God 39;s Banker Book

[Rosalyn Pomposo]

Themystery of what really happened to Calvi would extend for decades, and involve not only the Vatican but also mafiosi, the Masons, British secret service and a small army of amateur conspiracy theorists gripped by the story.

Calvi, though, had international ambitions and, by the time he had climbed his way to become president, in 1975, had led the bank to acquire Swiss bank Banca del Gottardo and founded several offshore companies, such as the Banco Ambrosiano in Luxembourg and the Cisalpine Overseas Bank in the Bahamas.

Sindona and Calvi had known each other since the late 1960s and were both members of the Masonic lodge known as Propaganda Due (P-2), led by Licio Gelli, a self-declared fascist who aimed to fight Communist forces at home and abroad while sparking a breakdown of constitutional order in Italy.

And it left Calvi, for the first time in his career, without political protection. In 1981, he would stand trial on charges of illegal currency dealings concerning the equivalent of $50 million worth of foreign transactions in lire made without alerting the Bank of Italy, as required by law.

Carboni introduced the banker to his associate Silvano Vittor, who smuggled Calvi from Trieste to Yugoslavia by motorboat, then from Yugoslavia to Austria by car. After meeting Carboni in a town in Austria near the Swiss border, Calvi and Vittor headed to Innsbruck, where they boarded a private plane that would take them to London on June 15. Calvi had shaved off his trademark mustache, possibly in an attempt to better disguise himself.

Throughout the trip, Calvi had reportedly carried a black briefcase full of possibly incriminating documents that later went missing, some of which would never be recovered. Carboni would later be charged with, and then acquitted of, selling the briefcase to a high-ranking IOR official.

London was not meant to be the final destination of the journey. Calvi apparently planned to travel across the Atlantic. His wife had already moved to Washington, D.C, and he told his daughter, who was in Switzerland, to do the same. In a phone conversation with his daughter the day before he died, he told her: "Something really important is happening, and today and tomorrow all hell is going to break loose." He was right.

But obvious questions would quickly emerge. For the 62-year-old Calvi to get to the scaffolding by himself, he would have had to climb down the bridge from a ladder, jump a distance between the ladder and the scaffolding, all while weighted down by 12 pounds of bricks. And, as many wondered at the time, why bother to go to London to do that?

Frederick KeinszigBiographical informationGenderMaleDied1980

Italy[1]AffiliationVatican Bank

Immobiliare

P2

Tattaglia familyTitle(s)Banker

AccountantBehind the scenesPortrayed byHelmut Berger

Nicknamed "God's Banker", Keinszig is the Swiss chief accountant of the Vatican Bank. As such, he represents the Vatican on the board of International Immobiliare, a European real estate company in which the Church has a quarter interest and is transferred to the control of Michael Corleone. However, he is also part of a large conspiracy with Don Licio Lucchesi and Archbishop Gilday to scam Michael out of hundreds of millions of dollars and give it to persons holding positions of political power. The three accomplished this by constantly stalling the conclusion of the Immobiliare deal and harping on the ill health of Pope Paul VI, as the Pontiff's personal approval is necessary to finalize the transfer of the company to Corleone control.

After the Pope's death, Cardinal Lamberto was elected the new Pontiff (he took the name John Paul I) and promptly requested a meeting with Keinszig to discuss reforms of the Vatican Bank. However, Keinszig mysteriously departed Rome, along with a large amount of money and several important documents. After Michael's nephew Vincent Corleone became the new Don, he ordered the deaths of Keinszig, Lucchesi, and the Archbishop in revenge for their swindling of his uncle. Accordingly, Vincent's dispatched assassins penetrated Keinszig's house and smothered him with a pillow as he lay on a bed. His corpse was subsequently hung from a bridge, in full view of the public.

Keinszig is based on Roberto Calvi, one of the real bankers involved in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal and who was also dubbed "God's Banker". Calvi was known to carry a copy of The Godfather around with him.[2] With the scandal about to errupt, he went into hiding and was later found hanging dead over Blackfriars Bridge in London on 17 June 1982. Whether it was suicide or murder has been the subject of controversy.

ROME - Today it was more than just a routine personnel matter for Pope Benedict XVI to name a new president of the Vatican Bank: German lawyer Ernst von Freyberg. The appointment may well be the last of the pope's papacy, filling a vacancy created a year ago in the midst of a money laundering investigation.

"God's Bank" (as it's long been known) has been so fraught with scandal that last month, citing concerns about possible money laundering, Italy's Central Bank stopped all bankcard payments at the Vatican.

That meant tourists could no longer swipe their debit cards to pay the entrance fee at the Vatican Museum or buy a rosary at the gift shop. No Visa. No Mastercard. No American Express. The Vatican was forced into "cash only."

The Institute for Works of Religion is a private bank within the Vatican that functions something like a credit union. It is believed to have $4 billion in assets and nearly 34,000 accounts. But its accounting system falls short of the transparency required under European banking laws.

The bank's assets are not owned by the Holy See, but the pope is effectively the chairman of the board. He oversees a committee of cardinals who act as a board of directors. The cardinals, in turn, oversee the bank's president.

In the 1970s and '80s, there was the massive money laundering scandal involving Sicilian mafia drug money. The Vatican Bank was the main shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano, a multi-billion dollar private bank that collapsed amid accusations it was laundering the Gambino crime family's heroin profits.

Banco Ambrosiano's Chairman Roberto Calvi - nicknamed "God's banker" because of his close ties to the Vatican - was eventually found hanging by a noose from Blackfriar's Bridge in central London. Whether it was suicide or murder remains a mystery.

In the 1990s, Holocaust survivors sued the Vatican bank, alleging it housed large deposits of gold looted by Nazis. Declassified U.S. documents from the 1940s appeared to corroborate that those truckloads of gold from Croatia ended up in the hands of the church. But the case was ultimately dismissed because of "sovereign immunity."

Conspiracy theorists later accused the Vatican of minting gold euro coins with the pope's face using gold looted from Nazi concentration camps. The Vatican has repeatedly denied any involvement with Nazi gold.

The bank's latest scandal comes in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. The pope appointed Ettore Gotti Tedeschi to reform the Vatican bank. But in 2012 the bank's board fired him for dereliction of duty and erratic personal behavior.

An independent audit in 2012 by Moneyval, Europe's anti-money laundering agency, found that the Vatican Bank had made significant progress in achieving greater transparency, but there was still much work to be done.

He's the head of the Blohm & Voss group, a German shipbuilding and engineering company. He's also a prominent member of Knights of Malta, the ancient chivalric order composed of wealthy European aristocrats who support the papacy - the so-called Black Nobility.

God always has a purpose and special call for us. Prior to moving to the US in 2015, I was a banker in one of biggest banks in Indonesia. In Indonesia, I had a good life with a very good job, great salary, and excellent benefits. I also enjoyed serving in my church as a youth pastor and worship leader. I thought that I could be a businesswoman while doing ministry in the church. However, God had a different plan for my life.

I began taking courses at Missio Seminary in Hatfield, PA. While I was taking seminary courses, God kept reminding me of the calling to serve Him. I believe that this is the way God prepared me to enter His calling.

To be honest, it was hard for me to adjust to a new place, ministry, and culture. It was difficult because I took seminary classes while caring for our home, my husband, and our six-month-old daughter. I was also doing ministry in the church on the weekends. I was so stressed, and I cried a lot. I was ready to give up and go back to Indonesia.

God helped me through that process. Praise God! God gave me a good support system through my family who cared for us so much. Finally, I graduated from Missio Seminary, in June 2020, with a Master of Arts degree.

Pastor Marta Castillo, my mentor from Mosaic Conference, said that I should give thanks to God for the talents He gave me. She also said that God had already prepared me to be a minister through the seminary courses and encouraged me to take the next step to be a licensed pastor.

When Angelo arrives at the hospital, he discovers that the F.B.I. suspects her involvement in the bombing and plans to question her when she regains consciousness. Curious about why Father Francesco had insisted on her presence at the cathedral, Angelo convinces Ann to flee the hospital in order to prove her innocence and find the priest.

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?

After the modicum of success of the first two books in the series (The Secret of Heaven and The Secret of Scripture), the latter was praised by Publishers Weekly as "Perfect for Dan Brown fans!"

Subsequent emails from readers pleading for the next installment led me to commence research for book three. While researching the would-be third book, I stumbled upon a conspiracy and murder surrounding the Catholic Church and an Italian banker that sparked an idea I couldn't shake.

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