Paul Marcinkus

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Person.png Paul Marcinkus  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(banker, cleric, deep state actor)
Paul Casimir Marcinkus.jpg
BornPaul Casimir Marcinkus
January 15, 1922
Cicero, Illinois, U.S
Died2006-02-20 (Age 84)
Sun City, Arizona, U.S
Alma materArchbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary, St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Gregorian University, Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy
Member ofOpus Dei
Led the Vatican Bank for many years, connected to several mysterious deaths, including Pope John Paul I.

Paul Marcinkus' was an American archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and president of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989. He "caused enormous harm to the reputation of the Catholic Church through his stewardship of the Vatican bank, which he headed for 18 years,"[1] not least through his connection to several mysterious -and fortuitous for him - deaths.

“You can't run the Church on Hail Marys.”
Archbishop Paul Marcinkus (1986)  [2]
Marcinkus claimed to have been misquoted, really having said "When my workers come to retire they expect a pension; it's no use my saying to them. 'I'll pay you 400 Hail Marys."

Career

Marcinkus was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of an immigrant window cleaner who arrived from Czarist Lithuania in 1914. After attending Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Paul was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 3, 1947, and served parish assignments with both St. Christina's and Holy Cross Church on the city's south side. By 1949, he had been appointed to the archdiocese's matrimonial tribunal, which processed applications to have marriages annulled.

Beginning in 1950, Marcinkus began to fulfill special assignments for the Vatican and became friendly with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, later Pope Paul VI, while studying canon law at the Gregorian University. Upon earning his degree in 1953, he completed the two-year program for prospective diplomats at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and was assigned to Bolivia in 1955 and to Canada four years later, serving as secretary in the nunciature of the Holy See in both instances.

Beginning in December 1959, he worked at the Secretariat of State in Rome and served on occasion as an interpreter for Pope John XXIII. Under Pope Paul VI, Marcinkus became the prime English translator and helped manage arrangements for papal overseas trips. In addition, his height and muscular build enabled him to serve as a bodyguard for Paul VI, earning him the nickname "The Gorilla."[3]

In 1982, he thwarted an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in Fátima,Portugal, when Juan Maria Fernandez y Krohn, a deranged priest, attacked the pope with a bayonet.[4]

Banco Ambrosiano

In 1982, while chairing the Vatican Bank (formally the Institute for the Works of Religion, IOR), Marcinkus made the headlines when the Italian Banco Ambrosiano went bankrupt. At the heart of the political/banking scandal were deep state Lodge P2 and Roberto Calvi[5]. It has been established that the IOR, at the time headed by Marcinkus, played a decisive role in the crash the bank, in a complicated intrigue involving among others Michele Sindona and the “Venerable Master” of the lodge P2 Licio Gelli.

Today, the intrigues of Banco Ambrosiano still remain to be clarified and constitute one of the most obscure areas of recent Italian history. Both Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona were found dead. The first, who had fled to London, was found hanged on June 18, 1982 in the heart of the city under the Blackfriars Bridge; the second, imprisoned for the homicide of Giorgio Ambrosoli, was poisoned with a cyanide coffee on March 20, 1986 and died two days later.

In 1987, Marcinkus and other leaders of the IOR were investigated for fraudulent bankruptcy and an arrest warrant was issued by the Italian judiciary in connection with the Banco Ambrosiano crash. After a few months, the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Court annulled the mandate on the basis of Article 11 of the Lateran Agreements which states that: "The central bodies of the Catholic Church are free from any interference by the Italian state…" (Marcinkus had a Vatican passport). He nevertheless left the presidency of the Vatican bank. He returned to the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1990, he later settled in Arizona, where he died in Sun City at the age of eighty-four.[6]

Alleged role in the death of John Paul I

Some authors, including the British journalist David Yallop in his book In the name of God, hypothesized that Monsignor Marcinkus played a role with Cardinal Villot (at the time Secretary of State), Cardinal Cody, Licio Gelli (Lodge P2), and Roberto Calvi (Banco Ambrosiano) in the death of Pope John Paul I, who had a pontificate of only 33 days and with which there was strong hostility over the manner of conducting the Vatican finances. Indeed, having become Pope, Albino Luciani intended to return the Church to the original ideals of humility and simplicity, by profoundly transforming the financial policy of the Vatican.

According to this theory, the death of the Pope on the night of September 28 to 29, 1978 was caused by poisoning. This theory is corroborated by the statements of the mafia turncoat (pentito) Vincenzo Calcara to judge Paolo Borsellino. Calcara talks about an interview with mafia entrepreneur Michele Lucchese that happened a few days after the attempted assassination of John Paul II.

Lucchese reveals to Calcara that John Paul II was following the same policy as John Paul I who wanted to “upset the balances inside the Vatican” by redistributing the property of the Vatican bank, by changing the leaders of the IOR and the Secretary of State (Marcinkus and Villot).

David Yallop's thesis was strongly refuted by historian John Cornwell who, at the end of his investigation (the book Like a thief in the night) concluded that John Paul I died crushed by the magnitude of a task to which he was not prepared and for which the Curia did want to assist as it should have.

The fact that Albino Luciani, elected only thirty-three days ago, died while investigating the Vatican bank, and planned to replace many important positions in the Vatican is a fact of notice. Other disturbing facts are that the Pope had been examined the day before and found to be in good health, that the body was not autopsied, and the cause of his death could not therefore be fully determined.

Alleged role in the kidnapping of Emanuela Orlandi

On June 22, 1983, Emanuela Orlandi, daughter of an important Vatican official and Vatican citizen, was kidnapped. In June 2008, Sabrina Minardi, witness during the trial against Banda della Magliana, ex-companion of gang leader Enrico De Pedis, declared that Emanuela Orlandi was allegedly kidnapped by Marcinkus[7] and killed by the criminal organization of De Pedis. The latter, who was in contact with Marcinkus through Roberto Calvi, allegedly said that the kidnapping came from an order from Marcinkus, who wanted to send a "message".

The publication of the minutes of Sabrina Minardi to the magistracy provoked a protest from the Vatican, by Father Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Vatican press office[8] declared that these claims, in addition to the absence of "humanity and respect for the Orlandi family, which brightens their pain”, were scandalous allegations against Archbishop Marcinkus, long dead and unable to defend himself”.[9]

Bibliography

  • Murder in the Vatican, Lucien Gregoire
  • Murder by the Grace of God : The CIA and Pope John Paul I, Lucien Gregoire
  • God's Bankers : A History of Money and Power at the Vatican, Gerald Posner
  • In God's Name, David Yallop
  • The Power and the Glory : Inside the Dark Heart of Pope John Paul II's Vatican, David Yallop
  • The Vatican Connection: The True Story of a Billion-Dollar Conspiracy ..., Richard Hammer
  • Cover Up, Damien Comerford
  • Disputed Truth: Memoirs, Volume 2, Hans Küng
  • La CIA in Vaticano, Eric Frattini
  • La santa casta della Chiesa - I peccati del Vaticano - L'oro del Vaticano, Claudio Rendina, etc.
  • Le Vase de Bamberg : Code Evangile, Paul HORNET
  • Le dernier pape : Complots au Vatican 1, Luís Miguel ROCHA
  • La balle sainte : Complots au Vatican 2, Luís Miguel ROCHA
  • Le Petit Monde du Vatican, Aldo Maria Valli
  • Le Vatican et la Finance, Bernard LECOMTE


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