What do the two men who will be canonized together next April 27 have in common? First of all, they have both been Popes — saintly Popes. They profoundly lived out their priestly spirituality, as their episcopal mottos show. John XXIII had chosen «Oboedientia et Pax» (Obedience and Peace); John Paul II «Totus tuus», an affirmation of our placing of trust in the Virgin Mary.

Their life stories are different. John Paul II had lost his mother before his first communion and his father at the age of 21, and lived his priestly vocation as a parish priest and then a bishop in Poland. John XXIII was raised in a large family, and was sent by the Holy See to Bulgaria, Turkey and France as pontifical legate and apostolic nuncio. His diplomatic work forged the faith and vision of the Church. A Church that is inclusive, ecumenical and in dialogue with the world. The homily at the Pentecost Mass in Turkey in 1944, his last there before leaving for France, is a vivid example of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli’s thought. He said that Christians in all confessional groups loved to make a distinction between themselves and those who do not profess their faith, be they «the orthodox, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, believers and non-believers.» But – he went on – even if «diversity in races, language, education, or the painful differences of a sad past keep us at a distance from each other, under the light of the Gospel we see that Christ has come to tear down walls; he died to proclaim our universal fraternity; the center of this teaching is the love that links every man to him as the first of brothers, and that links him and us to the father.»

Tear down walls: These words are the marching orders that, more than anything else, bind together the two saintly popes. The ecumenical effort was vigorously pushed forward by John Paul II, who going beyond diplomacy embraced prophetical gestures in dealing with the politics of religions. When he went to Greece in 2001, the first pope going there in 1291 years, he listened calmly to a list of accusations (13 offences) levied against the Catholic Church by the Greek Orthodox. Then, he apologized for errors that had been made. Finally, during a historical meeting at the Areopagus, he affirmed with Archbishop Christodoulos their common commitment to defend the Christian roots of Europe. After that, he broke the taboo of orthodox and Catholics praying together, reciting the “Our Father” with the Greek archbishop.

John XXIII had already begun to tear down the invisible wall of the Iron Curtain when the Soviet Union experienced its first cracks.  In 1961, the then Secretary of the Russian Communist Party Nikita Krushchev made a first move to establish communications with the Pope, sending a best wishes message to John XXIII for his 80th birthday. John XXIII responded, and a channel of informal contacts was thus opened. When the Cuba missile crisis broke out in 1962, John XXIII was the only moral authority recognized by the two opposing sides. The Pope’s public remarks – which he rewrote almost in their entirety – in the midst of the crisis were even published in the Pravda newspaper, the Communist mouthpiece. The missile crisis was thus overcome.

The outcome of that initiative convinced John XXIII to write an encyclical, the “Pacem in Terris”. The encyclical – built on truth, justice, freedom and love as its four pillars – was John XXIII’s utopian goal, and is still current today. John XXIII wanted the encyclical to be written in an innovative way. The encyclical has as its basis the sign of the times, men’s longing for dignity, freedom and peace. From this perspective, the whole of human aspirations are read in the light of the Gospel, and efforts for their realization constitute the pursuit of that integral humanism which would become Paul VI’s marching orders.

For the first time, an encyclical had not its basis in Revelation, but in the signs of the times. This inductive method was then applied in the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution “Gaudium et Spes”.

The aura of “Pacem in terris” also captivates a young bishop taking part in the Second Vatican Council, Karol Wojtyla. He had experienced Nazism and Communism, two forms of totalitarianism that had shaken Europe. His opposition to all forms of totalitarianism led to a particularly strong stance against communist regimes. He opposed them not through direct protests or a frontal attack. Instead, he nurtured young people, educating them on what is freedom and human dignity. It’s humanism saving the world.

Wojtylas was one of the most active drafters of the conciliar document “Dignitatis humanae”.  The document was an incredibly valuable tool for all the bishops on the other side of the Iron Curtain, who took inspiration from it to form a silent opposition. Wojtyla linked the defense of human dignity to the notion of Nation, which he leveraged in contrast to the notion of State.

In the meantime, the so-called Vatican Ostpolitk had begun. Agostino Casaroli is sent to countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain by John XXIII first, and later by Paul VI. He initiates a difficult dialogue, a ‘step by step’ policy which Casaroli defines “the martyrdom of patience.” He builds relations that succeed in substantially alleviating the conditions of Christians in Communist-ruled countries.

Once elected Pope, John Paul II chooses Casaroli as Secretary of State. The Pope’s strong stance on freedom and human dignity stirs the aspirations of those living in countries of the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, the diplomacy of Cardinal Casaroli maintains relations with communist countries active, affording the Pope’s position some protective coverage. 

In the meantime, Paul Poupard, who served in the Secretariat of State under John XXIII and Paul II, is appointed by John Paul II to lead the Secretariat for non-believers, and in that capacity he starts a cultural dialogue with philosophers and intellectuals of the countries beyond the Iron Curtain.

On one side, John Paul II’s stances. On the other, Casaroli’s diplomacy. In the background, a behind-the-scene cultural dialogue. This is how another wall is torn down, the Berlin Wall. The images of the fall of the Wall represent the fall of European communism, and a triumph for Catholics.

Had there not been a John XXIII, none of this would have been possible. The “shepherd Pope” John XXIII was in fact a fine diplomat. From his pontificate on, the influence of the Holy See in the international arena has increased considerably.

John Paul II embraced this legacy. He challenged the United Nations more often, speaking about religious freedom at the UN Headquarters in New York and also criticizing the gender ideology and the notion of reproductive health of the Cairo and Beijing conferences during the nineties. Meanwhile, Vatican diplomats, with skill and finesse, managed to insert the notion of integral human development, like a sort of “positive virus”, in international documents. For example, in a UN document issued in 1985.

Ultimately, John XXIII and John Paul II followed the same method, comprised of dialogue with the world and action. John Paul II, recounting in an off-the-cuff remark how the idea of World Youth Day came up, showed how this method is carried out: «It was 1984, and a big friend of us, the United Nations, established a Year for the Youth. They made announcements, they made plans.  We did it!»

This spontaneity tears down walls. John XXIII opened a window into the Second Vatican Council by opening out the window of the Apostolic Palace on October 11, 1963, and pronouncing his famous sermon of the moon, asking people to “caress their kids.” John Paul II opened a window into what to expect from his pontificate in the Mass beginning his Petrine ministry: «Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development open. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “what is in man”. He alone knows it.»

All too often, the mere mentioning of Vatican finances immediately prompts the depiction of mysterious scenarios and obscure arrangements. Recently, an article in the English newspaper The Guardian emphasized that it was funds that the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s gave the Vatican that allowed it to build a financial empire that now includes luxury shops in the heart of London. In reality, it is not quite so. History can help us to better understand Vatican finances reason for being. Basically, the Vatican’s financial structure was born with the establishment of Vatican City State, «that piece of land that permits us to fulfill our mission», in Pius XI’s words.

Vatican City State was born as the reparation for a wrongdoing. In 1870, the Bersaglieri soldiers of the Italian King Vittorio Emanuele opened a breach in Rome’s city walls, a dozen metres to the west of the Roman gate – known as Porta Pia – and  marched down Via Pia, defeating Pope Pius IX’s troops. The Pope went into exile to Castel Gandolfo, and most of the Holy See’s patrimony was confiscated. It is in that period that Saint Peter’s Pence collection began. It was a spontaneous collection of offers from the faithful, and this allowed the Holy See to cover its bills. The Kingdom of Italy proposal for reparations, the legge delle guarentigie (Law of Guarantees) was a unilateral offer that did not compensate the Holy See for the loss of goods and lands. In addition, many lands belonging to monasteries and parishes were also confiscated, to give the economy of the Kingdom of Italy a respite. Relations between the Holy See and Italy were very tense. With time, this tension subsided. Catholics re-organized, overcame the Papal ban over political participation in the institutions of the Italian Kingdom, and gave birth to a political thought of their own, along the lines of the “new-born” social doctrine, inspired by Pope Leo XIII –who is considered by many one of the greatest philosophers of the last two centuries. Then, the First World War broke out. Pope Benedict XV was committed to peace, and frustrated by how difficult it was for the Holy See to conduct diplomatic relations. At the time, States entertained diplomatic relations with the Holy See through their embassies to Italy. Countries in war with Italy recalled their ambassadors, and so relations between the Holy See and these States in particular became very difficult. Benedict XV was keenly aware of this: a territory and a sovereign State was needed to carry a mission of peace.

When the First World War ended, Giovanni Giolitti was the Italian premier. Benedict XV considered the possibility of a «Conciliation» between the Church and the Italian State. Giolitti was against any such conciliation because he opposed (like some still do today)  recognizing the Holy See’s sovereignty. «If the Vatican – Giolitti said – would ask me to for a fully sovereign territory the size of a postage stamp (and certainly it would ask for something much bigger), I wouldn’t give it to it. » Giolitti’s words are reported in the Conciliation Memoirs of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, still unpublished, and also mentioned by Benny Lay – the dean of the vaticanologists – in his book Finanze Vaticane (Vatican Finances). Giollitti’s attitude moved the Vatican to turn its attention to Benito Mussolini, who – when he was just a member in the Chamber of Deputies – took the position that fascism should not preach or practice anti-clericalism. It was 1921. The following year, Mussolini rose to power.

Conciliation negotiations were long and difficult. One of the challenges was agreeing on financial compensation. Pius XI worked personally on this issue. The Pope aimed to obtain an indemnity of 2 billion liras –which the Italian State could pay in instalments. For the Pope, this amount corresponded (with the addition of interests) to what the Italian State had unilaterally committed to pay after the occupation of Rome, per the Leggi delle Guarentigie. Pius XI settled, in the end, with 1 billion and 750 million liras, part in cash, part in bearer bonds.

What to do with this money? Two months after signing the Lateran Pacts and almost thirty days before their ratification, the Pope reached out to Bernardino Nogare (born in 1870, deceased in 1958). Pius XI asked Nogara to manage the funds from the Financial Convention of the Lateran Pacts. This is the «Mussolini money» The Guardian wrote about. This money came, in fact, from the Italian State as compensation for the occupation, and helped the Holy See to carry on its mission.

The Guardian, however, maintains that Mussolini was rewarding the Vatican with a huge amount of money in exchange for support and official recognition of the regime. This money would have been invested in prestigious real estate in London. The real estate belonged to Grolux Investments, a society controlled by the Swiss Profima. The latter could be traced back to the Vatican. In fact Bernardino Nogara was a member of Profima’s board.

Why would any of this be considered breaking news? Bernardino Nogara introduced the Vatican to the holding of stocks. Charged with the Special Section of the Administration of the Apostolic See Patrimony (the so-called Speciale), Nogara bought stocks, making conspicuous and smart investments. Through them, Nogara became a member of the boards of administration of several Italian companies, which enhanced his international prestige. During the Great Depression of ’29, Nogara founded Grolux Investments and the Swiss society Profima, to diversify Holy See investments, particularly by investing in gold and real estate.

The story of the establishment of Grolux is in John Pollard’s book Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican, 1850-1950. In that book, Pollard follows a money trail over three continents. Pollard’s is said to be a book about Popes and their administration of money. But truly, most of the Popes –with Pius XI one of the exceptions– have not paid any attention to administrative matters.  The latter were delegated to a highly select group of ecclesiastics and lay people with financial expertise. They are fascinating protagonists of this story. Just think about Giacomo Antonelli, Cardinal and Pius IX’s Secretary of State, who oversaw the Papal treasury from 1850 to 1876. Antonelli was one of the architects of the first massive reorganization of the budget for the Papal States. The success of his efforts to balance the budget depended on a loan requested and obtained from the Rothschild Banking House. Some could be surprised: did the Church really ask for a loan to a Jewish bank? In fact, this should not come as a surprise, considering that the Church’s relations with the Jewish community are closer than one may think. So close that Federico Cammeo, a Jewish jurist, drafted the Fundamental Law of the new-born Vatican City State after the Conciliation Bernardino Nogara, furthermore, was a top manager of the Banca Commerciale Italiana, managed by the Jewish banker Giuseppe Toepliz (and because of this, for many years the Vatican did not buy stocks in Italian banks other than the Banca Commerciale Italiana).

Nogara could count on the benefits of a renewed diplomatic activity of the Church.  Benedict XV had left the Vatican coffers empty, because the First World War prevented bishops from coming to Rome for ad limina visits and contribute to Peter’s Pence. From 1930 on, Nogara invested in a web of projects extended throughout Europe and financial centres in the United States and South America. He was the first non-roman to be in charge of the Vatican finances. He came from a family so Catholic that it weep because of the breach of Porta Pia. With a degree in industrial and electro-technical engineering from the University of Milan, he left for England as soon as he married and went to work in a mine in Wales. From there he was sent to a mine in Greece. In 1908, he was living in Constantinople and managing mines in Asia Minor. There, he founded the Eastern Commercial Society, a branch of the Banca Commerciale Italiana. Well-versed in the political and economic realities of the Ottoman Empire, he became the Italian government’s trusted advisor for Easter affairs.  In this role, he was involved in the Ouchy Treaty, which ended the war in Libya between Italy and Turkey. In 1914, Nogara was the Italian delegate to the Board of Administration for the Ottoman Public Debt.  At the end of the First World War, he was part of the economic and financial commission of the Conferences created to draft peace treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

Overall, Nogara was comfortable dealing with multiple relations in diverse context – the diplomatic-political context as well as the banking one. He was the right man to manage a estate with such a clear international make-up that Speciale’s staff were required to be fluent in French and English.

In the meantime, the Opere di Religione (Religious Works) administration increased in importance within the Sacred Walls. Italy’s alliance with Hitler’s Germany in the war, in 1940, makes increasing the operational capacity of the Opere di Religione all the more important and urgent. This branch of the Vatican financial system, since the very beginning of the war, was able to exchange Italian liras for hard currencies, which facilitated the Pope’s aid to the victims of the conflict. How to enhance this work? From 1940 on, the administration of Opere di Religione was placed under a Cardinals’ Commission. Through this mechanism, the Pope’s assistance reached occupied Poland, the Balkans, and wherever the Pope and the Secretariat of State needed it to reach.  As the Ossservatore Romano (the Vatican daily newspaper) recently noted in an article heading, «Pius XII fought Nazism even with (money from the Vatican’s) investments.»

Were these operations legal? Carlo Pacelli – Pope Pius XII’s nephew and general advisor of Vatican City State – raised this issue with some Italian jurists, among them Vittorio Emanuele Orlando – a prominent Italian politician, who had been Prime Minister and was also part of the Italian delegation in the negotiations of the Peace Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War. The question was: given that the Opere di Religione operated from the Vatican, were its transactions linked to Vatican City State or could they be considered legally independent? The jurists concluded they could be considered independent. And so, on June 27, 1942, Pius XII promulgated the establishment of the Institute for Religious Works (Istituto per le Opere di Religione, I.O.R.), an entity with its own corporate identity. This permitted the Holy See to deliver the Pope’s aid all over the world, even to Hiroshima and Nagasaki – also thanks to Vatican bank accounts opened in the United States, a request made by Vatican official to the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Harold Tittman and approved by President Roosevelt.

This is how the Holy See’s estate and financial wealth was born and its management evolved. It is a sovereign wealth fund, managed through a sort of Central Bank (APSA; the Administration of the Apostolic See Patrimony) and an entity (the IOR) which assets are at the sovereign’s disposal, while the Prefecture for Economic Affairs oversees over the dicasteries balances and have now power to address Holy See’s financial and economic policy and everything is under the Authority for Financial Information oversight. These financial arrangements have been enhanced and modernized through the years with new agencies and also new ways to report balances. The Holy See is now committed to a qualitative enhancement toward full financial transparency.  Perhaps this development is most worrisome to those who have been reckless in their interactions with Vatican financial institutions, taking advantages of the latter’s peculiarities and of Vatican sovereignty. Ultimately, the Holy See financial scandals were always about Italian bankers (from Michele Sindona, to Roberto Calvi, to Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former IOR president who was recently involved in an Italian bank investigation regarding his role as Italian representative of the Spanish bank Grupo Santander), and in fact relations between Italy and the Holy See have been very tense, seemingly proving a certain level of Italian hostility toward the Holy See’s path to financial transparency. The Holy See has overcome this hostility, embarking on an international standards path, which is the only way to go in a globalized world. This path will eventually make Vatican City State a modern State, with multilateral relations and an internationally recognized financial capacity. This is the only path to make the Holy See independent from any external influence. The question is: who is not comfortable with the Holy See sovereignty?

Benedict XVI landed the last Thursday in a Germany that seems to live a profound crisis of identity. «More than a crisis – Thomas Blanck, student, says – I would talk about a certain indifference of the young people toward public life. The old parties does not answer to the needs of young people. On the other hand, young people is not looking for new parties to come». That is the reason why that PiratPartei, the Pirate Party, gained the 9 per cent to the last local elections in Berlin. Pirate Party is a young party – he was founded in 2006 in Sweden – , that is now structuring itself. «Now it is time to make the work – Sebastian Nerz, leader of the German PiratPartei – people voted us because they felt close to some of our issues. Our program deals with the copyright and way it is brought on – we think it is against human rights, and it suffices to analyze the security laws approved after 9/11 to see it. Seeing it from a wider perspective, we think the State should have less influence on private life of people».

Is the ekectoral growth of Pirat Partei the sign of an always more individualist Berlin? The last big mass movement was the one that brought people to let the Wall fall. «But after the reunification – Thomas Blanck explains – people had also been very disappointed. The Chancellor Helmut Kohl told that the differences between East and West would level within a maximum of ten years. It was not so.». But it is also the life of a Berlin that still look for God, nevertheless the melting pot of cultures. «There is, here in Berlin – Kathy Schulz, a German that lived in Italy, says – the Karneval der Kulturen, the Carnival of Cultures, and during that Carnival nobody feels to be in Germany, but it seems to be in the different countries this multicultural city represents. But, when everything ends, one can still find strong differences between the West and East part of Berlin. In the East, that was ruled by an atheistic regime, there is no believing in God. But they celebrate the Jugendweihe, a civil rite which replace our confirmation».

It is peculiarly felt in Berlin – and it is anyway felt toward all of Germany – the distinction and difference between East and West. Ossi (inhabitant of East Berlin) and Wessi (inhabitant of West Berlin) are still not metaphysical terms for a country that founded great part of its identity of today on the post-Nazi regime. «I will be provocatory – Thomas Blanck says – but I think that it is on Auschwitz that German people build up their collective memory». Nazism is very often quoted in the speech of politician, as to admonish not to let that dark period of the story be back in Germany.

Even Benedict XVI constantly in his speeches constantly referred to the Nazi Regime. The Pope quoted a Saint Augustine’s sentence during the speech he held in Bundestag: «Without justice – what else is the State but a great band of robbers?». And he then explained: «We Germans know from our own experience that these words are no empty spectre. We have seen how power became divorced from right, how power opposed right and crushed it, so that the State became an instrument for destroying right – a highly organized band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss».

It suffices reading the Joseph Ratzinger’s autobiography to understand that he was subjected to, more than lived, the Nazi regime. The young Joseph Ratzinger saw Nazi regime through his father’s critical eye. As a soldier, his father was not able to accept the political arrest of priests, and he helped the one he could. Stil very few people remember that one of the first concentration camps in Germany was the Theresienstadt one in Berlin, where priest, gay, handicapped people and gipsy were imprisoned.

But Benedetict XVI did not forget about the other dictatorship the German People experimented: the Commonism. «Here in Thuringia – Ratzinger said during his homily at the Holy Mass in Erfurt – and in the former German Democratic Republic, you have had to endure first a brown and then a red dictatorship, which acted on the Christian faith like acid rain.  Many late consequences of that period are still having to be worked through, above all in the intellectual and religious fields.  Most people in this country since that time have spent their lives far removed from faith in Christ and from the communion of the Church.  Yet the last two decades have also brought good experiences: a broader horizon, an exchange that reaches beyond borders, a faithful confidence that God does not abandon us and that he leads us along new paths».

Turning back to God is a need for Benedict XVI. He met the representants of Zdk, the Central Committee of German Catholics, and told them about the exposure programmes. Within these programmes, a team of expert goes to a poor country to learn how to concretely help poor people. «Let us imagine – Benedict XVI then said – that an exposure programme of this kind were to take place here in Germany.  Experts from a far country would arrive to spend a week with an average German family.  They would find much to admire here, for example the prosperity, the order and the efficiency.  But looking on with unprejudiced eyes, they would also see plenty of poverty: poverty in human relations and poverty in the religious sphere».

Turning back to God. Benedict XVI – since the beginning of his visit – that he had «come to talk about God». He reasserted it during the meeting with the several religious confessions: he wished the full unity with the orthodoxes, he invited Muslims to Assisi and to bring on an alliance based on the great principle of life, he said to Jewish that «without God, the respect for the man misses». Everybody looked at the meeting with the Evangelic Church of Germany, in a land where Catholics and Lutherans are equivalent in number of faithful. Two years ago, in a sort of unprecedented alliance, Evangelicals and Catholics campaigned signed by signed to gain the victory in a referendum to let the religion remain a teaching subject in school, and not just a facultative subject to learn in the afternoon courses. Actually, there are still theological problems. «I do not foresse a full unity of Evangelicals and Catholics – Jens Schroeter, professor of New Testamentary Theology at Humboldt University in Berlin, says – but I see that there is something moving from the basis communities: there several catholics that are getting closer to Protestants. Theological discussion is obviously still alive, but common people live really more closer than what we can think». Are the Kulturkampf times – the cultural battle against Catholicism brought on by Chancellor Bismarck «for freedom and not to let an interference of religion in public life» – come to an end?

Benedict XVI praises the providentiality of secularizing trends. During the meeting with the Catholics committed in the Church and in the Society, the Pope affirmed that « secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she has set aside her worldly wealth and has once again completely embraced her worldly poverty. In this the Church has shared the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which according to the Old Testament account was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs. At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility».

Is the credibility the answer to the subtle kulturkampf moved not only against Catholic religion, but against all the religions? Benedict XVI spoke severely about the Church of Germany: «Behind the structures, is there also a corresponding spiritual strength, the strength of faith in the living God?  We must honestly admit that we have more than enough by way of structure but not enough by way of Spirit.  I would add: the real crisis facing the Church in the western world is a crisis of faith.  If we do not find a way of genuinely renewing our faith, all structural reform will remain ineffective».

Turning back to God. This is what the Pope underlined also during the important ecumenical celebration with the Evangelical Church of Germany. Everybody was waiting for the revoke of the excommunication of Martin Luther, or at least some opening on the Holy Communion to the mixed couple. Benedict XVI caught everybody off guard.  «Prior to my visit – he said during the ecumenical celebration – there was some talk of an “ecumenical gift” which was expected from such a visit.  There is no need for me to specify the gifts mentioned in this context.  Here I would only say that, in most of its manifestions, this reflects a political misreading of faith and of ecumenism.  In general, when a Head of State visits a friendly country, contacts between the various parties take place beforehand to arrange one or more agreements between the two states: by weighing respective benefits and drawbacks a compromise is reached which in the end appears beneficial for both parties, so that a treaty can then be signed.  But the faith of Christians does not rest on such a weighing of benefits and drawbacks.  A self-made faith is worthless.  Faith is not something we work out intellectually and negotiate between us.  It is the foundation for our lives.  Unity grows not by the weighing of benefits and drawbacks but only by entering ever more deeply into the faith in our thoughts and in our lives». The true gift is turning back to God.