Word: vaticans
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Monsignor Quixote, Greene's 22nd novel, is his most surprising, an intoxicating mix of all the previous themes, antic, religious and somber. His heroes have tumbled, almost unchanged, from Cervantes' 17th century classic. A Vatican prelate, whose Mercedes is miraculously "repaired" by Padre Quixote (who simply fills the empty gas tank) grants a boon: "There are more sinners among the bourgeois than among peasants ... go forth like your ancestor Don Quixote on the highroads of the world...
...there may be more to the decision than that. Some Vatican officials are concerned that Marcinkus, his subordinates Mennini and De Strobel, or all three, might be indicted. There is concern in the Holy See that they could be arrested if they should so much as step outside the Vatican, thus setting the stage for a legal battle between the church and civil authorities. The ultimate decision about Marcinkus' fate rests with the man in whose name one of the inquiries is being conducted: Pope John Paul. The Holy Father may choose not to do anything until the Holy...
...pressed prison uniform, Michele Sindona, 62, retains an aura of the multimillionaire banker and financial genius. Now serving a 25-year term in upstate New York for bank fraud in connection with the 1974 collapse of the Franklin National Bank, Sindona was for years a financial adviser to the Vatican. Though he still insists that he was framed in the Franklin affair by powerful Italian state banking interests who would not produce documents that would clear him, he readily admits to being deeply involved in the events that led to the downfall of Banco Ambrosiano and its late president, Roberto...
Says Sindona: "Our goal was to buy control in Banco Ambrosiano." Sindona says that he first introduced Calvi to Archbishop Paul Marcinkus in 1971, the year the priest became president of the Vatican bank. Sindona strongly denies that he paid Calvi and Marcinkus a $6.5 million commission as part of a business deal in the early 1970s, as has been widely reported. Says Sindona: "I did give $6.5 million to Calvi, much more than that, but that was to buy shares of Ambrosiano and other stocks. None went to Marcinkus unless Calvi gave it to him." Sindona insists that Marcinkus...
With me he never even brought up the possibility." But Sindona believed Marcinkus was "incompetent" in choosing Vatican investments. "He is a good bodyguard," quipped Sindona, "but no banker...