How the Sicilian Mafia Came Into the Service of the Vatican Bank & the Murder of 33-Day Pope, John Paul I, who called for its Reform

 

In this paper the role of Michele Sindona will be discussed, the reality and unreality of The Godfather trilogy, as well as the murders of both Aldo Moro and Pope John Paul I

“Unlike American Catholics, who choose to believe that the pope and the church are above human frailty, Italian Catholics have no illusions about the Vatican. By June 21, 1963, when Conclave 81 announced Giovanni Montini’s election as Pope Paul VI, Italians knew that the Vatican had built a financial empire through the use of secret bank accounts and the advice of expert money men like Michele Sindona.

…

The Instituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) is the head of the Vatican’s financial octopus. The IOR, known also as the Bank of the Vatican, looks like any other bank, except that the cashiers are priests…In addition to performing all the normal banking functions, the IOR also acts as the Vatican’s holding company. It owns major blocks of shares in eighty-two banks. Among them are the largest banks in Italy: Banca di Roma, Banco Ambrosiano of Milan, Banco di Napoli, and Banco di Sicilia. Its gold reserves are in excess of $3 billion [approx. worth $11.5 billion in today’s money].

With an estimated $11 billion [approx. worth $42 billion in today’s money] invested in stocks, the Vatican is the largest stockholder in the world.”

-          Luigi DiFonzo, St. Peter’s banker (1983)

Michele Sindona was born into a poor family living in a small commune in Sicily in the province of Messina. He had been educated by the Jesuits through the University of Messina (f. 1548 by Pope Paul III), the world’s first Jesuit college[1] and today among the oldest universities in Italy. Sindona was known as among the brightest students of his class. By the end of the war, Sindona had become a respected member of the Luciano/Don Calo crime family and one of the Sicilian Mafia’s leading financial advisors.

He had earned a degree in tax law from the University of Messina in 1942, but quickly entered the black market of Sicily as a leading figure after Operation Husky. Recall from Part I of this series that Operation Husky was the Allied invasion of Sicily, which in the name of supposedly fighting Italian Fascists, the Sicilian Mafia was given political power, by the CIA, over the island and had been given control of all major Italian ports which then facilitated the black market between the United States and Sicily. The CIA would also profit off this relationship in the trafficking of drugs and weapons in service to Gladio.  (more...)

How the Sicilian Mafia Came Into the Service of the Vatican Bank & the Murder of 33-Day Pope, John Paul I, who called for its Reform