CONVERSATIONS IN THE PANTHEON - The Truth about God and Religion

Money Laundering by the Bastion of Morality

Thomas: Religious institutions have a profit motive like any other organization. Their product is religion, but their objective is financial profit. You must have heard about the Vatican Bank scandals in the 1980s.

Mathew: I vaguely remember something connected to the Vatican, but I don't remember the details. It couldn't have been all that important, or I would have a better recollection of it.

Thomas: It was was very important! It was a major scandal that rocked the very foundations of the Vatican, but it's not something that the church talks about.

During world war two, the Vatican bank became the world's best 'offshore' bank, involved in all sorts of shady deals, including money laundering, collaborating with the mafia and the Nazis. So, for starters, you have to ask yourself, why does the Catholic Church need a money-laundering bank? Why did it establish connections with the Nazis and organized crime? And, why did it refuse to condemn the Holocaust and everything else the third Reich was doing? Then you will know that it was all about business and profit. There are a lot of skeletons in the church's closet!

Mary: How do you know these things? I've never heard of this stuff. If it's true, it's pretty damning!

Thomas: I'm not surprised that you haven't. I didn't know any of this until recently. It's not the type of thing the church likes to advertise, but the case is well documented. You should read the book by Gerald Posner, God's Bankers: a history of money and power at the Vatican. It's a real eye opener. Maybe my views won't sound so cynical afterwards.

Mathew: I will put it at the top of my reading list. I'm sure there are rational explanations for all of it.

Thomas: The scandal resulted from the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, in 1982. The vatican bank, whose real name is Istituto di Opere Religiose (Institute of Religious Works) was a major Ambrosiano shareholder. So, I ask you, what is religious about money laundering? Clearly, the Vatican didn't want to call a spade a spade, for fear that it's faithful would know that they are in the business of making money. However, not only are they in the business and lie about it, they're into business of the shadiest type!

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the small Vatican state had at least three-dozen catholic banks in Italy, where the faithful could deposited their hard-earned money in God's trust. By the middle of the century the number had almost tripled. The Vatican had a small-bank monopoly, but that wasn't enough. They also wanted a big bank with a global reach because, after all, the Catholic Church is a global institution.

So, in 1942, the Vatican created its own state bank. Its purpose was to invest the church's money and serve the needs of catholic organizations around the world, but it soon became a secretive offshore bank for making shady deals and investments. Once the Italian aristocracy, not to mention criminals, who were often one and the same, learned about it, they used it to launder money and shelter wealth from the Italian government. For that service, the bank charged a fee, which boosted its income, but it made the Vatican an accessory to crime!

Any sentient being knows that this was an immoral decision to start with, but it's simply incomprehensible that this diabolical creation is still allowed to operate. Tax avoidance and money laundering are not only immoral, but also illegal activities that the Pope and his cardinals shouldn't be involved in. Anyone (catholic or otherwise) would agree with that. They're illegal and against the church's own moral code! Do as I say but not as I do!!!

Eventually, operating an offshore bank inside Vatican City led the Pope and his officials to obstructing criminal investigations. Obstruction of justice is not only unlawful but also immoral. So why did they do it?

They claimed to be protecting the sovereignty of an independent state – the Vatican State. While other independent countries cooperated with investigators, the Vatican State refused. They lied about their illegal activities each time a new scandal erupted, and there were many. But isn't lying immoral and against church doctrine?

To this bastion of morality, lying became habitual. If the Vatican publicly stated one thing, one could be sure that it was actually doing the opposite. It was not fooling the investigators who were trying to bring criminals to justice, some of which were inside the Vatican walls. The pope knew that he couldn't fool everyone, but he also knew that he could fool the church's hard-core supporters!

Pope Pius XII, its chief architect, used the Vatican Bank during the Second World War to hide Nazi financial transactions. At war's end the pope was also instrumental in the escape of many Nazi war criminals to South America. The pope, still stinging from the loss of the Papal States almost a century earlier, was determined to show the world that he still had sovereign power. Talk about humility!

The Vatican bank's first major crisis was the implosion of Banco Ambrosiano, which cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of dollars, and much more. The pope could have taken swift action then, but he didn't. Fighting communism in his native Poland, by diverting secret funds through the Vatican Bank to the Solidarity Movement, was more important to him.

Even though Pope John Paul II acted in secret, the soviets knew that he was collaborating with the CIA and they ordered a hit man. Fortunately, for him, he survived the assassination attempt.

Mary: The assassination attempt wasn't just the work of a crazy, as we were led to believe. That's very interesting!

Thomas: Roberto Calvi, CEO of Banco Ambrosiano was not as lucky. His murderer was believed to reside inside Vatican City. Pope John Paul I, was another victim of Vatican Bank intrigue. He was poisoned and died in his own bed only a month after he became pope because he was determined to clean up the bank. The speed with which he was rushed out and embalmed without an autopsy gives credence to the suspicion of murder by bank operatives.

The ball is now in Pope Francis' court. He has an opportunity to get rid of the bank altogether, or at least the secretive offshore component that has caused the Vatican so much bad publicity over so many years. Will he do it? Eight years after the start of his papacy, people are still waiting, but it seems that the Vatican is in no hurry.