The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia (2 page)

Now when he saw the crowds, Jesus went up on a
mountain-side and sat down, His disciples came to
him, and he began to teach them, saying: `Blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for
they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the poor in heart,
for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they will be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who
are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult
you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil
against you because of me. Rejoice and beglad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way
they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Matt. 5:1-12

he seeming miracle occurred on October 28, 312 C.E. Miltiades, a small, unassuming man of sixty-two years, was summoned from his hiding place within a small house in an alleyway of
the Trastevere district of Rome by two centurions. The old man
assumed that he would be hauled off to prison as the leader of the
Christian movement-a movement that had been deemed religio
illicita by the empire. The arrest was only to be expected. Miltiades
would be tried and sentenced with his followers to a public execution
so that the Roman populace could witness the fate of those who
refused to make sacrifices to the gods of Rome.

Miltiades, who wore a threadbare robe and worked in the
common marketplace, was the bishop of Rome, a title that led his
fellow Christians to call him "papa" or "father." The first bishop of
Rome, according to tradition, had been the apostle Peter. Peter had
been singled out by Jesus to establish the Church-the visible
Kingdom of God on earth. "Thou art Peter," Jesus had said, "and
upon this rock (petrus) I will build my Church and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

Peter had established a Christian community in Rome, the center
of the empire. The great apostle was crucified in 68 C.E., during the
reign of Nero. Peter's successor had been Linus, who, according to
tradition, also died a martyr. Linus was succeeded by Anacletus, a
Greek slave whose name means "blameless." Miltiades, who hailed
from North Africa, was the thirty-second bishop of Rome. Few of his
predecessors had died in bed. Some had been cast to wild beasts in
the arena; some hanged throughout the countryside; some set ablaze
as human torches to light the public games.

The old man made the sign of the cross and prayed for the
courage to merit a martyr's crown. He followed the soldiers into the
bright sunshine, only to behold the Emperor Constantine, flanked by
hundreds of soldiers.

The emperor was an imposing figure, over six feet tall, with a
pale, square face, blue eyes, and a bull neck. The soldiers and horses
were covered with blood, mud, and grime. That very October
morning, at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine had defeated his imperial rival, Maxentius, to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire.

Constantine attributed his victory to a vision of a cross that he
beheld before the battle. Beneath the cross that arose above the
clouds in the morning sky, these words appeared: "In hoc signo
vinces" (`By this sign, you will conquer"). When asked about the sign
in the heavens, his soldiers had informed him that the cross was the
sign of "Christus," the God of the Christians.

After hacking his rival's army to pieces, Constantine decided to
make the God of the Christians his God and the God of his empire.
Instead of placing Miltiades in chains, Constantine embraced him
and draped the purple robe of a high pagan priest around the old
bishop's shoulders. Miltiades was befuddled. What was transpiring
before him was too bizarre to be true! Two worlds had collided. The
world of Caesar with its riches and power, its pomp and splendor, was
a world to be shunned. The world of Christ was a world of poverty
and service, of persecution and self-denial. The dumbstruck Miltiades
merely nodded as the emperor rambled about the great sign in the
sky that was now engraved on the shields of his soldiers. The old man
refused to utter a word, even though the emperor appeared to confuse Jesus Christ, the suffering servant of the scriptures, with Sol, the
Roman god of the sun.

Constantine asked to see the spot where the bones of Peter, the
first Christian leader, had been buried. Miltiades led Constantine and
the great Roman legion to a small stone or tropeum in a cemetery outside of Rome. The emperor fell to his knees and promised to build a
great basilica at this spot. Again, Miltiades was too aghast to speak. A
basilica was not a Christian place of worship. It was a pagan building
where the statues of the emperors were worshipped as divinities. The
very concept of a Christian basilica seemed as absurd as a square circle.
Everything in creation seemed to be standing on its head.

Constantine next led the old bishop to a magnificent palace on
the Lateran Hill. "Henceforth," the emperor said, "this is the House of Miltiades and of every successor of the blessed apostle, Peter." He
also gave the Christian papa another palace at Gandolfo as a summer
residence, since it would be unworthy for Peter's successor to live in
a single mansion.

Within the coming weeks, changes occurred at lightning speed.
Miltiades, along with the palace, received the title chief priest or pontifex maximus, a title that formerly had been reserved for Caesar. Those
who supported him in conducting worship services, which now were
public events, became known as "cardinals," from the Latin word
cardo meaning "support" or "hinge." As the Christian faith grew and
spread to become the official religion of the realm, the cardinals formed
a collegium or "association" of ecclesiastical administrators.

Overnight, the Christian Church began to utilize the stole and
other vestments of the pagan priesthood into its rituals, along with the
use of holy water and incense for purification. The process of syncretism had seeped into what earlier Christians deemed the holy and
apostolic faith. The pagan converts, with their penchant for polytheism,
began to see the Christian heroes and martyrs as demigods and began
to pray directly to them. This melding was compounded when the calendar of the saints came to replace the Roman fasti (public days of obligation to the gods). Suddenly, ancient deities dear to the pagans were
revered and worshipped as Christian saints. The Dea Victoria of the
Basses-Alps became St. Victoire, and Castor and Pollux were reborn in
the legends of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. Several pious Christians realized that the faith was being corrupted and uttered complaints to the
supreme pontiff and his college of cardinals. "Pagan converts," St.
Claudius of Turin insisted, "have not abandoned their idols, but only
changed their names." But such complaints were to no avail. The
changes were institutionalized by imperial edict.

Miltiades died in a regal bed, surrounded by attendants. The old
bishop was succeeded by Sylvester, who reigned for nearly twenty-two
years. During this time the pope came to wield secular power. The
condemnation of heresy or false teaching-that is, any teaching in contradiction to that of the Roman Church-was accompanied by civil
punishment that came to include imprisonment, exile, and execution.

Surrounded in splendor with attendants ready to cater to their every whim, the bishops of Rome, quite naturally, became officiously
pompous and egregiously overbearing. No one could approach them
without falling to the ground and kissing their feet. Gradually, they
began to make outrageous claims about their holy office. Pope Leo I
(440-461) maintained that it did not matter how immoral or inept
an individual pope might be as long as he was a rightful successor of
St. Peter and an agent of the imperial government.

At the same time, the Church of the poor and holy apostles
became rich beyond measure. Rich and aristocratic men and women,
who abandoned paganism for Christianity, made the Church of
Rome the object of their benefaction. In addition to these gifts, the
Church received huge land grants from the emperors.

By the end of the sixth century the material holdings of the
Church around Rome and in Naples, Calabria, and Sicily had become
immense. The annual revenues from Calabria and Sicily that flowed
into the "Holy See" (that is, "the holy seat" of St. Peter) amounted
to more than thirty-five thousand gold florins. By 764 Pope Paul I
assumed the worldly title of dux plebes, "leader of the people" and
began to speak to his followers of par nostra Romanorum, "our
Roman ecclesiastical state."

The worldly power of the Roman Church was greatly enhanced
by the famous donation of Pepin the Short in 756. In exchange for
the exalted title of Patricus Romanus ("Father of Rome"), Pepin, the
King of the Franks, gave to the Holy See all of the Italian cities he
had conquered from the Lombards along with all their territories. In
this way, Pope Stephen II received enormous tracts of land. One,
comprising 4,542 square miles, centered about Ravenna. It was later
called the Romagna. The other, consisting of 3,692 square miles, lay
below Ravenna and stretched into southern and central Italy. It
became known as the March of Ancona. The Holy Father got one of
the greatest real estate deals in human history. For a mere title, he had
come to possess almost all of modern Italy.

Twenty-one years later the citizens of Rome gathered in a parliament and conferred upon the pope the supreme authority to rule
over them. The vicar of Christ, irony of ironies, had become the new
Roman Caesar.

The devil took him to a very high mountain and
showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their
splendor. "All this I willgive you," he said, "if you will
bow down and worship me." But Jesus said to him,
"Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the
Lord your God, and serve him only. "'

Matt. 4:8-10

ew Year's Day, 1929. The Roman Catholic Church was
The pope, despite his appearances to offer blessings
to the crowds that gathered beneath his balcony, remained a virtual
prisoner within the Lateran Palace. And the secular staff of the Vatican complex in Rome was reduced to a skeleton crew of housekeepers, groundskeepers, and Swiss Guards.