The Vatican at War

When Pope Benedict’s butler began leaking secret Vatican documents to an Italian journalist he was motivated by a desire to save the Catholic church from what he saw as a mounting tide of corruption. Among the issues he felt should be brought to the attention of the pope and the public were the roles of freemasonry and the secret services in Vatican affairs, and the mysterious disappearance of a Vatican schoolgirl, Emanuela Orlandi. The Orlandi affair ties the present travails of the papacy to the Banco Ambrosiano scandal and the death in London of its chairman, Roberto Calvi. The banker found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge was caught in a web of Cold War intrigue, from which the Vatican is still trying to extricate itself. Now updated and expanded, this book was first published as ‘The Last Supper: The Mafia, the Masons and the Killing of Roberto Calvi’.

Puppetmasters

The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy

Philip P. Willan

Constable (London, 1991)
ISBN 0 09 470590 9

Puppetmasters reveals how US intelligence services exploited the P2 masonic lodge to prop up friendly Christian Democrat-dominated governments and counter the growing political influence of the Italian Communist Party. It was a ruthless strategy involving coup plots, right wing terrorist bombings and the manipulation of the Red Brigades. And gave Italy one of the bloodiest and most protracted periods of terrorist violence ever seen in a modern, industrialised society.

The Last Supper

The death of Roberto 'God's Banker' Calvi, found hanging from scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge days before his bank’s collapse, lies at the centre of one of the most extraordinary criminal puzzles of all time. Straight from the dark heart of Italy, the story involves the largest bankruptcy in European history, complex forensics, and secret masonic rituals, with a cast of characters to put The Da Vinci Code to shame – including Opus Dei, the mafia, the Vatican and the governments of Italy, the USA and the UK.

L'italia dei Poteri Occulti

Questo libro riapre il caso Calvi a un quarto di secolo dagli eventi. Mettendo i fatti nel loro contesto storico, l’autore inglese Philip Willan offre una nuova chiave di comprensione della morte misteriosa a Londra dell’uomo conosciuto come il “banchiere di Dio”. Era un’epoca di conflitto sordo e sotterraneo tra il comunismo dell’Est e il capitalismo spregiudicato dell’Occidente. Il Vaticano, e il papa polacco Giovanni Paolo II, si trovavano a un punto di snodo tra le due superpotenze, come anche Roberto Calvi, che rappresentava gli interessi economici della Chiesa e finì stritolato tra i due blocchi contrapposti. Willan ricostruisce la complessa vicenda attraverso interviste con i protagonisti, documenti inediti, un attento studio delle carte processuali, e in base alle udienze del processo per omicidio della corte d’assise di Roma. E' stato l’unico giornalista a seguire il processo dall’inizio alla fine.