Catholic World News News Feature

Archbishop Marcinkus, Vatican banker caught in scandal, dead at 84 February 21, 2006

Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the American-born prelate whose leadership of the Vatican bank was marred by international scandal, died during the night of February 20.

A priest of the Chicago archdiocese, Marcinkus had served as organizer for papal trips and secretary of the government of the Vatican city-state in the 1970s. But his greatest public exposure came through his role at the head of the Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican's own bank. The American archbishop was persuaded to invest Vatican funds in the Banco Ambrosiano, and to led the support of the Vatican to financial schemes which were eventually exposed as fraudulent.

In 1982, the unraveling of the fraud caused the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, and the Vatican was eventually forced to pay $244 million in fines for the bank's involvement in the Ambrosiano schemes. In June 1982 the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi, was founded hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London; British investigators now believe that Calvi-- who had brought Archbishop Marcinkus into his financial empire-- was killed on orders from the Mafia.

The Ambrosiano scandal led to a thorough reorganization of the Vatican bank, which is now led by a lay professional rather than a cleric. The colorful American prelate who had been widely known as "God's banker" was charged by Italian prosecutors with participating in Calvi's frauds, but was preserved from prosecution because of his immunity as a citizen of the Vatican.

Archbishop Marcinkus, who was 84, was living in retirement in Arizona. He had a long history of cardiac trouble.