"Murky" financial dealings of Vatican Bank haunt JP2 beatification process

John Paul's sainthood opposed

John Hooper in Rome
Thursday December 8, 2005
The Guardian


SNIP:
Other allegations levelled against the late pope were .............his failure to end "murky" financial dealings with the Vatican bank and Banco Ambrosiano, which went bankrupt in 1982.
ENDSNIP
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A group of prominent Roman Catholic theologians and writers has revealed it is trying to stop the late pope John Paul II being declared a saint. In a document being circulated in Rome, they say the Vatican should take account of decisions reached by the Polish pontiff "that ought to be an obstacle to beatification".

Following emotional scenes at the late pope's funeral, his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, set him on a fast track to beatification - the first step towards sainthood - last June. Normally, the procedures cannot begin until five years after death.

The late pontiff's critics list a series of reasons why he should not be canonised. They include John Paul's failure to check "the devastating plague of abuse by clerics of minor".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,12272,1661740,00.html

BTW, did you hear that Calvi's murder investigation was re-opened in 2003, and two people indicted for conspiracy to murder him?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3304541.stm

I haven't heard anything since then, however, other than that his son wanted a third inquest into the matter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2537853.stm

...should bar him from any sort of 'Sainthood' in my eyes. Then again, I am not a Catholic, and if I were I'd likely would have left the Church.

GOD'S BANKER" MURDER TRIAL BEGINS: COULD EXPOSE VATICAN FINANCIAL SCHEMES, RAISE QUESTIONS OVER DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY, RECOGNITION

From: AMERICAN ATHEISTS INC

Trial has begun in Rome, Italy over the 1982 murder of Roberto Calvi, the man dubbed "God's Banker" who had close ties to the Vatican, global financial institutions, organized crime and a shadowy neo-fascist movement.

Calvi was found hanging with his hands tied behind his back under Blackfriar's Bridge in London on June 18, 1982 Bricks and thousands in British Pound currency were stuffed in his pockets.

Investigators originally ruled the death a suicide, but in 1998 an Italian judge ordered the exhumation of Calvi's body for a new autopsy and a subsequent probe into the incident. Authorities began a new investigation in 2002 after medical experts revealed that Calvi had in fact been strangled near the bridge and then hung from it. Several defendants, including a convicted mobster were indicted, and went on trial last month.

Legal proceedings will resume on November 28.

While the case has remained a sensation on the continent even after more than two decades, news coverage of the trial by American media has been sketchy. Many of the personalities, events and details in the Calvi story involve Europe. But it is the recurrent "Vatican connection" through a Chicago archbishop, Calvi's indirect ties to the collapse of a major New York financial institution, and the peculiar relationship between the Holy See and the U.S. government which provides a distinct American flavor to the mysterious case.
www.atheists.org/flash.line/calvi5.htm