More scandals at the Vatican

In June 1982 Roberto Calvi – "God's banker" – was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London. He had fled Italy where his Banco Ambrosiano was collapsing. The Vatican had been an important client of the bank. A number of leading Italians were later imprisoned for that financial scandal.

I was in London at the time of Calvi's death and so visited the crime scene. Calvi was afraid of heights and so I could not see how he could have climbed under the bridge to hang himself. He was staying at a hotel in West London; he could more easily have jumped from his window or jumped in front of a train.

On the other hand, if he had been murdered it would have been difficult for the murderers to get the body suspended from under the bridge. The bridge is in a busy part of London and murderers carrying a body along the street or on a Thames boat could have been spotted by passers by.

There have been various investigations and trials. But the 1982 death remains unsolved.

In March 1986 another banker with Vatican (and Mafia) connections also died. Michele Sindona ran the failed Franklin National Bank, which collapsed in obscure circumstances. He was poisoned by cyanide while serving a life sentence in an Italian prison.

Pell was therefore getting into dangerous territory by investigating the current range of financial allegations.

To conclude, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus (1922-2006) was president of the Vatican Bank 1971-89. His name often appeared in the context of discussions about Calvi and Sindona. But he was never actually charged with any crime (and he enjoyed international diplomatic immunity from any prosecution and so spent the rest of his life in quiet anonymity in an Arizona golfing resort).

Marcinkus warned that "You can't run the Church on Hail Marys". He later said he was misquoted. But it is a realistic statement.

Vatican City – the Holy See – is an independent sovereign entity (a bit like say Australia or New Zealand in international law terms). It has diplomatic relations with 183 countries. The Vatican gets mentioned in these financial scandals partly because it has its own national financial arrangements, and so one can walk across the street in effect from Italy into a foreign territory – the Holy See – to move money across national borders. A lot of dodgy money has moved across the street. The Vatican is a sunny place for some shady people.

There was a time when popes had their own armies and navies. The Holy See has shrunk in territorial control and resident population (now about 825 people).

But it has increased in international reach as the number of Catholics worldwide continues to grow. (Do not judge the state of any religion by what you see in Australia - Australia and other western countries are being overshadowed by the populations of Asia, Africa and Latin America).

Running such an enterprise costs money. The Vatican needs to be more transparent on how the money is raised and spent.