The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia (10 page)

The ceremony, for which "no expense was spared," provided
telling insight into the mind-set and personality of the new pope. Pius
XII possessed no small degree of charisma, and most people who met
him were drawn to his congenial manners and ready smile. His skin,
according to Vatican correspondent Gerrado Pallenburg, "had a surprisingly transparent effect as if reflecting from inside a cold, white
flame." English writer James Lees-Milne recalled: "His presence
radiated a benignity, calm, and sanctity that I have certainly never
before sensed in any human being. I immediately fell head over heels
in love with him. I was so affected that I could scarcely speak without
tears and was conscious that my legs were trembling."9

Despite his mild-mannered demeanor, Pius XII commanded
absolute respect and obedience from his subjects. Vatican bureaucrats
were commanded to take telephone calls from him on their knees. He always dined alone and servers were obliged to attend to his needs in
perfect silence."' When he went on afternoon walks, the gardeners
and caretakers were obliged to hide in the bushes. No one was
allowed to question his opinions or to challenge his point of view.
"The pope's voice," he told the Curia, "is the voice of the centuries,
the voice of eternity."

Pius XII saw himself not as a mortal man but as the infallible vicar
of Christ who had been singled out by God to rule over Holy Mother
Church. To establish his authority, he made the infallible pronouncement that the Virgin Mary, since she had been conceived "without
sin," never died but was physically assumed into heaven. This
teaching has no basis in scripture or primitive Christian tradition. It
was granted veracity simply by the spiritual authority of the supreme
pontiff. The only other pope to make an infallible pronouncement
was Pius IX in 1854.

To substantiate his saintliness and semidivine status, Pius XII
claimed to receive special messages from heaven. On several occasions
while walking through the Vatican gardens, the pope maintained that
he beheld "the prodigy of the Valley of Fatima." The sun appeared
to descend and ascend to and from the earth like a fiery yo-yo. It then
seemed to gyrate and convulse in the sky, sending the Holy Father
"mute but eloquent" messages from heaven." The miracle allegedly
occurred on three consecutive days: October 30, 31, and November
1, 1950. Giovanni Sefanori, a papal attendant who accompanied
Pope Pius on these occasions, later confessed to seeing nothing.'2
Two years later the Holy Father would claim that Jesus Christ
appeared in his chambers to pay a morning visit.

After the coronation the first concern of the new pope was to
send greetings to "the Illustrious Herr Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and
Chancellor of the German Reich," and to strengthen papal ties to the
Reich with the appointment of Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo as the
papal nuncio in Berlin. On April 20, 1939, the pope ordered Orsenigo to appear at a party in Berlin in celebration of Hitler's fiftieth
birthday. The nuncio conveyed "warmest congratulations" from the
Holy Father and the assurance that Catholics throughout Germany
were offering fervent prayers for the Fuhrer and his Reich."

Pius XII's second concern was to scrutinize the activities of
Bernardino Nogara and the Special Activities of the Holy See.
Rumors were rampant throughout the Vatican that Nogara had frittered away the donation of Mussolini in failed business ventures; that
the financier had feathered his own nest; and that he was in league
with enemies of the Church, including an ultrasecret Masonic lodge.
The pope appointed an ad hoc committee of three curial cardinals to
rake through the files of the Special Administration, to interrogate
the employees, to summon witnesses, and even to question Nogara
himself.14 In addition to the ad hoc committee, Pius XII ordered a
team of investigators to probe into all aspects of Nogara's personal
life, his friends, his haunts, and his habits.

The results of the investigations were mind-boggling. Nogara
was the proverbial Mr. Cellophane. He simply had no personal life or
peculiar interests. He lived in a modest apartment in Rome, kept a
strict daily routine, read financial journals and several international
newspapers, and on Sunday afternoons went to the movies. He liked
American films with such stars as Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth.
He never solicited sex nor read salacious publications. He kept less
than $5,000 in his savings and checking accounts and was a major
contributor to Catholic charities. Throughout the workday he conducted business with high-profile financiers worldwide. His closest
friends were Giuseppe Nogara, his uncle who served as Archbishop
of Udine on the Italo-Yugoslav border, and several members of the
"Black Nobility," including Massimo Spada, Count Enrico Galleazi,
Antonio Rinaldi, Count Paolo Blumenstil, and Baron Francesco
Maria Oddasso.ls He was extremely devoted to the Church and never
missed morning mass or afternoon devotionals. Beside his bed, he
kept a copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy and a daily missal. The
man who was called "the gnome of the Vatican" 16 emitted not even
a faint scent of scandal.

Equally fascinating were the findings of the ad hoc committee.
Nogara had drawn a salary only to meet his modest needs (less than
$2,000 annually). He had no association with anti-Catholic circles,
let alone a Masonic Lodge. And the original indemnities of $90 million that had been placed in his care topped $2 billion in value. The Vatican, the three cardinals reported, was better off than any time in
remembered history.

"Ma come?" Pius XII is reported as asking upon receiving the
report. "How did he do it?" The cardinals allegedly shook their heads
in unison. "From point A to point B, we have understood it all," they
told the Holy Father. "But, you know, Holiness, this Nogara has gone
through the entire alphabet. And we are just ignorant cardinals." 17

Pius XII never again questioned the character or judgment of
Nogara. He saw in the taciturn banker a worldly image of himself: a
man who strove simply to strengthen the position of Holy Mother
Church. The two now worked hand in hand. Nogara produced millions from his uncanny international investments, and Pius millions
from the collection of Peter's Pence (the tax on all Catholic dioceses)
and, most lucrative of all, the Kirschensteuer from Nazi Germany. In
addition, money came pouring into the Special Administration from
Italian businessmen who wished to transfer funds to Switzerland or
elsewhere to escape government scrutiny. Such funds made Nogara
aware of the need of another financial agency within the Vatican, an
expanded form of the Special Administration of the Holy See that
could invest and broker the funds of the ecclesiastical bodies within
the Church and provide special services, at a considerable profit, for
trusted friends.

Nogara approached Pius XII with the idea. It involved no risk.
The Special Administration, fat with earnings from Mussolini's Italy
and Hitler's Germany, could easily capitalize the venture. Moreover,
it promised the papacy as much economic independence as it enjoyed
when it was a great temporal power with extensive territory.

On June 27, 1942, the sixty-six year-old Pius XII and the seventy-two year-old Nogara signed an agreement that brought into
being the Institute for Religious Agencies. Its charter stated that its
purpose was "to take charge of, and to administer, capital assets destined for religious agencies." 18 Agencies was understood in the broad
sense as any party that served the interest of the Holy See, even if the
interest was simply monetary gain. Monsignor Alberto di Jorio,
Nogara's assistant at the Special Administration, was named president
and elevated to the rank of cardinal. Two clerics were named as his assistants. Nogara bore the special status of a "delegato," with power
to oversee all aspects of the operation.19

As an ecclesiastical enterprise, the CEO of the new bank was the
pope. He remained the absolute ruler of the fully sovereign State of
Vatican City, the supreme head of Roman Curia, and the final arbitrator of right belief. The pope, upon his election, was answerable to
no one; no one could challenge his authority; and no one-not even
any ecumenical council-could remove him from office. The Roman
Catholic Church, then as now, represented an absolute monarchy
with lines of authority leading to and from the papacy. Every official
within the Catholic Church-every cardinal, every bishop, every
prelate, along with every banker and bureaucrat-was appointed to
his office by the pope. Their authority to conduct Church business
came from the pope's authority as the vicarious representative of
Jesus Christ on earth. By the wave of his hand, the pope could also
dismiss workers and clerics. Even Nogara with his great knowledge of
investments and worldly affairs remained in status a vassal in his
court, a lackey at his bidding. Pius XII retained the power to use the
Church's vast fortune for good or ill. He no longer could summon
great armies to obey his command and vanquish his enemies, but he
could muster an incredible fortune to enforce his will so that the
leaders of the Western world, again, would fall to their knees before
the throne of St. Peter.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole
world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a mangive in
exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to
come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he
will reward each person according to what he has done.

Matt. 16:26-27

s the fortune came from the Fascists, Pius XII also saw in the
-Axis a new way to expand his spiritual domain to the east. On
April 6, 1941, Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in conjunction with his
assault on Greece, bombing the open city of Belgrade and killing five
thousand civilians. When the Wehrmacht entered Zagreb in triumph
on April 10, Hitler ordered the partitioning of the defeated country.
Catholic Croatia was detached from the rule of Orthodox Serbia.
The new country was also granted "Aryan" status, and established as
an independent nation under Ante Pavelic and his army of fascist
thugs who were known as the Ustashi, from the verb ustati meaning to "rise up." On April 14 Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, the primate
of Croatia, went to meet personally with Pavelic at Zagreb and to
offer his congratulations for the Fascist victory. Church bells pealed
throughout the new nation with triumphant joy and the Catholic
press published this paean to Pavelic and Hitler:

God who directs the destiny of nations and controls the hearts of
kings has given us Ante Pavelic and moved the leader of a friendly
and allied people, Adolf Hitler, to use his victorious troops to disperse our oppressors and enable us to create an Independent State
of Croatia. Glory be to God, our gratitude to Adolf Hitler, and infinite loyalty to chief Ante Pavelic.1

Few developments were of greater importance to Pius XII.
Croatia represented a unique political venture, an opportunity to
realize the dream of the Crusades: the creation of a Catholic
Kingdom in the Balkans. Pavelic and the Ustashi even appointed the
duke of Spoleto as Tomislav II, the puppet king of Croatia.