The Pope’s Shop II

“Offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.” (Shakespeare, THE WINTER’S TALE)

“THE POPE’S SHOP”—perhaps one of the most uncomplimentary expressions heard in Rome—is used by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. But unlike some other derogatory terminology employed to describe the Roman Catholic Church, the phrase la Bottega del Papa or la Santa Bottega (the Pope’s Shop) was originated by the Catholics themselves. It seems to have been in use for at least five centuries.

The long-standing idea that the Vatican is in one aspect of its total personality a business concern could not exist unless it had some foundation in fact. When anticlerical Italians discuss the Vatican they are likely to shrug their shoulders and remind you that l’oro non fa odore (gold has no smell). The “gold” alludes not only to the gilded interiors of Italy’s churches and shrines but also to the riches of the Vatican.

Devoted as most Italians are to the papacy, they have no illusions about the Vatican, its position of power in the corporation family of Italy, its affluence, or its influence. However rich the Vatican may be, and indeed there is a tendency among some Italians to lose all reason on this subject, the fact stands that Italy’s citizenry regard the Pope as one of the richest men in the world—not personally, but by virtue of his office, his position, his status, his power.

Devout Italians are probably the world’s biggest backbiters when it comes to the Vatican’s concern with fiscal matters, with cash receipts, and with dollar-sign riches. Hence they, like anticlerical Italians, speak cynically of the Pope’s Shop.

The ostensible wealth of the 108.7-acre enclave inside the sturdy Leonine Walls—the magnificent church buildings, the land, the many thousands of art treasures and precious manuscripts—serves only as the visible tip of the financial iceberg. The largest chunk of the Vatican’s empire lies below the surface. There it continues to grow, in spite of changing currents. Once, after World War I, the Vatican nearly went bankrupt. At every other time in its history, the Church has had a golden touch and has protected its investments wisely in almost every field of economic endeavor—not only in Italy but also in several other countries, including the United States and Canada.

One cardinal’s aide quipped to me not long ago, “The Vatican should truly be judged by the companies it keeps.”

In a weak moment, another elderly churchman, himself a millionaire, sighed and admitted, “Ours is a dilemma indeed: if we give the image of being too rich, people won’t lend us their support; if we appear too poor, we lose their respect.”

This is the same individual who related an anecdote that made the rounds behind the Vatican walls several years ago. The joke concerned the late Francis Cardinal Spellman and his business know-how. According to the story, St. Peter was giving a stately dinner. Though all of the distinguished guests had been assigned to tables, Cardinal Spellman could not locate his place. So he asked St. Peter. But St. Peter couldn’t find it either. He looked among the seats reserved for cardinals. Then he remembered.

“Oh, excuse me, Your Eminence!” he apologized. “In the seating plan I had you placed with the businessmen.”

It is said in Vatican circles that when Cardinal Spell- man first heard the story he was greatly amused because he took the joke as a tribute to his financial acumen. Respected by Holy See officials for his business and Wall Street contacts, Cardinal Spellman did remarkably well as the official U.S. representative for an offshoot of the Vatican’s financial operation which, up till the end of 1967, dealt with pontifical funds abroad. This was the office known as the Special Administration, one of four concerned with Vatican finances. Its headquarters were in a tiny room on the same floor as the Pope’s private apartment. Thirteen persons, four of whom were accountants, were on its staff.

During the summer of 1967, Pope Paul began clearing away some of the centuries-old cobwebs surrounding the Curia, the central government of the Roman Catholic Church, and created, among other things, a new “ministry of finance.” Designed to streamline the Church’s bureaucracy, the sweeping Curia reforms gave rise, effective January 1, 1968, to the new finance office called the Prefecture of Economic Affairs of the Holy See. Combining functions previously undertaken independently by other bodies, the Prefecture now draws up an annual budget for the Pope’s approval, provides balance sheets for all Curia departments, and supervises all of the Vatican’s economic operations. In essence, the Prefecture serves as the Vatican equivalent of a finance ministry by overseeing and coordinating activities of the various offices which handle Vatican funds.

Functioning under the Prefecture is a new office that the Pope created in the spring of 1968—called the Administration for the Patrimony of the Holy See, which combines two older financial offices, the Administration for the Goods of the Holy See (which administered the normal revenues coming into the Vatican) and the Special Administration of the Holy See (which Pope Pius XI established in 1929 to oversee the investment and use of indemnities paid to the Holy See by Italy for lands and properties seized by Italy with the fall of the Papal States in 1870).

The creation of the Prefecture eliminated, in name if not in fact, two other departments concerned with Vatican finances—the Institute for Religious Works and the Administration of the Vatican City State. But it did not abolish the so-called Administration of the Holy See Property. This organization, established in August 1878, is responsible not only for property on Vatican grounds but also for extraterritorial palaces spread all over Rome and landholdings in other parts of the world. Most of this property was left to the Holy See after the Papal States were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy during the nineteenth century.

The Administration of the Vatican City State, now defunct, handled the payroll of Holy See employees, including the Vatican’s police and armed forces, and dealt with Vatican City’s sanitation, medical care, public utilities, and newspaper; it also supervised the Vatican’s radio station and the Vatican’s astronomical observatory, the Vatican Museum, and the Vatican Library.

The Institute for Religious Works, the other Vatican fiscal appendage that was eliminated, in name if not in fact, was set up in 1942 by Pope Pius XII. It is nothing more than a bank—for taking “into custody and administering capital destined to religious work.” It is situated in the Holy Office courtyard, has windows worked by tellers in priestly garb, accepts deposits, opens current accounts, cashes checks, transfers money, and carries out all other bank operations. It differs from other banks in that its depositors belong to a select group. They are the residents of the ecclesiastical state, members of the clergy who run schools and hospitals, diplomats accredited to the Holy See, and some Italian citizens who have given notable service to the Church.

The organization that through 1967 was the backbone of papal business interests and served as a kind of finance ministry was the one known as the Special Administration (now absorbed under the new setup). Established in 1929, after Fascist Italy and the Holy See had signed the Lateran Treaty [see Chapter V for a discussion of this treaty], the Special Administration took the sum of nearly $90 million granted to the Holy See by dictator Benito Mussolini as an indemnity for the loss of the Papal States and, by careful investing, increased it to about $550 million. This unconfirmed figure, at best a conservative calculation, is the one usually offered by Rome’s banking fraternity and represents what is believed to have been the value of the liquid assets of the Special Administration during the closing months of 1967.

Unique because of its freedom of action, which must have been the envy of every businessman and finance minister in the world, the Special Administration answered to no one. No elected congress or government cabinet kept tabs on it. It was not required to present reports to stockholders’ meetings. Because it operated in secrecy (as does the new “ministry of finance”), no newspapers could play watchdog. In Italy and most other countries it paid no taxes. Since it worried very little about the availability of capital, it could undertake long- term programs and risks. With diplomatic privileges, its operations were often made easier, and with diplomatic contacts, which kept the “home office” regularly informed on all matters likely to have a bearing on economic trends, it had a certain edge over competitors.

The man who ran the Special Administration from the end of 1958 until its dissolution was Alberto Cardinal di Jorio, who was appointed in 1939 as an assistant in the office. In 1942, he was assigned to the Institute for Religious Works (the Vatican’s bank), and, in 1944, he became its president—while he still served in the office of the Special Administration. Later, he became the secretary of the commission of three cardinals administrating this latter body. Di Jorio, who was appointed a cardinal in 1958, conducted the organization’s operations with masterly prudence and surrounded himself with a brain trust of competent financiers, among whom were Luigi Mennini, an Italian layman, and the Marquis Henri de Maillardoz, a former director of the Credit Suisse of Geneva, where the Vatican maintains at least two numbered bank accounts.

Although some funds are kept in the Credit Suisse of Geneva, the Vatican maintains deposits in numerous public banks as well.

The late Domenico Cardinal Tardini, the Pope’s Secretary of State, once maintained in a press interview that whispers about the Vatican’s great wealth were exaggerated, that the image had been distorted. Yet a serious reporter who puts two and two together does not get four, or even twenty-two—but a sum that adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

As far as its public image is concerned, the Vatican prefers to encourage the impression that it is an organization with a modest income and huge expenditures. Vatican City does, for example, issue new stamps and special series of stamps several times a year. In this way, it is not unlike other small countries that produce and sell stamps in order to add foreign exchange to their bank accounts. Vatican stamps, however, are very much sought after, and the sales bring in close to $400,000 each year. The Vatican Museum, which charges admission, also brings in some income—but most of this is used to pay the many guards and for the maintenance of the museum itself.

Perhaps the most lucrative of the Vatican’s direct sources of income is “Peter’s Pence,” which provides roughly $1.5 million each year, derived from contributions made in all parts of the world, wherever there are Roman Catholic churches or dioceses. A custom that developed in Britain over a thousand years ago, when a yearly tax was imposed on householders in favor of the Pope, Peter’s Pence is now strictly voluntary. The English tax fell into disuse after the Reformation, but the voluntary donation was revived in the middle of the nineteenth century, when a committee formed in Paris to honor St. Peter with an annual gift. The idea was picked up in Turin, Italy, and, before long, in the United States.

Eventually it spread through Europe, then to South America, and finally all over the globe. June 29 is usually the day on which the money—donated in the name of St. Peter and St. Paul—is collected in Catholic churches everywhere. The accumulated money, Peter’s Pence, then accompanies the bishops on their personal visit to the Pope. The bishops’ payments are made by check, usually for U.S. dollars.

Another form of direct revenue for the Vatican comes from private contributions and legacies left by devout Catholics. This is considered by some insiders to be among the Vatican’s largest sources of direct income. The amount runs into millions of dollars each year, but precise figures are impossible to obtain. More often than not, some of the money willed within a given parish or diocese remains there, and never filters through to the Vatican itself.

When money is left to a Roman Catholic parish, it becomes a matter for the Congregation for the Clergy, a Vatican-based organization that concerns itself with the day-by-day affairs of each diocese. Although it is not a part of the central financial organization of the Vatican, the Congregation is charged with numerous financial responsibilities. Primarily, it proffers advice to laymen on the adjustment of wills in favor of religious works, the acquisition of legacies and trusts, and the mortgaging of private estates, and it gives help and instruction to priests and pastors on the use and administration of Church- owned properties. In addition, the Congregation establishes the fees that are to be collected for various Church functions, like baptismal ceremonies and weddings.

When the present Pope was a young cleric known as Monsignor Montini, he served as private secretary to Pope Pius XII and also as extraordinary secretary in charge of internal Vatican affairs. One of his jobs involved dealing with, among other financial matters, bequests. As a result of this assignment, Pope Paul knows more about the fiscal machinery of the Vatican than did any pope before him.

On the delicate subject of Vatican finances, there is a decided information gap, for persons on the inside as well as for those on the outside. The Vatican has wanted it that way. It has not wanted to organize its affairs so that any single individual could, during the course of his workday, piece together the total picture of its infinitely ramified financial operations. Apparently, only one person has been privileged to see this picture. His name was Bernardino Nogara.

Much of the credit for the Vatican’s success in business after 1929 belongs to this one-time student of architecture. Bernardino Nogara demonstrated his financial genius after being entrusted by Pope Pius XI with the responsibility of administering the $90-million indemnification granted to the Holy See by Mussolini. Nogara, former vice president of the Banca Commerciale Italiana, had come to the attention of Vatican officialdom through Pope Benedict XV, who had made personal investments in Turkish Empire securities with the help and advice of Nogara, who then headed the Istanbul branch of the Banca Commerciale. Placed in charge of the newly created Special Administration, the devout Nogara had a free hand, and although he ran much of the Vatican’s business out of his fedora, revealed himself as a remarkable manager of money. By undertaking a world-wide investment policy, he increased the initial capital many times over.

In pursuit of profit, Nogara abided by a self-imposed rule that the Vatican’s investment program should not be hampered by religious considerations. During the early fifties, therefore, he used papal funds to speculate in government bonds of Protestant Britain, which he viewed as a better risk than the stocks of Catholic Spain, then in an economic slump. When he died late in 1958, at the age of eighty-eight, he left a “methodology” that was followed religiously by his successors, who continued to realize fantastic gains.

The mysterious Bernardino Nogara was born in Bellano, near Lake Como, in 1870—the same year that the Kingdom of Italy confiscated the last of the Papal States, the $90-million indemnification for which Nogara was later to administer. As a young man, Nogara laid aside his architectural training and worked in England, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey directing mine operations. During the peace negotiations with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey at the end of World War I, he served as an Italian delegate on the economic and finance committee. From 1924 to 1929, he was in Berlin as an administrator on the Inter-Allied Reparations Commission, which had been entrusted with finding a solution for the problem of collecting German reparations.

A taciturn, elusive figure, Nogara was given his Vatican assignment by a pope who had little training in finance. Nogara had no obligations to show any immediate profits from his investments and was free to invest the funds anywhere in the world (with little worry about taxes). He made full use of these privileges.

He guided his actions by the reliable reports of the Vatican’s world-wide network of ambassadorial representatives. Bishops and informed Catholic laymen provided intelligence—often via the Vatican’s own “hot line” —that an ordinary banker could not hope to acquire at any price.

In the course of his career, Nogara had become a specialist in gold. Thus for a considerable period after he took over the Special Administration, he engaged in the trading of gold bullion for gold coins and gold coins for gold bullion in deals that, without precise details, defy understanding of anything but the fact that most of them were profitable. His confidence in the precious metal virtually unshakable, the canny Nogara spent $26.8 million to buy gold from the United States at the official rate of $35 per fine troy ounce, plus 0.25 percent for handling charges. In later years, rumors cropped up that the Vatican had obtained this gold at a special price of $34 an ounce, but when the rumors were printed in—and given some credence by—a United Nations publication, the .S. Treasury Department dismissed the matter once and for all in April 1953, by stating that the Vatican had made the purchase at the same price as anybody else. In fact, $5 million of the Vatican-acquired gold was sold back to the United States, leaving a net sale of $21.8 million. The Vatican gold, which is in the shape of ingots, is on deposit with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. A favorite Nogara ploy involved a most intricate financial maneuver, by which he manipulated the flexibility of the Vatican’s Swiss bank accounts. The explanation is a bit complicated and may necessitate a second reading. Nevertheless, here it is:

Nogara would ask his Swiss bank to deposit Vatican money in New York under the Swiss bank’s name. He then got the Swiss bank to order the American bank to lend dollars to an Italian firm that was owned by the Vatican. The Italian firm, to which the money belonged in the first place, charged the interest it was paying in America to itself in the Swiss account. In this way Nogara could safely (and secretly) invest the Pope’s money without any interference from the Italian authorities during those periods when currency restrictions were being imposed by the state.

Without exaggeration, it can be said that Nogara, apparently driven by deep religious motivations, used his financial wizardry to become the Vatican’s “secret weapon.” As a dictator of the Vatican’s funds, he answered to no one—not even to the committee of three cardinals which, theoretically, supervised the functions of the Special Administration. Nor did Pius XI have any clear idea of what Nogara was doing. But the Pope had faith in Nogara, and the evidence is there that that faith was rewarded.

When Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli mounted the pontifical throne in 1939 as Pius XII, it was known that he entertained certain suspicions about Nogara—and this led to a number of rumors about the Special Administration. For one thing, it was whispered that there was virtually nothing left of the large sum of Lateran money. In one of his initial administrative acts, the new pope established a private investigating committee of cardinals who were knowledgeable in the complexities of banking and international finance. A thorough check was made.

Contrary to what many had preferred to suspect, Nogara had invested the Vatican funds wisely and shrewdly. In fact, the initial capital had increased so many times over that the Vatican was richer before the opening days of World War II than it had ever been before. After the report was in, Nogara was completely untouchable.

Few anecdotes can be told about this financial fox, for Nogara successfully managed to keep almost everything he did a secret—even from his superiors, who trusted him implicitly. A ranking Vatican official once said, “Nogara is a man who never speaks to anybody; nor does he tell the Pope much, and I would guess, even very little to God—yet he is a man worth listening to.”

One Nogara incident can be reported, however. It involved a run-in with the British government. In 1948, the Catholic Relief Organization in Germany had been presented with several shiploads of wheat, purchased by the Vatican from Argentina. Nogara, attempting to pay for the wheat with British pounds he had deposited in England, ran afoul of Whitehall, for at that time England was undergoing an austerity period, with the usual currency restrictions. Annoyed, London negotiated with the Holy See, and Nogara, bending, agreed instead to invest the money he had in England in government bonds. But for the man with the golden touch, the defeat, such as it was, ended in victory. Over the long run the investment in British bonds turned out very favorably. Still, the transaction goes down on the books as one of the few in which Nogara’s hand was ever forced.

After retiring in 1956 for reasons of health, Nogara continued to serve the Vatican by advising his successors in a private capacity. That he had proved himself scrupulous in the execution of his assignment, there is not the slightest doubt. That he bequeathed not only his know- how but a well-oiled, smoothly functioning piece of financial machinery, there is also not the slightest doubt. Because of the secret nature of his operations, he was given very little space in the public prints when he died in November of 1958. Yet no other single individual, pope or cardinal, ever gave as much impetus and muscle to Vatican finances as did Bernardino Nogara, the invisible man who started out to be an architect and succeeded in building a financial empire.

Perhaps the man is best summed up in a document he left for his successors. In it he enumerated his strategies. A copy of this eight-part “Nogara Credo” came into my hands and is offered herewith in translation:

1. Increase the size of your company because it will be easier to obtain funds from the capital markets.
2. Increase the size of your company because high-capacity installations allow the reduction of industrial costs and the subdivision of overall expenses.
3. Increase the size of your company because it is possible to economize on transportation.
4. Increase the size of your company because it will allow capital to be invested in scientific research that can bring tangible money results.
5. Increase the size of your company because the personnel can be organized and used in a more rational manner.
6. Increase the size of your company because fiscal controls on the part of government become advantageously difficult.
7. Increase the size of your company because it is necessary to offer the customers the best technical product.
8. Increase the size of your company because this will engender more increases. However sanctified the name of Bernardino Nogara, not all of the Vatican’s trusted employees avoided besmirching themselves. At about the time Nogara was involved with the Argentine wheat difficulty, another Vatican figure became the center of a scandal that brought severe repercussions. The financial body involved was the Administration of the Holy See Property, which had been founded in 1878 to supervise the management of Vatican- owned property.

Monsignor E. P. Cippico, a youthful prelate employed by the Vatican Archives, got entangled in a series of financial deals that eventually brought him to ruin. The war over, many countries, including Italy, were suffering under currency restrictions. Eager to shift money to Switzerland and other countries, either for investment or for the purchase of goods for import, some Italian businessmen discovered that they could transfer funds through the Administration of the Holy See Property, for the Vatican was exempt from Italy’s currency regulations. Monsignor Cippico, an extrovert who enjoyed moving in high-society circles, and who had some personal contacts in the Administration, served as a go-between for those persons who wanted to get their money out of the country. Needless to say, he was a very popular man.

All went well until Cippico ventured out on his own and agreed to underwrite the production costs of a movie on the life of St. Francis of Assisi. To cover up the outflow of money, a lot of money, Cippico enlarged his questionable operations. But the film never got past the first reel. Meanwhile, as more and more people who had entrusted him with large sums to transfer out of Italy saw nothing come of their money, the roof started to cave in on Cippico. He was arrested by the Pope’s Gendarmery, made to stand a Vatican inquiry, found guilty, defrocked, and put into detention. Later he stood trial in an Italian court and was convicted of swindling; still later he was set free by a court of appeals. The persons who had entrusted money to him placed legal claims against the Vatican, and in time everyone was reimbursed.

Having learned some hard lessons in the world of business, the Vatican is now exceedingly prudent about whom it will entrust with either money or responsibility. The man appointed by Pope Paul (in January 1968) to handle the newly created Prefecture of Economic Affairs is Egidio Cardinal Vagnozzi, who had served as the Pope’s top diplomat in Washington. Formerly the Apostolic Delegate to the United States for nine years, Cardinal Vagnozzi (now in his early sixties) replaced Angelo Cardinal dell’Acqua, who had been named four months earlier to the job of “finance minister.”

Cardinal Vagnozzi’s two septuagenarian associates in the new “ministry of finance,” which will prepare the Vatican’s annual budget, its first, are Joseph Cardinal Beran, Archbishop of Prague, who served sixteen years of Communist detention, and Cesare Cardinal Zerba of Italy, a theologian who served for twenty-six years as Under-Secretary and then Secretary of the Congregation of Sacraments.

Already ordained a priest at age twenty-three—thanks to a special dispensation in 1928 from the pope—Vagnozzi has spent most of his career in service abroad. Four years after his ordination, he was sent to the United States to work in the Washington office of the Apostolic Delegate. It is said that his boat trip from Italy to America may have had a significant meaning in his career, for he was accompanied across the Atlantic Ocean by the then- Monsignor Francis Spellman who had been assigned to duty in Boston. The bond of friendship and respect between the two men was to remain firm until Spellman’s death recently.

Vagnozzi stayed in the United States for ten years before a transferral to Portugal, once again in the capacity as a junior counselor in the office of the Apostolic Delegate. From Lisbon he went to Paris, there to become a confidant of the then-Apostolic Delegate Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII). In 1948, Vagnozzi received an assignment to lay the groundwork in India for the exchange of ambassadors between the Delhi Government and the Holy See, and a year later he was dispatched to the Philippines as the Apostolic Delegate.

Succeeding in establishing diplomatic relations with the Republic of the Philippines in 1951, Vagnozzi became the Vatican’s first ambassador (Nuncio) there and stayed in the post until 1958, at which time Pope John thought it best to send him back to the United States to fill the job of Apostolic Delegate left open by Amleto Cardinal Cicognani who had become Vatican Secretary of State. Unlike most of the previous Roman Catholic representatives in Washington, Vagnozzi—by now an avid student of Yankee culture and an admirer of the “American way of doing things”—did considerable traveling all over the fifty states, climaxing his nine-year tour of duty with a visit to Alaska to bring blessings, money and material help from Pope Paul to flood victims in Anchorage, Ko-diak, and Seward in 1964.

Although he took his formal training in philosophy and theology, Cardinal Vagnozzi is a keen student of the American economy. With the help of Cardinal Spellman, Vagnozzi kept abreast of events in the business and financial world of the United States. Not without reason, therefore, is it believed that no single person inside the Vatican has the solid background and incisive knowledge of American business practice as has the Pope’s new “finance minister.”

Apart from the three cardinals who supervise the Vatican’s wealth, the Church must also depend on its uomini di fiducia (men of trust), who handle the Vatican’s financial interests as nonclerics. The circle of laymen who enjoy the proxy of the pope is necessarily tight because it is these few chosen trustees who most often represent the Vatican in the outside business world. Who are some of these men, and where do they fit in the scheme of things?

A clue as to whether Vatican penetration has taken place within a given company is usually provided by the names of the members of the board of directors. Industrial corporations and holding companies often expose Church interest by listing, in one capacity or another, the names of known Vatican agents. “Agents” is perhaps not the happiest word to describe the members of the Vatican’s inner lay circle, but it best indicates the purpose they serve. Whenever a “Vatican name” appears on the board of directors of a utility, for example, investigation will almost invariably bring out the fact that the Vatican holds a minor, or even a major, interest in that organization. Often the prestige of the “agent’s” name gives a reporter his first indication of the extent of the Vatican’s interest.

For instance, up until his resignation in the spring of 1968 from his post as special delegate of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City, the name of Count Enrico Galeazzi (who also resigned his offices as Director General of Technical Services and Director General of the Economic Services of Vatican City) appeared on many lists of directors. Wherever it did, it indicated to observers that he was serving within that company as a watchdog of Vatican interests. Count Galeazzi, however, continues his service within Vatican City by holding the office of architect of the Sacred Apostolic Palaces and regular architect of St. Peter’s and as a member of the Commission for the Preservation of Historical and Artistic Monuments of the Holy See. In March 1968, Galeazzi became Director General of the Societa Generate Immobiliare, the Vatican-owned construction company [which is discussed at length in Chapter VII], after having been its vice president since 1952. At this writing Count Galeazzi’s name still appears on the boards of a few other companies in Italy.

Galeazzi, who was a close friend of Cardinal Spellman, owes most of his enviable Vatican career to the late New York Archbishop whom he met while the latter was stationed in Rome. It was through Cardinal Spellman, who selected him as the representative of the Knights of Columbus in Rome, that Galeazzi met Pope Pius when he was still Cardinal Pacelli and Secretary of State. By profession an engineer, Galeazzi became a trusted friend of Cardinal Pacelli, and the two went on various Vatican missions together—Buenos Aires in 1934, Lourdes in 1935, Paris and Budapest several years later, and New York and Washington shortly before Pacelli assumed the papal chair.

Under Pope Pius, Galeazzi became the acting governor of Vatican City, an office he retained until early 1968. Pope Pius also awarded him the jobs of Director General of Economic Services and of Keeper of the Sacred Fabric of St. Peter, which office made him responsible for the maintenance of Church property. Because of his fluent English, Galeazzi was often asked by Spellman to entertain his American businessmen friends in Rome; among the men Galeazzi entertained was Joseph Kennedy of Boston, father of the late President of the United States. Since Galeazzi was very close to the Pope, he could and often did help Spellman to get papal appointments. In view of the fact that Spellman made about three trips a year to Vatican City and always had a personal audience with the Pope (several times he was invited to tea, an exceedingly rare honor), the Galeazzi-Spellman friendship had no small effect on Vatican history in the postwar period. Some Romans who admire Count Enrico Galeazzi for his thoroughly dignified manner irreverently refer to him as “the Vatican’s only lay Pope in history.” That his name, therefore, is linked with Vatican business interests in Italy is not surprising.

Nor is it surprising that Pacelli is another “Vatican name.” Should any one of the three Pacelli princes, all related to Pope Pius XII, appear in the corporate line-up of a company, it would be safe to assume the Vatican holds more than a minimum interest. Starting with the Societa Generale Immobiliare, of which Count Galeazzi is now a general director and a member of the executive committee, Prince Carlo Pacelli’s name appears on almost as many corporation listings as Galeazzi’s. Prince Giulio Pacelli is on the board of Italgas, a company that has the concession to supply gas for thirty-six Italian cities, while Prince Marcantonio Pacelli is not only a member of the board of the Societa Generale Immobiliare but is also prominently listed with the boards of many other companies.

Other Vatican names, powers to a lesser or greater degree in papal business affairs, are those of Luigi Gedda (a former president of Catholic Action), Count Paolo Blumensthil (a Secret Chamberlain of the Sword and Cloak), Carlo Pesenti (Director General of the Italcementi cement company and head of the Vatican’s newly formed bank group called the Istituto Bancario Italiano), Antonio Rinaldi (vice secretary of the Apostolic Chamber and president of a private finance company called Istituto Centrale Finanziaro), Luigi Mennini (holder of six important Vatican posts), and Massimo Spada (a lawyer and former administrative secretary of the now abolished Institute for Religious Works).

Not long ago, a formal study of the Vatican’s business efficiency was undertaken by American Management Audit, an organization that has investigated the management of many businesses throughout the world. The Vatican scored exceedingly well, receiving what amounted to “straight-A” grades: 650 points out of a maximum of 700 for operating efficiency, 2,000 out of a possible 2,100 for effectiveness of leadership, and 700 out of a possible 800 for fiscal policy. Compared with those of other businesses examined, these were impressive ratings indeed. Management Audit indicated that the Vatican could teach other businesses quite a few lessons—not the least of which was that of avoiding the error of displaying “too much obvious zeal once a position of influence has been attained.”

Indeed, the Vatican’s efficient way of handling its business could serve as a model. Perhaps this is because of the influence of Nogara, whose shadow, a decade after his death, still looms over the financial brain trust of the present-day successor to Peter.

In a press interview shortly before his death, Cardinal Tardini dismissed reports on the extent of the Vatican’s holdings. He said (as we noted earlier in this chapter) that rumors about the Vatican’s wealth were exaggerated. Cardinal Tardini, who was well known to the Roman citizenry as “the priest with no fur on his tongue,” then told the assembled newspapermen that in his opinion Nogara’s decision to invest most of the Vatican’s indemnity from the Lateran Treaty in Italy instead of in other countries was regrettable.

“We thought we were helping Italy,” His Eminence declared. “But instead we have been forever accused of trying to take over the Italian business world.”