They say money corrupts.
But what happens when money meets divinity?
This is the story of the Vatican Bank — the most secretive financial institution in Europe — and the politicians, mobsters, and spies who treated the Holy See as the world’s most convenient offshore safe.
Since my visit to the Vatican City last year, one Italian institution that never ceases to mesmerizes me is the Vatican’s special Bank formally known as Istituto per le Opere di Religione.
Cold War intrigues, mafia hitmen, assassinated popes, London bridge “suicides,” and billions quietly slipping through the Tiber — the facts are stranger than anything Dan Brown ever imagined.
Today I want to write about the intriguing world of this bank and what I have found out through reading on the subject.
(This overview draws on investigative works such as Gianluigi Nuzzi’s Vatican S.p.A. and David Yallop’s In God’s Name. Everything below actually happened.)
How a Sovereign Micro-State Became a Tax Haven
Vatican City is tiny — just 0.44 km² with roughly 800 citizens. And yet it holds spiritual authority over 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide.
The Vatican owes its modern sovereignty to the 1929 Lateran Treaty, struck between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini. In exchange for relinquishing former Papal territories, the Holy See received:
- International recognition as a sovereign state
- Full tax immunity inside Italy
- A massive compensation payment: 750 million lire (≈ ¥100 billion in today’s value)
This seed money created the financial empire later known as the Vatican Bank.
The Mastermind: Bernardino Nogara
Pope Pius XI appointed a brilliant financier — Bernardino Nogara — to manage the Church’s wealth.
Nogara operated with one mission:
grow the money, regardless of moral constraints.
He:
- Became major shareholder in major industrial firms
- Forced Mussolini to buy failing Vatican assets at high prices
- Converted funds into gold as WWII turned against Italy
- Invested globally via Rothschild, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan
- Bought landmark real estate: Watergate Hotel, parts of the Champs-Élysées, etc.
By the time Nogara died in 1958:
- Vatican assets exceeded $1 billion
- Annual profits: $40 million
-
Cardinals said:
“After Jesus Christ, Nogara was the greatest event in the history of the Church.”
Faith was profitable.
Cold War: Rome, Washington, and the Mafia
Post-war Italy faced two crises:
- A powerful Communist Party gaining votes in the industrial North
- Mafia syndicates controlling politics in the rural South
For the Vatican and Washington, a Communist Italy was unthinkable.
The resulting alliance:
- Right-wing Christian Democrats
- CIA
- Cosa Nostra (Sicilian mafia)
The Vatican provided money and moral authority.
The Mafia delivered votes, muscle, and cash in need of laundering.
Enter Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi — Banking for God and the Mob
In the 1970s two bankers became indispensable to the Vatican:
Michele Sindona: Financial adviser to the Holy See
– Laundered heroin profits for NYC & Sicilian mafia
Roberto Calvi: Head of Banco Ambrosiano
– Operated offshore network for Vatican deals
Their partner was Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank — too powerful to be questioned inside the Holy See.
Marcinkus once said:
“The Church cannot be run on Hail Marys.”
Money needed washing. Vatican sovereignty made it invisible.
The Secret Lodge: Propaganda Due (P2)
All three men — Sindona, Calvi, Marcinkus — belonged to a covert lodge of Freemasonry, known as P2 (“Propaganda Due”), run by a shadowy fixer, Licio Gelli.
P2 recruited:
- Ministers and generals
- Intelligence chiefs
- Media tycoons (including a young Silvio Berlusconi)
- Mafia bosses
- Around 2,000 of Italy’s most powerful figures
Their unified goal:
Block Communism and control Italy’s state from the shadows.
P2 built a global network with South American military dictatorships — and they needed a banking black hole. The Vatican was perfect.
The Pope Who Tried to Stop It — and Died
In 1978, Pope John Paul I — a reform-minded cleric — was horrified to discover:
- 100+ Vatican officials were P2 members
- The Vatican Bank was entangled in mafia operations
He ordered:
- The dismissal of Marcinkus
- Purge of Freemasons from church hierarchy
33 days after his election, the Pope was found dead in his bed.
No autopsy. No forensic inquiry. Buried with haste.
The official cause: heart attack.
The unofficial question: Who wanted him dead?
Assassinations Begin
Those investigating Vatican–mafia finances were systematically eliminated:
- Investigative prosecutor Giorgio Ambrosoli — shot outside his home (1979)
- Anti-mafia police chief Boris Giuliano — gunned down at a café (1979)
- Financial crimes prosecutor Emilio Alessandrini — murdered in his car (1979)
- Journalist Mino Pecorelli — shot in his vehicle (1979) after exposing P2 membership in Vatican ranks
The message was unmistakable:
Expose us, and you die.
The “Suicide” of God’s Banker
On 18 June 1982, London police found Roberto Calvi hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge:
- Rope around his neck
- Pockets stuffed with bricks
- Cash and fake passports with him
- Feet almost touching water
Freemasons call themselves “Black Friars.”
Bricks symbolize traitorship.
British police ruled it suicide.
Italian courts later called it mafia murder.
Calvi’s bank had just collapsed with $1.3 billion missing.
Where did the money go?
Through the Vatican.
What the Documents Finally Revealed
A Vatican insider, Renato Dardozzi, secretly archived 4,000 internal documents. Before his death, he wrote:
“Make these documents public so the world will know what happened.”
Nuzzi’s leak of these papers revealed:
- Vatican Bank secretly held offshore accounts under aliases
- Used sovereign immunity to obstruct Italian investigators
- Was the final laundering point for political bribery
One fund in particular — the Spellman Cardinal Fund — shocked investigators. Its disposal instruction (in the bank’s own records):
“Upon my death, the remaining funds shall be received by
His Excellency Giulio Andreotti.”
Andreotti was Italy’s long-time prime minister — nicknamed “The Devil” for surviving endless mafia trials.
The Vatican Bank was literally his piggy bank.
How Big Is “God’s Bank”?
Despite the scandals, the bank itself is not large.
Internal records show:
- Mid-1990s deposits: ~ €3 billion
- By 2008: ~ €5 billion (≈ ¥700 billion / $6–7 billion)
- Gold reserves: 1.6 tons
- Securities: ~ ¥250 billion ($2–3 billion)
Annual papal discretionary funds:
-
Around ¥10 billion (≈ $70–80 million)
Even in the best year: - ¥17 billion (≈ $120 million) available to the Pope
For an institution claiming authority over 1.2 billion souls…
the earthly revenue is surprisingly modest.
Which only made the Vatican Bank more tempting to anyone who could take control of it.
The Laundromat Continues
Pressure didn’t end in the 1980s.
21st-century probes include:
- 2009: Italian regulators investigate €180 million transfers
- 2010: €23 million seized over suspicious transactions
- 2012: JPMorgan closes Vatican account for compliance failures
- 2013: Vatican officials arrested in a €40 million smuggling case
Mafia influence didn’t disappear.
It just learned to wear Roman collars.
Why This Scandal Matters
The Vatican Bank was never “too big to fail.”
It was too sacred to investigate.
Its sovereignty — a gift from Mussolini — became a shield for:
- Laundered drug money
- Political bribes
- Arms deals
- Covert Cold War funding
- Internal corruption
The institution responsible for the morals of the world could not police itself.
To this day, it remains one of the last opaque banks on earth.
Faith, power, money.
When those three converge, the story is never holy. ■
If you want to go deeper
Key sources:
- Gianluigi Nuzzi, Vatican S.p.A.
- David Yallop, In God’s Name
Both read like thrillers — except every page is documented.