Paul Marcinkus was savoring a Havana cigar in his Rome office, while watching the television recap of a round of golf. Just at that moment, while an elegant golfer in a yellow jersey competed in the tournament against the all-powerful Jack Nicklaus, a bitter workday was coming to an end. Only the Masters at Augusta or the British Open could soothe life’s troubles. Although there’s nothing like Wimbledon, of course. he thought

False holiness made the Illinois archbishop sick, and he couldn’t understand certain cardinals’ disgust with life’s pleasures. “Holy rubbish!” was his usual response when some humble priest reminded him that the Church’s elaborate display wasn’t exactly the best model for the world’s faithful. In those cases, even if the observation came from a member of the Curia, Archbishop Marcinkus reminded them of a passage from the Gospels that always disarmed his opponents. “The Son of man, who ate and drank, came, and people said, ‘This is a gluttonous drunkard, friend of sinners and carousers.’ But his deeds bore witness to his wisdom.” Luckily for him, the prelates reproaching him never mentioned the passage where Jesus warned that one could not serve two masters, particularly if one of them was God and the other gold.

“That’s a three-iron,” Marcinkus said, when the RAI commentator didn’t know which club the golfer was using.

Pope Paul VI entrusted him with the directorship of the Vatican’s finances in 1971, when he was only forty-seven. Marcinkus could still remember the ailing pope’s admission, after Vatican Council II, that the coffers of the Holy See were full of cobwebs. It was a divine mission, Marcinkus thought, grinning ironically. The institute for religious works, the IOR, really housed distinct financial organizations that needed updating and renovation.

One of the first modern banking institutions depending on the Holy See was the Banco Ambrosiano, founded by Monsignor Tovini in 1896. That financial entity, as Marcinkus read in various old reports, was intended to “support ethical organizations, beneficial work, and religious groups devoted to charity.”

“Naturally,” the cardinal said out loud, remembering that one of the former Banco Ambrosiano directors had been a nephew of Pope Pius XI. “Charity matters most.”

During the 1960s the Banco Ambrosiano moved its central offices to Luxembourg, a country that worshiped money. “Small countries are such delights: Luxembourg, Monaco, Andorra, the Vatican, the Bahamas.” In Luxembourg, Banco Ambrosiano Holding was formed, with its beneficial work being diversified around the world.

The smile on Marcinkus’s face showed he was thinking of those pleasant sixties, when Michele Sindona, incomprehensibly labeled the Mafia’s banker, began to develop friendly ties with Roberto Calvi. According to the cardinal, Sindona was not a terribly clever man. He had been arrested in the United States, and found guilty of illegal financial activities in Italy. But as for Calvi, Marcinkus could only find him worthy of admiration. Based on that, strong ties developed between the IOR and the Banco Ambrosiano. Marcinkus decided, through a series of high-finance maneuvers, to absorb the Banca Cattolica del Veneto, then headed by an ignorant cleric named Albino Luciani. Marcinkus had to make a superhuman effort to recall his brief, and acrimonious, exchanges with the Venetian patriarch at that time. And, years later, when Luciani was elected pope, Marcinkus assumed the Venetian had his mind set only on revenge. Now he had been able to prove he was right. Luciani had accused a good number in the Curia of moral corruption, and intended to make a clean sweep in the heart of the Church. Fortunately, the P2 was taking care of that at this very moment.

Because of Marcinkus’s efforts, the Church was saved, thanks to his connections with big names in finance, thanks to the pious men who had advised him well. There was nothing wrong with obtaining high profits and, in addition, collaborating in various charitable works.

But Albino Luciani didn’t see it that way. He didn’t understand anything. In all those years, he had learned nothing. And he had threatened to destroy them all.

At that moment, on television, Nicklaus putted for a birdie, and the ball went smoothly into the hole.

“Brilliant! Brilliant!”