Word: marcinkus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...after his conviction, in fact, he asked the I.O.R.'s aid as he sought ways to help pay off the outstanding loans made by his shell companies. Though he had been convicted of a financial crime, Calvi was still made welcome at the Vatican bank and other banks. Marcinkus' defense is that he was newly reconfirmed as president of Banco Ambrosiano, and the bank's balance sheet was approved at the end of 1981 by the Bank of Italy...
...I.O.R. By issuing such letters, the Vatican bank was in effect vouching for Calvi's creditworthiness. The letters do not legally obligate the Vatican bank to pay off debts of the companies in question. But the letters do, according to some banking officials, imply a moral obligation. Marcinkus did not sign the letters, but he has taken full responsibility for them...
...never made known to the Ambrosiano Latin American banks that lent money to Calvi's shell firms. The liberating letter thus gives the arrangement between Calvi and the I.O.R. the appearance of a conspiracy to withhold essential information from the lending banks. The various letters suggest that Marcinkus allowed the Vatican's name to be used in a questionable way in order to influence the bankers. The letters were written after loans had been made to the shell companies, and, according to Vatican officials, Marcinkus claimed the letters were for "internal use." Calvi needed them to appease...
...I.O.R.'s letters of patronage seemed to help Calvi, at least temporarily. But in the end even this ploy failed. When Calvi asked the I.O.R. to renew the letters, which expired in June 1982, Marcinkus turned him down. Another setback soon followed. After the Bank of Italy demanded that Ambrosiano account for its huge foreign lending, the bank's directors overruled Calvi and agreed to cooperate...
...finance? Pope Paul VI, feeling that the church should not only be poor, but be "seen to be poor," moved in 1969 to adopt a lower financial profile by relinquishing the church's controlling interests in Italian companies and shifting to investments outside Italy. Through the Ambrosiano scandal, Marcinkus has clearly raised the church's profile...