Archbishop Marcinkus, Vatican banker

PHOENIX, Arizona – Retired Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, a close confidant of popes whose long tenure as head of the Vatican Bank was marked by major financial scandal, mysterious deaths and a criminal probe, has died at the age of 84.

Marcinkus died on Monday last week at his home in Sun City, Arizona, a retirement community west of Phoenix. No cause of death was immediately announced.Born in the Chicago suburb of Cicero to a Lithuanian window cleaner in 1922, Marcinkus retired to the United States in 1990 after leaving the Vatican, admitting he would likely be remembered as a villain.He gained notoriety for the 1982 crash of Roberto Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano, but denied he or the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), were responsible for its downfall.Calvi, known as ‘God’s Banker’ for his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanging from a bridge in London in 1982 with bricks and cash in his pocket.The death was initially ruled a suicide, but doubts remained and in September 2003 British police reopened the case.Italian police have said they believe Calvi was murdered by the Mafia.Marcinkus also had dealings with Michele Sindona, the Sicilian financier who was chosen as an advisor to move some Vatican investments out of Italy and into international financial and real estate markets.When Sindona’s banking empire crashed in 1974 a lot of Vatican money was said to have gone with it.Sindona was later convicted of bank fraud and jailed in Italy for life for ordering the murder of a lawyer.He died in his prison cell in 1986 after drinking coffee laced with cyanide.ALL BUT A PRISONER “I don’t believe that we did anything that was wrong,” Marcinkus told Reuters in late 1990 in regards to the Vatican Bank’s relationship to Ambrosiano.Italian magistrates accused the IOR at the time of being responsible for more than a billion dollars in bad Ambrosiano debts, and in 1984 the Vatican, while saying it had no moral or legal obligation to do so, paid a US$250 million settlement to its creditors.Marcinkus spoke out against the payment.During the mid-1980s Marcinkus was all but a prisoner in Vatican City, of which he served as governor, as the church would not allow him to enter Rome and be questioned about the scandal.Nicknamed ‘Il Gorilla’ for his imposing appearance and sometimes rough manner as a papal bodyguard, Marcinkus said Mass and visited the ill in Arizona nursing homes during his retirement.He was also known to be pragmatic about his secular role in such a large spiritual organisation, once telling a reporter asking about the bank “You can’t run the church on Hail Marys.”The tall, burly, straight-talking American prelate often looked miscast within the walls of Vatican City as he whisked from one office to another in a sometimes unkempt black and purple cassock, his bishop’s skull cap slightly askew.The gregarious Marcinkus did not look or act like a typical banker.His powerful physique was more fitting for one of the Vatican jobs he held until 1982 and which his friends say he enjoyed most – that of unofficial papal bodyguard and organiser of papal trips overseas.’The Chink’, as the archbishop was known among his closest clerical and golfing friends, was born Paul Casimir Marcinkus on January 15 1922.Ordained priest in 1947, he studied theology in Rome in the early 1950s and worked in the English section of the Vatican’s prestigious Secretariat of State.It was there that Marcinkus first met and worked with Bishop Giovanni Battista Montini, who became Pope Paul VI in 1963.Under the shy Pope Paul, who admired the assertive American’s administrative abilities and unflagging loyalty to superiors, Marcinkus’s career took off.- Nampa-ReutersNo cause of death was immediately announced.Born in the Chicago suburb of Cicero to a Lithuanian window cleaner in 1922, Marcinkus retired to the United States in 1990 after leaving the Vatican, admitting he would likely be remembered as a villain.He gained notoriety for the 1982 crash of Roberto Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano, but denied he or the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), were responsible for its downfall.Calvi, known as ‘God’s Banker’ for his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanging from a bridge in London in 1982 with bricks and cash in his pocket.The death was initially ruled a suicide, but doubts remained and in September 2003 British police reopened the case.Italian police have said they believe Calvi was murdered by the Mafia.Marcinkus also had dealings with Michele Sindona, the Sicilian financier who was chosen as an advisor to move some Vatican investments out of Italy and into international financial and real estate markets.When Sindona’s banking empire crashed in 1974 a lot of Vatican money was said to have gone with it.Sindona was later convicted of bank fraud and jailed in Italy for life for ordering the murder of a lawyer.He died in his prison cell in 1986 after drinking coffee laced with cyanide.ALL BUT A PRISONER “I don’t believe that we did anything that was wrong,” Marcinkus told Reuters in late 1990 in regards to the Vatican Bank’s relationship to Ambrosiano.Italian magistrates accused the IOR at the time of being responsible for more than a billion dollars in bad Ambrosiano debts, and in 1984 the Vatican, while saying it had no moral or legal obligation to do so, paid a US$250 million settlement to its creditors.Marcinkus spoke out against the payment.During the mid-1980s Marcinkus was all but a prisoner in Vatican City, of which he served as governor, as the church would not allow him to enter Rome and be questioned about the scandal.Nicknamed ‘Il Gorilla’ for his imposing appearance and sometimes rough manner as a papal bodyguard, Marcinkus said Mass and visited the ill in Arizona nursing homes during his retirement.He was also known to be pragmatic about his secular role in such a large spiritual organisation, once telling a reporter asking about the bank “You can’t run the church on Hail Marys.”The tall, burly, straight-talking American prelate often looked miscast within the walls of Vatican City as he whisked from one office to another in a sometimes unkempt black and purple cassock, his bishop’s skull cap slightly askew.The gregarious Marcinkus did not look or act like a typical banker.His powerful physique was more fitting for one of the Vatican jobs he held until 1982 and which his friends say he enjoyed most – that of unofficial papal bodyguard and organiser of papal trips overseas.’The Chink’, as the archbishop was known among his closest clerical and golfing friends, was born Paul Casimir Marcinkus on January 15 1922.Ordained priest in 1947, he studied theology in Rome in the early 1950s and worked in the English section of the Vatican’s prestigious Secretariat of State.It was there that Marcinkus first met and worked with Bishop Giovanni Battista Montini, who became Pope Paul VI in 1963.Under the shy Pope Paul, who admired the assertive American’s administrative abilities and unflagging loyalty to superiors, Marcinkus’s career took off.- Nampa-Reuters

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