Warrant Issued for American Cleric Who Heads Vatican Bank

An arrest warrant has been issued for Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the American who heads the Vatican bank, in connection with Italy’s worst financial scandal since World War II, authorities said Wednesday.

The 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano has cost the Vatican $250 million.

A judge investigating the Ambrosiano case told a reporter that the warrant charges Marcinkus, who has also served as bodyguard for Pope John Paul II, as “an accessory to fraudulent bankruptcy” in the case.

Marcinkus, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing during the lengthy investigation, could not be reached for comment by the Associated Press. The Italian news agency ANSA and state-run RAI television quoted him as saying Wednesday evening, “Up to this moment, I have not received anything.”

The judge, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said police could not serve the warrant on the 65-year-old native of Cicero, Ill., unless he leaves Vatican City, which has the status of an independent state. Marcinkus usually resides at the Vatican.

Italy has no extradition treaty with the Vatican.

Milan Judges Antonio Pizzi and Renato Bricchetti, long involved in the investigation, would not comment on the case publicly. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro said he has heard reports, but “I know nothing about it.”

Marcinkus heads the Institute for Religious Works, the formal name of the Vatican bank. Court sources said two other senior officials of the bank, Luigi Mennini and Pellegrino De Strobel, were charged as accessories to fraudulent bankruptcy.

Mennini and De Strobel are Italian citizens but also live at the Vatican.

In 1984, an Italian court convicted Mennini of involvement in the failure of Banca Privata, run by Michele Sindona, a financier who once advised the Vatican on finances. Sindona later was convicted of fraud in a string of bank collapses. Last March, Sindona died in prison, an apparent suicide. Mennini’s case was appealed.

Marcinkus has been investigated in connection with $1.3 billion in loans Banco Ambrosiano made to 10 overseas “dummy” companies controlled by the Vatican bank.

The missing $1.3 billion led to the collapse and bankruptcy of Ambrosiano, a Milan-based private firm. It was headed at the time by secretive banker Roberto Calvi, popularly known as “God’s banker” because of his apparent influence at the Vatican.

Calvi was found dead by hanging from a London bridge in June, 1982.