Ex-Vatican official dies in Sun City home

Michael Clancy

The Arizona Republic

Feb. 22, 2006 12:00 AM

Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, a longtime Catholic Church official who headed the Vatican Bank at the time of a major financial scandal in the early 1980s, died Monday at his retirement home in Sun City, apparently of natural causes. He was 84.

Marcinkus, a tall, stately man, never spoke of the tangled allegations of money laundering, fraud and even murder that followed the scandal, which involved the collapse of a bank in Milan.

He served as president of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989. He denied any role in the scandal, which brought down the Milan bank and cost investors $3.5 billion, but never clarified his role nor the role of the Vatican in the scandal. advertisement 

"He was very private, and I respected that," said Bishop Remi De Roo, a retired bishop from Victoria, British Columbia, and a longtime friend.

The Rev. William Waldron, a retired Phoenix priest who befriended Marcinkus, also said he never talked about the archbishop's past with him.

Marcinkus was indicted by Italian authorities in 1982 as an accessory in the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, but Italian courts ruled that as a Vatican official, he was immune from prosecution. The Vatican Bank was the major shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano, and Marcinkus served on its board of directors. Two of the principals in Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona, later were found murdered.

Jonathan Levy, an attorney who represents Croatian concentration camp survivors and others in a lawsuit against the Vatican, said Marcinkus would have been an important witness in the case. The case alleges that the Vatican Bank received gold and other assets stolen by the Nazis during World War II and engaged in sophisticated money-laundering activities to hide the source of the wealth.

"I like to think his secrets will come out eventually," Levy said. "His passing may enable the Vatican to make a clean breast of things."

Marcinkus moved to Sun City in 1991. Waldron said the archbishop frequently visited friends there while he worked in the Vatican. Waldron said Marcinkus told him he could retire in a lot of locations but wanted to work as a priest. Waldron told him he could, so Marcinkus came here.

"He told me he started off his career doing priestly work, and he wanted to end it that way," Waldron said.

The archbishop, a native of suburban Chicago, became well known in the retirement community. From the time he arrived until he died, he visited at least 50 shut-ins a week, bringing them Communion. He said Mass twice a week at St. Clement and frequently took part in Confirmation ceremonies.

"The people he served thought he was wonderful," Waldron said.

De Roo said Marcinkus "took a lot of knocks but remained at heart a good priest."

"He was joyful, open and enjoyed life," De Roo said. "He was a great comfort to his friends."

Robert Blair Kaiser, a Phoenix author who covered the Second Vatican Council for Time magazine in the 1960s, said Marcinkus was one of his best sources at the time.

Kaiser said he viewed the archbishop as a "fall guy" for Vatican financial activities that remain closed to public scrutiny.

"He was an operator inside the Vatican who was a good soldier," he said.

Marcinkus was ordained in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1947 and became a bishop in 1969. In 1981, he became governor of Vatican City, the small city-state where the church's headquarters are located.

Funeral arrangements are pending in Chicago, with a memorial Mass planned here.