Archbishop Paul Marcinkus (left), the former president of the Vatican Bank, IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione), was at the centre of the most dramatic church-state clash in post-war Italian history. After the 1982 collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano with which IOR had been closely associated, Milan-based investigators issued an arrest warrant for him for complicity in fraud. The Vatican refused to admit legal responsibility for the Ambrosiano downfall but did acknowledge "moral involvement", paying out $241 million to creditors. It refused to hand over Marcinkus to the Italian authorities. He now works in a parish in the US.
Roberto Calvi (left), the man once known as "God's Banker", was found hanging from a rope under Blackfriar's Bridge, London, in 1982. His death prompted both a host of secret service-related conspiracy theories and the collapse of his bank, the Banco Ambrosiano. A one time, Milanese financial whizz-kid, Calvi advised Marcinkus when the latter began transferring IOR's assets outside of Italy, partly to avoid tax liability. Calvi appears to have abused the Vatican Bank's good name, making IOR a de-facto partner in a series of fraudulent banking transactions in the Bahamas and Latin America.
Michele Sindona (left), another financial wizard turned crook, was once indicted in the US on 99 different charges. Sindona, along with Roberto Calvi, was (perhaps unwisely) chosen by Archbishop Marcinkus to advise on IOR's overseas investments. The Vatican lost millions of dollars when Sindona's US bank, the Franklin National, collapsed in 1974. Convicted on murder charges for having ordered the June 1979 killing of Giorgio Ambrosoli, the liquidator of his Banca Privata Italiana, Sindona died in an Italian jail in March 1986 after drinking a poisoned cup of coffee.