Former Vatican bank chief Paul Marcinkus, 84, dies

Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus, who presided over the Vatican Bank when it was linked with the failure of Italy's largest private bank in 1982, was found dead Monday at his home in Sun City, Ariz., the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix reported. He was 84.

As president of the Vatican Bank, Archbishop Marcinkus not only was caught up in a major financial scandal but also mysterious deaths and a criminal probe connected to the 1982 failure of Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy's largest private bank, after $1.3 billion of its assets had disappeared.

The archbishop was charged with being an accessory to the bank's bankruptcy, which was found to be fraudulent. But he was not arrested. The Vatican, a major shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano, paid $250 million to the failed institution's creditors in what it called a goodwill settlement. It denied any moral or legal blame.

Archbishop Marcinkus always denied any involvement in the bank's failure and said the Catholic Church should not have made the payment.

"The Italians should have looked into their own banking system," he told reporters in 1990. "I have never done anything wrong."

Two Italian bankers with whom he dealt were convicted of fraud after their banks collapsed — Roberto Calvi of Banco Ambrosiano and Michele Sindona, a Sicilian financier whose banking empire crashed in 1974.

Both men died mysteriously. Calvi, known as "God's Banker" for his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in downtown London in 1982. Sindona, a former Vatican financial adviser, died in jail in 1986 after drinking coffee laced with cyanide.

After Calvi's death, Archbishop Marcinkus was questioned about "letters of comfort" he had written that implied that the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works, would make good on Ambrosiano's debts. The archbishop said Calvi had released him in writing from any such liabilities.

Calvi's death initially was ruled a suicide, but British police reopened the case in 2003. Italian police have said they believe Calvi was murdered by the Mafia. Five people are now being tried on murder charges.

The archbishop, who was known for saying that "You can't run the church on Hail Marys," was kept a virtual prisoner in the Vatican for long stretches in the 1980s. The church refused to let him be questioned, and Italian magistrates retaliated by threatening to arrest him if he left Vatican City.

After leaving the Vatican bank, Archbishop Marcinkus kept his second job as vice president of the Vatican city-state. But a career that many thought destined him for the red hat of a cardinal was virtually over. In 1990, he resigned and returned to Chicago to become a parish priest. He retired to Sun City, where he remained involved with a local church.