|
27. Bishop
of Rusado
If opus Dei is
guilty, so is the entire Church. -- William O'Connor
THE OUTLINE OF A
PLOT WAS LAID OUT IN THE RECORDS OF
Carboni's phone calls while shadowing Calvi's progress from
Trieste to London, which were produced in evidence at the second
inquest in London. Obtained from the hotels in which Carboni had
stayed, they confirmed he had been in daily contact with Hilary
Franco, Rome lawyer Wilfredo Vitalone and the main Vatican
switchboard. There seemed no doubt that the orders had come from
Rome.
The next breakthrough occurred when lawyers acting for the Calvi
family stumbled across criminal proceedings in Trieste involving
Silvano Vittor's attempt to sell agent 'Podgora' part of the contents
of Calvi's missing briefcase. The undercover agent's real name was
Eligio Paoli, and he worked in Trieste for the Guardia di Finanza,
and probably SISMI. He was only one of at least four agents working
for different Italian agencies who knew details of Calvi's flight.
It was Podgora who learned that Sergio Vaccari had been hired to
assist in Calvi's murder.
By then Gelli decided he had been behind bars long enough and
THEIR KINGDOM COME
ucce~ded in bribing a guard to smuggle him out of prison in a
aundry hamper. Within a few days of his escape, a Spanish passport
vas waiting for him at the home of Ferdi!1ando Mor, the Italian con'
ul general in Geneva and a former P2 member.' Days later Gelli left
'or South America, stopping off in Madrid on the way. In Madrid it
s said that he had talks with Gregorio Lopez Bravo.2
Following Calvi's death, Francisco Pazienza had assured Clara
:hat she could always turn for help to two of his closest friends in
New York, Father Larry Zorza and Alfonso Bove. They were partners
in a Brooklyn funeral parlour and Bove also owned two travel
agencies in Manhattan. He called once or twice to ask Carlo about
transferring funds from Sicily to Nassau. In the course of their con"
versations, Bove never sought to hide his Mafia connections.
Father Zorza, on the other hand, was required to resign as
Archbishop Cheli's aide at the United Nations after his arrest for
smuggling stolen paintings into the United States. On the way to his
arraignment, he told a US Customs agent, 'I hope this doesn't take
long. I have to say Mass at 5 o'clock.' Zorza then explained to the
judge that it had all been a mistake. 'I did it sincerely to help
somebody,
and now I am terribly sorry ... I have learned a lot.' He was
given a thre~-year suspended sentence. Not long afterwards he
was again arrested while trying to sell $40,000 worth of tickets for
the Broadway hit 'Les Miserables' back to the box office from where
they had been stolen. 'My friends never told me the full story about
those tickets,' he assured the judge this time. While the judge
deliberated
on sentencing, Zorza was arrested a third time, on this
occasion for his involvement with the second Pizza Connection that
imported Sicilian heroin into the United States.
Pazienza himself was arrested in New York on an Italian warrant
for his involvement in Banco Ambrosiano's fraudulent bankruptcy.
The police nipped him as he was transmitting 'highly valuable
information
on terrorism and other matters' to American intelligence
agents. A US Customs officer testified in his favour, claiming that
before becoming involved with Banco Ambrosiano Pazienza had
been one of his country's top intelligence operators and that an
'unidentified group of people' wanted him dead.
I Ferdinando Mor testimony before the Chamber of Deputies P2 Commission,
Vol. CLVII,
Doc. XXIII, No.2 Ter 13, pp. 554-555.
'Ibid., p. 555.
BISHOP OF RUSADO
While being held in New York, Pazienza made some startling
revelations that might have had something to do with the threats on
his life. He alleged that the Ambrosiano monies advanced to the
United Trading family had been intended for various causes of
the Vatican. He added that one-third of the money was stolen by
middlemen. The names of Gelli, Ortolani and Tassan Din were given
in a Dublin affidavit filed by the liquidators of Banco Andino.
Another third went into shoring up the lOR's control of Ambrosiano
itself. The final third, he asserted, actually went into the Vatican's
covert political causes. In each case he was talking about $450
million, more or less.
And what were those 'Vatican causes'? He mentioned Poland's
Solidarity movement, of course, and the Irish Republican Army, as
well as various groups or dictatorships opposing the spread of
Marxism and Liberation Theology in Latin America.
In the reorganization of the Vatican finances that followed, a
new five-member supervisory board of lay experts was created
for the lOR. Its president was Angelo Caloia, head of the Mediocredito
Lombardo bank. The vice-president was Philippe'de Week.
The other three were DrJose Angel Sanchez Asiain, former chairman
of Banco Bilbao, Thomas Pietzcker, a director of Deutsche Bank, and
Thomas Macioce, an American businessman. The new managing
director was Giovanni Bodio, also from the Mediocredito
Lombardo.
Caloia and Bodio were both associated with Giuseppe Garofano,
the onetime chairman of Montedison and top executive at Ferruzzi
Finanziaria S.p.A., Italy's second largest private industrial group
after Fiat. Garofano, an Opus Dei supernumerary, served with
Caloia on the Vatican's Ethics and Finance Commirtee, until arrested
in 1993 in connection with a $94 million political kickback scheme,
a substantial amount of the money for which passed through
Ferruzzi's account at the lOR, in the name of the 'Saint Serafino
Foundation'. Sanchez Asiain was described by Ruiz-Mateos as one
of the 'Valises'. He was close to Alvaro del Portillo and a boyhood
friend of Javier Echevarria, though Opus Dei denied he was a
member.
The time for tidying up had come. With Calvi dead, Ruiz-Mateos
discredited and Jaimes Berti out of circulation, the secret machine
had triumphed. In Italy an interminable round of litigation linked to
THEIR KINGDOM COME
the Ambrosiano and P2 affairs (note, no 'lOR' affair), the likes of
which the republic had never known, was getting under way and
probably would not conclude befor~ the end of the millennium. In
Spain, all was quiet on the juridical front, but there were problems
in the upper ranks of Opus Homini.
At the same time a restructuring of the Spanish banking industry
was set in motion with a proposal by the country's fourth-rated
Banco Bilbao to take over the first-rated Banesto. But Banesto's
deputy chairman, Lopez Bravo, backed by his friend and investment
partner, Ricardo Tejera Magro, and another associate, steel magnate
Jose Maria Aristrain Noain, successfully opposed the merger.
Instead the smaller Bilbao merged with Banco Vizcaya to become
Spain's largest commercial bank, under the name of Banco BilbaoVizcaya,
while Banesto slipped to third position, just ahead of Banco
Popular Espano!.
Lopez Bravo, according to Professor Sainz Moreno, was going
through a crisis of conscience. After more than thirty years as a loyal
member, he wanted to leave Opus Dei. 'He had finally understood
that Opus Dei was not a spiritual organization but a financial
multinational,
and he was in profound conflict with Luis Valls,' the
professor said. But Lopez Bravo knew many of the Work's darkest
s~crets. In fact his deception with Opus Dei began soon after his
meeting in Madrid with Licio Gelli at the end of August 1983, as the
fugitive was on his way to Montevideo. What had Gelli told him?
And who else had Gelli seen in Madrid? Both Swiss and French
intelligence sources reported that he had met 'friends in Opus Dei'.'
Had Gelli spoken of the secrets contained in Calvi's missing briefcase?
Or of the murder of Sergio Vaccari? Strangely, the Italian
magistrates had been informed that a high-ranking member of Opus
Dei from Spain was in London at the time of Calvi's death. In the
same vein, it also would have been interesting to know whether
Lopez Bravo spoke about his concerns to his closest associates at the
time, Ricardo Tejero and Jose Maria Aristrain. Tejero was not
known to have any particular Opus Dei ties, but he was one of the
few Spanish bankers who dared stand up to Luis Valls.
Whatever the reasons for his disillusionment, on 19 February
I Isabel Domon, 'L'arme qui aurait permis aGelli de quitter 1a Suisse',
24 Heures, Lausanne,
21 Octob« 1983.
,,,'
BISHOP OF RUSADO
1985 Lopez Bravo planned to go to Bilbao on business. He had a
first-class reservation aboard the 9 a.m. Air Iberia flight. He arrived
at the airport late, carrying only a briefcase, and was the last person
to board the aircraft. The Boeing 727 took off from Madrid fifteen
minutes behind schedule, with 148 passengers and crew aboard. As
the flight made its approach in bad weather towards Bilbao's
Sandica Airport it exploded in mid-air and crashed. Everyone aboard
perished.
The first reports spoke of an ETA bomb. But the technical commission
investigating the crash later found that the aircraft was off
course and had struck the television antenna atop Mount Oiz. It was
suggested in the press that the pilot had been seen drinking before
takeoff. The crash was artributed to pilot error. The strange thing,
commented Professor Sainz Moreno, was that of all the victims,
Lopez Bravo was the only one for whom no remains were found.
'Not even his Rolex watch,' he said.
Eight minutes after the Iberia flight had departed Madrid, Ricardo
Tejero left his apartment and went down to the underground garage
where he kept his car, directly opposite the Edificio Beatriz, home of
Banco Popular Espafiol's Presidencia. As he paused to unlock his car
door, two men approached and shot him in the head. The assassins
fled undetected. The police affirmed that it was the work of the
Madrid Commando of ETA Militar. They ~pparently based their
conclusion on the fact that the assassins had identified themselves to
the doorman of the building by producing outdated badges of the
Direccion General de Seguiridad. Similar badges had been found
among ETA material seized by an anti-terrorist squad in France a
few weeks before.
Barcelona's La Vanguardia was the only newspaper to link the
two incidents. The Vanguardia reporter who covered the Tejero
assassination walked across the street from the garage to the Banco
Popular Presidencia hoping to elicit some comment from the bank's
chairman. He was told that Luis Valls had left the bank's premises
and returned to his apartment on the floor above. When finally the
reporter reached the banker, Luis Valls told him, 'Everyone is
completely
shattered. It could have happened to me.' Luis Valls kept his
two sports cars in the same garage.
The third partner in a Basque shipping venture that Lopez Bravo
and Tejero had structured was Jose Maria Aristrain. He and his wife
THEIR KINGDOM COME
were reportedly Opus Dei supernumeraries. I But Aristrain was said
to have been expelled from the Work because he had left his wife and
taken the glamorous Anja Lopez, wife o.f France's leading composer
of operettas, as his mistress. Aristrain survived his two friends by a
little more than a year.
He and Anja Lopez spent their last weekend together at the May
1986 Monte Carlo Grand Prix. They chartered a helicopter to
take them bas;k to Cannes-Mandelieu airport Vl:"here Aristrain had
his private aircraft waiting. The helicopter, a four-place Squirrel,
rounded Cap d'Antibes into the Golfe de Juan and within sight of
the Croisette spun out of the air, exploding upon impact with the
water. There were no survivors. An investigation was immediately
opened by the public prosecutor of Grasse. Eye-witness reports
indicated that the crash was consistent with rear-rotor failure,
causing the helicopter to spiral into the sea. The rear rotor is the
easiest part on a Squirrel to sabotage. Some media reports suggested
the ETA was responsible.
Six weeks before the Cannes accident, Roberto Calvi's black briefcase
mysteriously reappeared in a Milan television studio. This
media scoop was the assiduous work of the Sardinian property
developer Flavio Carboni who was now portraying himself as a
protector of Vatican interests. Carboni's brand of protection, however,
cost money - a lot of money. Of course he had very high legal
bills as well.
After his arrest in Lugano, Carboni was extradited to Italy at the
end of October 1982 and while the charges against him were investigated
he was transferred to the prison in Parma. He remained under
'preventive custody' in Parma until August 1984, when his detention
was changed to house arrest within the precincts of the city. He
rented a suite at Parma's Maria Luigia Hotel and, outside of prison
walls for the first time in two years, he lost no time in getting down
to work.
In May 1984, Carboni's lawyer in Rome, Luigi D'Agostino, had
laid the groundwork by contacting a Polish Jesuit who worked for
the Vatican. D'Agostino asked Father Casimiro Przydatek to visit
Carboni at Parma prison 'for pastoral reasons'. D'Agostino had
1 Both Golias (No. 30, Summer 1992. p. 126) and Tiempo (No. 218, 20 July
1986, p. 32) identify
Jose Marla Arisrrain Noain as an Opus Dei member.
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BISHOP OF RUSADO
excellent Vatican connections since he originally helped Carboni set
up the meetings with Cardinal Palazzini and Monsignor Hilary
Franco. It is interesting that, as far as is known, rather than
unveiling
his new mission to Hilary Franco, Carboni chose a Polish priest
who spoke Italian haltingly.
Carboni told Father Casimiro that he was not in need of a confessor
but wished to make known to the Church hierarchy that he
had important documents to sell. Carboni did not state it quite that
way, but the intent was the same. 'Carboni proposed himself as a
defender of the Church. He said he wished to launch an international
press campaign that would clear the Vatican's name in the
Ambrosiano affair, because he knew where the Calvi documents
were hidden. He assured me the documents proved the Vatican's
innocence and he could arrange for their purchase,' the Polish priest
said.!
Back in Rome, Father Casimiro spoke to Bishop Pavel Hnilica,
who was his confessor and the real target of Carboni's strategy.
Hnilica was portrayed as the Pope's closest adviser on Church affairs
in East Europe. Originally from Trnava, in the heart of Catholic
Slovakia, he had been ordained as a Jesuit in secret in 1950, at a time
when the Czech authorities were actively persecuting priests as
traitors. Paul VI elevated him in secret to the non-existent bishopric
of Rusado (located in what was Mauritania Caesariensis, today
Algeria). After moving to Rome during the height of the Cold War,
Hnilica became the head of Pro Fratribus, which smuggled relief
funds and bibles behind the Iron Curtain and assisted Catholic
refugees.
Hnilica sent Father Virgilio Rotondi, who was also said to have
the Pope's ear, to Parma to meet Carboni. Over the next two months
Carboni and Rotondi outlined an international campaign, supposedly
designed to gain worldwide sympathy for the Vatican, based
upon selected documents from Calvi's briefcase. It was codenamed
'Operation S.C.LV.' after the Italian initials for the Vatican city
state.
But Carboni wanted almost £20 million to set the operation in
motion. He said the money was needed to acquire the Calvi documents,
as well as to corrupt politicians, journalists, publishers and
magistrates. Moreover, he was asking for £6 million up front to
1 Almerighi Ordinanza, Section 6.2, p. 141.
THEIR KINGDOM COME
;over 'anticipatory expenses and fees'.1 Rotondi took the proposal
back to Hnilica and they consulted their superiors.
The Bishop of Rusado's first contact with Carboni occurred in
November 1984, after the terms of his house arrest were altered to
permit him to return to his villa in Rome. Hnilica claimed he had
received approval from his superiors to explore Carboni's proposal
furt~r. As a sign of good intentions, Carboni handed the bishop
three lerters wrirten to Roberto Calvi in 1980 by the Turin blackmailer
Luigi Cavallo, two of which were originals. He told Hnilica
that he knew the whereabouts of other documents but to acquire
them he needed cash.
While the Cavallo documents reflected poorly on Calvi, they were
not material in proving the Vatican's innocence in the Ambrosiano
affair. A further meeting was scheduled for early January 1985 with
Father Rotondi. At this meeting Carboni provided copies of two letters
written by Calvi - one on 30 May 1982 to Cardinal Palazzini,
and the other on 6 June 1982 to Monsignor Hilary Franco - as well
as a somewhat scissored document which began with the words,
'Monsignor Marcinkus Reproaches Me .. .'2 For these three documents,
Father Rotondi gave Carboni a cheque for £190,000.J
To help convince Hnilica that the deal was legit, Carboni allied
himself with an engaging underworld character by the name of
Giulio Lena. Carboni told Hnilica that Lena had put up the money
to recover part of the Calvi documents. Lena was one of Rome's
more innovative narcotics deale,($. But the Bishop of Rusado did not
know this. On the contrary, he found Lena charming and cultured.
To obtain a percentage of the action, Lena actually bought into
Carboni's deal, paying him £600,000.. This was 'a heavy burden for
Lena, as his own financial situation was far from rosy.
In May 1985, Lena gave Hnilica an undated letter signed by Calvi
with the name of the addressee removed, but certainly intended for
the person who - like Beelzebub, prince of the underworld - he
believed could cast out the demons. In it he criticized Gelli and
Ortolani, calling them agents of the Devil. He said he was convinced
that a collapse of the Ambrosiano would cause the collapse of the
Vatican, adding:
1 Ibid., Section 9.3, p. 226.
I Ibid., Section 11.2, p. 283.
I Ibid., Section 11.2, p. 2780., and Section 11.4, p. 3050.
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BISHOP OF RUSADO
Since I am abandoned and betrayed by those I regarded as my most
reliable allies, I cannot help but remember the operations I undertook
on behalf of the representatives of St Peter's ... I provided financing
throughout Latin America for warships and other military equipment
to be used to counter the subversive activities of well organized
Communist forces. Thanks to these operations, the Church today can
boast a new authority in countries like Argentina, Colombia, Peru and
Nicaragua... ..
He ended the letter by saying:
I am tired, really tired, too tired ... The limits of my long patience
have been largely overreached ... I insist that all the transactions
concerning
the political and economic expansion of the Church must be
reimbursed; I must be repaid the $1,000 million that I furnished at the
express wish of the Vatican in favour of Solidarity; I must be
reimbursed
the monies used to organize financial centres and political
power in five South American countries, an amount totalling $175
million; that I be retained on conditions still to be determined as a
financial consultant because ofmy work as a go-between in many East
European and Latin American countries; my peace of mind must be
restored ... ; that Casaroli, Silvestrini, Marcinkus and Mennini leave
me alone! I will attend to the other obligations on my own!!!'
After receiving this document, Hnilica issued C;irboni two
cheques drawn on the lOR for a total of £61,000. In the ~eantime,
as Lena's financial position was causing some concern Carboni suggested
he ask Andreotti for a loan. There had already been some prior
discussion between Carboni and his brother Andrea about whether
some of the documents recovered from Calvi's briefcase should be
sent directly to Palazzini and also, through Senator Claudio Vitalone,
to Andreotti.2
Lena was told that a letter introducing him to Andreotti had
been delivered by Sister Sandra Mennini, daughter of lOR director
Dr Luigi Mennini. This she later denied. In any event, within a few
days of the letter being drafted, Lena received a four-month loan of
I Ibid., Section 1.3, pp. 11-14.
l Ibid., Section 2.2, p. 29.
THEIR KINGDOM COME
400 million lIre (£168,000) at the Rome Savings Bank. To cover
the loan, on 15 November 1985 Hnilica gave him two lOR
:heques which the Bishop signed and left blank, with instructions
to hold them until told for what amount they could be cashed. A
few weeks later Lena was instructed to fill them out for 600 million
lire (£252,000) each and present them for payment twenty days
apart. l
Lena's joy was short-lived as both cheques were refused. When
informed, the Bishop of Rusado was beside himself. He assured
Carboni that the cheques were covered and that the lOR was blocking
them for political reasons. Carboni accepted this, but demanded
that Hnilica replace the cheques, which the bishop did, issuing at the
end of March 1986 another twelve cheques drawn on different
accounts at different banks for a total of £458,000. When later
questioned,
Hnilica said that Carboni had told him that 'the famous Calvi
briefcase which he had already shown me' would be unveiled to the
public on the SPOT TV show. 'Carboni told me that after the broadcast
he would be obliged to hand over the briefcase to the Milan
magistrates. '2 SPOT was a magazine programme hosted by political
commentator Enzo Biagi.
With the Pro Fratribus replacement cheques in hand, Carboni
assured Hnilica that the SPOT transmission, to which he was committed,
would be a triumph for the Vatican, as it proved that
the Vatican had nothing to fear from the ghost of Roberto Calvi.
On camera Enzo Biagi introduced the neo-Fascist Senator
Giorgio Pisano to his viewers as the person who had uncovered the
briefcase. Pisano, who had written a book entitled The Calvi Murder,
claimed he had bought it for £20,000 in an after-dark encounter with
two unknown individuals. The reason for his interest, he affirmed,
was because he wished to put this key piece ofevidence into the hands
of the authorities. Carboni and Silvano Vittor were present on the
set as well to attest that it was the same satchel they had seen in
Calvi's possession in London. 'He held onto it like a drowning man
clutches a life-saver,' Carboni delicately recalled.
What Calvi's Rome driver had described as a 'bulging, heavierthan-
usual' bag appeared empty-cheeked before the cameras. As it
was opened - allegedly for the first time since its disappearance - the
1 Ibid., section 12.1, p. 310.
lldem.
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BISHOP OF RUSADO
cameras zoomed in to discover its contents. Predictably, it contained
no notebook, no agenda, no address book, and no bunches of strongbox
keys. It did contain Calvi's driving licence, a Nicaraguan
passport in his name and the keys to the Calvi apartment in Milan
and the house at Drezzo. It also contained eight documents - not
exactly an arsenal of ammunition for God's Banker to use against
Beelzebub's demons. The documents were the following:
1. Letter of Calvi to Cardinal Palazzini, dated 30 May 1982
2. Letter of Calvi to Mgr Hilary Franco, dated 6 June 1982
3. Letter of Carboni to Calvi, dated 6 June 1982
4. Undated note: 'Mgr Marcinkus reproaches me .. .'
5. Undated memorandum headed: 'Re: Conversation with
Roberto Calvi, banker of the Ambrosiano and launderer of dirty
money ...'
6. Letter from Luigi Cavallo to Calvi, dated 9 July 1980, 'As you
might imagine .. .'
7. Letter from Luigi Cavallo to Calvi, 'Among the tribes of
Uganda .. .'
8. Letter from Luigi Cavallo to Calvi, 'A few days ago I was on
holiday by the sea .. .'
The prying by state television into a dead man's briefcase for the
financial gain and prestige of the show's promoters, with two of
the principal conspirators in the banker's disappearance on the set,
seemed the height of bad taste. But, after all, it was April Fools' Day
1986. The general public, meanwhile, was unaware of the dealings
between Carboni and the Bishop of Rusado. These only came to light
two years later following the forced boarding off the Italian coast of
a yacht flying a Spanish royal standard. Customs police found on
board the yacht 1,800 kilos of Lebanese hashish. The consignee was
Dr Giulio Lena. In charge of the investigation was Rome examining
magistrate Dr Mario Almerighi, who obtained a warrant to search
Lena's villa in the Alban hills outside of Rome.
Almerighi not only turned up evidence of a major narcotics ring
and also the counterfeiting of Central African Republic banknotes
but he uncovered Lena's dealings with the Bishop of Rusado. This
led the magistrate to search the Pro Fratribus offices. Hnilica at
first denied everything, but the evidence was overwhelming. The
THEIR KINGDOM COME
documents uncovered at Pro Fratribus showed that Hnilica had
acted with the knowledge of the highest Vatican authorities, even
though the Vatican's financial support had been withdrawn in
mid-stream, forcing him to turn instead to underworld loan sharks
to "raise the funds that Carboni demanded.
Among the evidence sequestered at Pro Fratribus was a SISMI file
on Flavio Carboni, 12 Calvi documents, a letter from Hnilica to the
Cardinal Secretary of State, Casaroli, explaining his negotiations
with Carboni and cashed cheques totalling £1.5 million. But the most
condemning item was Cardinal Casaroli's reply to Hnilica in which
the Vatican's number-two disclosed he had informed the Pope of the
latest developments. Casaroli's letter stated:
Most Reverend Excellency,
I have received and read with great attention your letter of 25
August concerning your efforts with others relative to the problems
of the lOR.
Appreciating the importance and gravity of the situation which you
set forth, I thought it important before replying to you to inform the
Holy Father.
In his name I am able to convey to you the great pain and preoccupation
caused by what we learned from your letter. Neither the
Holy Father nor the Holy Se',," were aware of the activities that you
summarily set forrh.
It is fitst necessary to mention, in order to" avoid all
misunderstanding,
that your efforts were undertaken without any order,
authorization or approbation from the Holy See.
Moreover, one cannot deny that the notable economic situation
into which the Holy See - seriously in deficit - has fallen would render
it extremely difficult, in any case, to meet the request formulated by
Your Excellency and to be thus relieved, the Holy See as well as
yourself,
of the burden of the immense indebtedness which you have
revealed to us.
Concerning the causes and modalities of your efforts to shed full
light on this apparent indebtedness it is, of course, necessary to
estimate
the legal consequences that your intervention, based on the best
of intentions, could encounter.
By this letter I profit from these circumstances to confirm the
distinguished
esteem which we hold for you before Our Lord.
334
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It was a strange letter for the secretary of state to have written. It
attempted to distance the Holy See from Hnilica's endeavours. 'We
had no idea .. .' But was this posturing for the record, as the
secretary
of state was worried about the legal consequences of Hnilica's
actions? It also inferred that Rotondi's initial cheque for £190,000
had directly come from the Vatican coffers. But more striking was
that the letter contained no order to desist, only to proceed with
extreme caution, without directly involving the Holy See, and
with whatever resources Hnilica himself could mobilize - and all
this with the 'distinguished esteem' of the two highest authorities
of the Catholic Church. Casaroli's letter was therefore Hnilica's
authorization to proceed, but at his own risk and peril.
Casaroli's letter begged a number of questions:
1. The 'esteem' of the Pope and the secretary of state for the results
that Hnilica had already achieved made one wonder what other
documents the Bishop of Rusado had acquired from Carboni.
Almerighi was fairly certain that for the £1.5 million which the
Vatican and Pro Fratribus had already paid, Carboni must have
delivered more than Hnilica was willing to admit. 'Hnilica',
Almerighi said privately, 'was not telling all the truth.'
2. What happened to the United Trading documents? The secret
accounting kept by Calvi for the United Trading family was his
first line of defence. The banker had made it clear that only with
these documents could he defend himself against the allegations
by Marcinkus that he had breached the lOR's trust. An up-todate
accounting for United Trading existed. Carlo Calvi had
seen his father working on one. In his testimony, Carlo Calvi
said, 'I recall in March 1982 seeing my father in his study at
Drezzo working on a 1982 version of those accounts ... These
tabulations have never been found, neither in the house at
Drezzo, nor the apartment in Milan, or anywhere else. My father
always carried these accounts with him. We can suppose that
they were with him in his briefcase during his last trip to London
... I remember in fact having seen my father place those tabulations
in his briefcase .. ."
I Ibid., section 12.2.2, p. 330.
'"
I,,'
THEIR KINGDOM COME
.'
3. What were the reasons for the lOR's sabotage of Hnilica's initiative?
Was it because the lOR's directorate had done a separate
deal with Carboni to get hold of the missing accounting documents
it wanted? The absence of these documents suggest that
the lOR - by then controlled by Opus Dei, if we can believe
Calvi's last words - had indeed come to a separate arrangement.
4. The moral implications of the Vatican's involvement in these
machinations were unsettling. Did the Holy See have such terrible
things to hide that it needed to resort to Carboni's services?
In Calvi's letter to the Pope of 5 June 1982 he referred to his role
in financing arms shipments to Latin American dictatorships,
providing financial support to Solidarity and financing other
dissident groups in East Europe. Calvi would not have made this
claim if he did not have the documentation at hand. What happened
to those documents?
5. By leaving Hnilica out in the cold, did the Secretaty of State
realize
he was pushing the Bishop of Rusado into dealing with
underworld loan sharks? With Carboni threatening, on 17
March 1987 Pro Fratribus mandated Vittore Pascucci to raise a
$ID-million six-month loan. Pro Fratribus received an advance
of £1.26 million from Pascucci at usurious rates. Pascucci was
described by a secret Guardia di Finanza report as the 'dominus'
behind Eurotrust Bank Limited of Crocus Hill, capital of the
break-away island state of Anguilla, in the Lesser Antilles.
Although not licensed to operate abroad, Eurotrust Bank had
an office in Rome under the name of Eurotrust S.p.A. Eurotrust
Bank was under investigation for alleged laundering of
narcodollars on behalf of the Mafia.'
6. Most important of all, how much did the Pope know? Were his
Opus Dei advisers, the men who handled - according to Calvi
and others - the Vatican finances, keeping him in the dark?
According to Hnilica, the Pope's mail was filtered by the
Secretariat of State. Other sources have indicated the Pope was
told only what his advisers wanted to tell him.
1 Nucleo Centrale Polizia Tributaria della Guardia di Finanza, VII
Gruppo, 10 Sezione, Report
No. 1429, Rome, 12 October 1990.
BISHOP OF RUSADO
Hoping to learn some of these answets, Almerighi subpoenaed
Monsignor Hilary Franco. He had discovered that Franco's real
(baptized) name was Ilario Carmine Franco, born not at all in New
York but in Calabria. He questioned Franco for forty-five minutes
before giving up. He found the Grade 1 Minor Official (Step 2) of
the Roman Curia 'evasive and untruthful'.
Moreover, Opus Dei in Rome had put out another statement by
then repeating that the Prelature 'has absolutely no connection with
the Calvi affair' and that Hilary Franco 'has never had any contact
with Opus Dei, nor with any of its members'. This seemed unlikely,
if for no other reason than Franco had been on the staff of the
Congregation of the Clergy, to which Alvaro del Portillo was a consultor
and Opus Dei's Alberto Cosme do Amaral, Bishop of Leira, a
member of the directorate.
The statement also trotted out the, by then, well-worn refrain that
Don Mario Lantini, regional vicar for Italy, had 'invited' Calvi's
widow by registered letter 'to justify, with full details, the basis on
which she made her assertions' that her husband had dealings with
Opus Dei. 'He has yet to receive a reply.'
It appeared that Carboni had used the contents of Calvi's briefcase
at his convenience, removing from it scores of documents while
leaving only those he supposed would further his plan, and inserting
others that originally had not been there. It is difficult, for example,
to understand why Calvi would carry with him on his last journey
documents relating to his alleged treachery against Sindona. Nor
would he have wanted to carry with him the document,
'Conversation with Roberto Calvi, banker of the Ambrosiano and
launderer of dirty money'.
The presence of such documents in his briefcase when shown on
TV logically suited the objectives of Carboni and those who found
it expedient to maintain that Calvi was a man of low morals and no
credibility - a man who, when he said, 'Opus Dei was in control of
the lOR,' was not to be believed. 'The object was to dirty the image
of Calvi ... and make him appear as the number-one defrauder of
the Vatican bank,' concluded Almerighi.1
Almerighi recommended that Carboni, Lena and Hnilica be sent
for trial under article 648 of the criminal code. Article 648 concerns
1 Almerighi Ordinanza, Section 12.2.2, p. 328.
THEIR KINGDOM COME
the relatively minor offence of dealing in stolen goods, the maximum
punishment for which, if found guilty, is a five-year prison sentence.
It was not much, but it was a beginning. In March 1993, all three
were found guilty, but the verdict was later overturned because of
'faulty legal procedure'.
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