The Pulse: The papal connection

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, INQUIRER COLUMNIST
POSTED: Sunday, February 1, 2015

Pope John Paul II had Doylestown on his mind when, just two months into his papacy, he summoned the head of the Vatican Bank to the Apostolic Palace for a private chat. The pope had decided to bail out the Pauline Fathers, the religious order that ran Our Lady of Czestochowa, the shrine in Bucks County, and that was then enmeshed in a financial scandal.

That nugget is buried in a new, more-than-700-page book called God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican, the result of a nine-year investigation by Gerald Posner, perhaps best known for having written Case Closed, about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Gannett News Service reported the financial improprieties from Czestochowa on the front pages of many of the chain’s 80 newspapers one month before John Paul’s Oct. 16, 1978, election, coverage that would both win a Pulitzer Prize and draw an unsuccessful lawsuit from the Pauline Fathers. Gannett reported: “Vatican documents show that in less than a decade, the order squandered a substantial portion of $20 million in charitable donations, loans, investments, and bond proceeds through mismanagement, dubious business practices, and what Vatican investigators described as ‘chaotic’ and ‘immoral’ lifestyles.”

Among the highlights: $250,000 in donations was received for Masses that were never offered; more than $400,000 solicited for memorials was spent without plaques having been erected; and automobiles and gasoline credit cards were given to the monks despite their vows of poverty. It was reportedly left to Cardinal John Krol, head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, to clean up the mess by raising millions to resolve outstanding debt.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.