directed against the Church; (2) there would be no new law on this matter, pending the revision of the Canon Law including Canon 2335, (3) all penal canons must be interpreted strictly, and (4) the express prohibition against Masonic membership by clerics, religious and members of secular institutes was to remain in force.’
“Many well-intentioned priests interpreted this letter…as allowing lay Catholics to become Masons if the local bishop found that the lodge in question was not actively plotting against the Catholic Church or the civil authorities. Since Canon 2335 was in force at that time, and remained in force until 1983, they should have realized that even Cardinal Šeper had no authority to allow lay Catholics to become Masons. Cardinal Šeper, on February 17, 1981, attempted to end the confusion with a formal declaration [that said] his original letter did not in any way change the force of the existing Canon 2335, and the stated canonical penalties were in no way abrogated….
“When the new Code came out in 1983, Canon 1374 stated, ‘A person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; one who promotes or takes office in such an association is to be punished with an interdict.’…
“Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and now Pope Benedict XVI, issued his Declaration on Masonic Associations…[that] states ‘the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enrolled in Masonic associations would be in a state of grave sin and could not receive Holy Communion.’”
“The Vatican expected most copies of the Chinon parchment to be purchased by specialized libraries at top universities and by leading medieval scholars. The Livingston Masonic Library in New York may be the only Masonic-affiliated research facility to purchase a copy…. ‘We areaware that this purchase will raise some eyebrows, both within and outside the Masonic fraternity,’ noted Thomas M. Savini, director of the Livingston Masonic Library. ‘But the acquisition of this work coincides with our mission to collect, study and preserve the Masonic heritage. The Masonic heritage includes investigation into Freemasonry’s historical roots, but also the study of its inspirational roots, which include Rosicrucianism; the study of philosophy from the European Enlightenment; and study of the Knights Templar. This collection of documents is important not only to students of Freemasonry, but to medieval and religious scholars and historians as well. It is important that someone in the U.S. make this available, and the Library’s Board of Directors unanimously agreed that it should be us.’”
CHAPTER 3
Vatican Treasures
Standing on the left bank of the Tiber River in Rome, adjacent to the ancient Circus of Nero, where tradition holds that “St. Peter, the first pope and the apostle to whom Christ entrusted his ministry, was martyred in A.D. 67. The seat of the Holy See and the pope’s principal place of residence, it is the smallest independent state in the world.” But is it the richest?
“In A.D. 320–27, the emperor Constantine built a five-aisled basilica” on what is believed to be the site of St. Peter’s grave, “with a shrine in the apse of the church to mark the location of Peter’s tomb. By the fifteenth century, the building was in disrepair and more space was needed, and plans were made to repair and expand the church.” In the reign of Pope Julius II (1503–13), known as the Warrior Pope because he “donned armor to lead troops in defense of papal lands,” work was commenced on a tomb for Julius, an enormous freestanding monument designed by Michelangelo. Julius then decided to tear down the Constantinian basilica and rebuild St. Peter’s entirely.
“At the same time, Julius commissioned frescoes for the interior of the Vatican palace. He asked Raphael to paint four rooms for use as papal offices and reception spaces.” While Raphael worked, Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the papal chapel known as the Cappella Sistina, or Sistine Chapel (1508–12). “Michelangelo painted the vault with scenes from the book of Genesis: the Creation of the world and of Adam and Eve, the Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and God’s destruction of the world by the flood….
“In 1546, Michelangelo, now seventy-one years old, was named the architect of St. Peter’s and dismantled some construction” and began work on “the first great dome to be raised on a colonnade. Designed by Michelangelo, but not completed until after his death, it crowns the church.”
The geographical center of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican possesses many of the world’s most precious works of art, and it is believed by many to be the world’s wealthiest organization.
In a book on Vatican treasures, The Vatican Billions, Avro Manhattan noted, “The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars.”
According to the author, the Holy See maintained large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, the Hambros Bank, and Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States, it has holdings with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. Among its investments are billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations. such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, General Electric, IBM, and others. A conservative estimate set the amount of investments at more than $500 million in the United States alone.
In a recent statement published in connection with a bond prospectus, the Boston archdiocese listed its assets at $635,891,004, which was 9.9 times its liabilities. This left a net worth of $571,704,953. “It is not difficult to discover the truly astonishing wealth of the church,” said Manhattan, “once we add the riches of the twenty-eight archdioceses and 122 dioceses of the U.S.A., some of which are even wealthier than that of Boston. Some idea of the real estate and other forms of wealth controlled by the Catholic Church may be gathered by the remark of a member of the New York Catholic Conference, that his church ‘probably ranks second only to the United States government in total annual purchase.’”
These statistics indicated that the Roman Catholic Church, once all its assets have been calculated, was the most formidable stockbroker in the world. The Holy See, independently of each successive pope, was increasingly orientated toward the United States. An article in The Wall Street Journal said that the Vatican’s financial deals in the United States alone were so big that very often it sold or bought gold in lots of a million or more dollars at one time.
The Vatican’s treasure of solid gold had been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this was stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in Switzerland and England held the rest. The wealth of the Vatican in the United States alone was greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country.
But in 1987, Fortune magazine reported, “For all its splendor, the Vatican is nearly broke.” The article noted, “Having survived barbarian invasions, persecutions, countless plagues, and occasional schisms, the papacy now faces a modern-day problem: a deep financial squeeze. The costs of the Vatican’s growing bureaucracy far exceed its means.”
In the previous year, the Holy See took in $57.3 million from sources as diverse as fees for ceremonies; income from publications, newspaper ads, and the sale of videocassettes; and modest investment earnings of $18 million. With investments of some $500 million, the Vatican commanded fewer financial resources than many U.S. universities.
In the spring of 2008, the Vatican reported that its accountants had recorded a loss in its annual accounts for the first time in four years. The report said the Holy See lost nearly ten million euros after investing in dollars before the U.S. currency fell sharply against the euro. “And the hole in the budget would have been even worse,” said one source, “if the Church had