Italy Can’t Charge Vatican Bank Archbishop--Court

Italy’s highest appeals court today invalidated arrest warrants issued for U.S. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus and two senior directors of the Vatican bank in Italy’s biggest postwar financial scandal, saying Italian authorities do not have jurisdiction in Vatican affairs.

The arrest warrants, ruled invalid by the Cassation Court, were issued Feb. 20 in connection with the 1982 collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy’s largest private bank.

The ruling, which cannot be appealed, means that Italian prosecutors will not be able to charge Marcinkus, originally of Cicero, Ill., and two of his senior aides.

Marcinkus, 65, and Vatican bank directors Luigi Mennini and Pellegrino de Strobel, both Italian citizens, were accused of complicity in the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, which was declared bankrupt with bad debts of $1.287 billion.

Today’s ruling overturned an April 13 lower court ruling that the warrants were valid.

Marcinkus and the Vatican bank became entangled in the Banco Ambrosiano collapse because the archbishop issued “letters of patronage” to Ambrosiano President Robert Calvi. Calvi used the letters to guarantee uncovered debts worth $1.287 billion that he ran up through dummy companies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Calvi, known as “God’s banker” because of his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London on June 18, 1982, after a Bank of Italy investigation into his finances. British courts have never been able to determine whether the death was murder or suicide.

The Vatican consistently has denied any wrongdoing or responsibility for the Ambrosiano collapse but made a $240.9-million “good will” payment to Ambrosiano creditors in July, 1984.