 1887 Vatican nickname for the first office to manage believers' donations the Commission for Pious Causes, in some way was a harbinger of the future Vatican Bank. A secret black hole, which Pope Francis may radically reform. In his recently published book, TG1 Vatican correspondent Aldo Maria Valli unravels the mystery of 'The Popes' Coffer', published by Ancora. In a fascinating, engrossing narrative, the book begins at the beginning, showing how the Vatican transformed itself into a financial speculator. Like the leaders of any other state, the pontiffs and the church once owned farmland and factories, ruled over a population. In 1870 the Vatican State ceased to exist as such, and with it the pope's temporal power, the Vatican mint, and its traditional sources of income. But money still flowed in as the new kingdom of Italy legally compensated the Holy See for its loss of land and income, a policy which the state continue in 1929 through the so-called Lateran covenants. Now stripped of the resources of statehood, the Vatican began to speculate. First through Commission for Pious Causes, then through the Special Comnmission for Religious Works, and finally in 1942, through IOR, the Vatican bank founded by Pius XII in an effort to safeguard the Holy See's legislative autonomy. With an even hand and sparing no gory details, Valli retraces IOR's tainted history, from Monsignor Marcinkus to its dangerous liaisons with Sindona and Calvi, from the mega Enimont kickback to the Emanuela Orlandi kidnapping.
While these events have been covered and written about before, Valli's historical perspective is new, for his book contains several pearls. Among these, is future cardinal and state secretary Domenico Tardini's description of Pius XI: ''The first impression is one of wonder that this man, in whose hands so many and such high spiritual interests lie, should speak more heatedly of the fall of the dollar than of moral decay, that he should lament the loss of money more bitterly than the ruin of souls or the persecutions the church is suffering. It's almost as though Christ's boatman had become a banker''. Or like the epitaph uttered by Cardinal Francis Spellman, archbishop of New York, in 1958 about Bernardino Nogara, the first real ''God's banker''. Supported by Pius XI, Nogara had enriched the church with a wide range of investments, including in arms manufacturers and Italian colonial enterprises. ''After Jesus Christ, the most important thing that happened to the church is Bernardino Nogara'', the US cardinal said several years before fellow American Paul Marcinkus, who was born in the same Chicago neighborhood as Al Capone, became famous for his phrase: ''You can't run the church on Hail Marys''.
While these events have been covered and written about before, Valli's historical perspective is new, for his book contains several pearls. Among these, is future cardinal and state secretary Domenico Tardini's description of Pius XI: ''The first impression is one of wonder that this man, in whose hands so many and such high spiritual interests lie, should speak more heatedly of the fall of the dollar than of moral decay, that he should lament the loss of money more bitterly than the ruin of souls or the persecutions the church is suffering. It's almost as though Christ's boatman had become a banker''. Or like the epitaph uttered by Cardinal Francis Spellman, archbishop of New York, in 1958 about Bernardino Nogara, the first real ''God's banker''. Supported by Pius XI, Nogara had enriched the church with a wide range of investments, including in arms manufacturers and Italian colonial enterprises. ''After Jesus Christ, the most important thing that happened to the church is Bernardino Nogara'', the US cardinal said several years before fellow American Paul Marcinkus, who was born in the same Chicago neighborhood as Al Capone, became famous for his phrase: ''You can't run the church on Hail Marys''.
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