Amen ^-&-^ They were translated into the Latin of Western Christianity (largely due to the writings of John Cassian), thus becoming part of the Western tradition's spiritual pietas (or Catholic devotions), Gula (gluttony) Fornicatio (fornication, lust) Avaritia (avarice/greed) Superbia (hubris, pride) Tristitia (sorrow/despair/despondency) Ira (wrath) Vanagloria (vainglory) Acedia (sloth) <---> Trying to buy fake securities from a Mafia-linked counterfeit ring In 1973, the U.S Justice Department began looking into a potential role the Vatican Bank played in a counterfeit and stolen securities operation. According to an 18-month FBI investigation, New York mobsters were planning to sell counterfeit corporate bonds and stock certificates to the Vatican, a $900 million payment in five installments over several months. A Vatican cardinal planned to use the faked securities as collateral in order to obtain financing. The counterfeit bonds would be undetectable unless the Vatican Bank lost money on its investments and was unable to pay back the loans, at which point the Vatican could claim ignorance of an outside scam. When confronted with the accusation in a secret meeting in New York, representatives of the Vatican refused to answer any questions. The then-president of the Vatican Bank, Paul Marcinkus, denied any wrongdoing. The investigation could not come up with enough information to charge Marcinkus or anyone in the Vatican. The most infamous of the bank’s scandals involved the mysterious 1982 death of Roberto Calvi, who was found hanged beneath London’s Blackfriars Bridge, his clothes stuffed with bricks. Calvi was chairman of Milan’s Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed that year. The Vatican Bank, which was Ambrosiano’s largest shareholder and had vouched for many of Calvi’s suspect investments, ended up paying out $244 million to settle claims from Ambrosiano’s creditors. Italian prosecutors concluded in 1997 that the Sicilian Mafia probably killed Calvi, although no one has been convicted of his murder. As distant as the Ambrosiano affair is, John Allen Jr., editor of the Catholic website Crux, says the rallying cry at the March 2013 conclave that elected Francis was, “No more Calvis.” It didn’t take long for the pope to be handed a mini-Calvi moment of his own. On June 28, Italian authorities arrested a priest, a suspended member of Italy’s secret service, and a stockbroker; prosecutors allege the men had attempted to smuggle €20 million ($21 million) in undeclared cash into Italy from Switzerland aboard a private plane. The priest was Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, formerly the chief accountant for the department that manages the Vatican’s real estate and investment portfolios. Among his colleagues at the Vatican, Scarano had earned the nickname “Monsignor Cinquecento” because of his fondness for carrying around €500 notes.