- Marcinkus always proclaimed he had
nothing to do with the scandal, but was still sought by Italian
authorities for questioning at the time of his death.
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- Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the head of
the Vatican bank before a massive banking scandal forced him out in
1989, has died of natural causes, a spokeswoman for the Phoenix Catholic
Diocese said.
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- After being dismissed from his important
Vatican responsibilities, Marcinkus, 81, retired to Phoenix, but
remained active in the Church, limiting his activities to saying Mass
and other routine services.
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- Marcinkus was found dead at his Sun City
home, a suburb of Phoenix, on Monday evening, said Mary Jo West, a
spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
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- No further evidence or information was
available regarding his death, according to diocese officials.
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- Marcinkus, who was 6 feet, 4 inches, had
once acted as a bodyguard to Pope John Paul II during his early foreign
travels before taking on the responsibilities as head of the Vatican
bank.
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- Formally known as the Institute for
Religious Works, Marcinkus headed the Vatican Bank for 20 years, but was
removed when he became an intergral figure in the Italian investigation
into the massive scandal.
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- In 1987, warrants for the arrest of
Marcinkus and two lay Vatican bank officials were issued in after
Italian prosecutors charged them with being accessories to the
fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's largest private bank,
which collapsed in 1982 with the disappearance of $1.3 billion *.* * *
** The missing money, never recovered, was in loans made to 10 dummy
companies in Latin America controlled by the Vatican bank.
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- * *
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- Italy's Constitutional Court in 1982
ruled that a Vatican-Italian treaty precluded any interference by
Italian authorities in the affairs of the Vatican, an independent
city-state.
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- The case was never brought to trial, the
Vatican settling out of court with Italian authorities for $241 million.
Throughout the entire scandal and up until his death, Marcinkus insisted
on his innocence.
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- At the time of his death, Rome
prosecutors were still hoping to question Marcinkus, but he has been
kept under protection in Phoenix, Arizona, still being under Vatican
diplomatic immunity.
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- Marcinkus was also linked to the
unsolved murder of Roberto Calvi, the former head of Banco Ambrosiano
involved in the scandal, as the Vatican insisted Calvi pay back over
$154 million in stolen Vtican money.
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- But the links to those involved in the
scandal never were fully explored as investigators were refused
permission to ever investigate Marcinkus.
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- Sources close to Vatican claim that
Marcinkus taken to America to keep quiet since he was actually only an
"innocent fall guy" for the real culprits pulling the strings behind the
scandal.
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- Those sources close to Vatican contend
the Black Pope and the Jesuit Order "in full control of P2 and the Grand
Orient Lodges, used Calvi and Michele Sindona, another accomplice also
thought murdered, to steal the money, then in Mafia-like fashion had
both of them killed.
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- "Archbishop Marcinkus, being publicly
responsible for the loss of the funds of Banco Ambrosiano, then agreed
to take the fall, subsequently protecting his Jesuit masters from
further investigation," said a source close to the Vatican who wished to
remain anonymous.
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- "It is Jesuit Bishop Hnilica, the
untouchable, who is really at the bottom of the scandal and fronting for
the Black Pope. I believe Marcinkus was a patsy and that Hnilica is the
real culprit and thus the Black Pope."
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- Sources close to Marcinkus also claim
that "all along" he was innocent of any serious wrong doing, including
having absolutely nothing to do with Calvi's murder or embezzlement of
funds.
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www.arcticbeacon.com
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