Vatican Conspiracies

12 min readOct 22, 2024

The smallest country in the world has been involved in its fair share of international controversies such as aiding the Nazis, Operation Gladio, and large-scale child sexual abuse. But did you know that the Vatican Bank was run by known mafiosi, including the Masonic lodge “Propaganda Due” (P2), with the help of Pope Paul VI and other highly corrupt Church officials?

Mouth of the Snake

The stage at the Paul VI Audience Hall. Notice the eyes and **obvious 2 sharp fangs**. These photos were not taken with “fish-eye” lenses (popular fake “debunking” claim). This is how it actually looks from the middle pathway towards the stage.

Also note the lack of crosses or other traditional Catholic symbols in the building.

The building itself is in the shape of a snake’s head. A wavy-trapezoidal shape. While the official reason is that it has a “folded” look for acoustics, it does not excuse the eyes and fangs. Also the building could’ve been designed in a different folded shape.

In the Bible, the snake (Genesis 3) is most popularly attributed to evil and Satan, the deceiver. So why would the foremost authority in Catholicism commission the design of its auditorium to look like a snake? The church has never officially issued a statement on it, but considering the historical corruption in its hierarchy, it is likely they are mocking their followers by making an indirect statement on what their organization really is. [1]

After all, what do you expect from one of the largest organized pedophile networks in the world? Around 330,000 children were abused by priests and other official clergy members in the past 70 years, in France alone. And those were only the reported cases. [3]

The Pope the hall is named after, Paul VI, was one of the most historically corrupt men in the Vatican. He entangled the Church with mobsters, and the terrorist Masonic P2 Lodge. [3][4][16]

Fascists in the Vatican

In 1963, the project was commission by Pope Paul VI, and designed by architect and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. Although parents were Catholic, he never publicly expressed any religious beliefs. It is likely Catholic beliefs didn’t have much significance to Nervi. [5]

Nervi was a working member of Mussolini’s Fascist party, under the National Union of Engineers. He never publicly denounced Fascist Italy or the Nazis, but his friends provided him with good post-WW2 press. [6]

Among those in bed with Fascists in WW2, were Nervi’s clients, the Vatican. When Mussolini’s Atheist government came into power, he separated the church from the state, but eventually both him and the Vatican agreed on their goal to build a totalitarian one-world-government, so he made Catholicism the state religion and persecuted dissidents. The Vatican also became its own sovereign state. [7]

To the Fascists in the Vatican such as Pope Pius XI, Catholicism was a tool for political power, not faith. And a few decades later, one of Italy’s celebrated Fascist architects would be designing a snake-shaped monument in the holy city. [7]

Fascism has always had a close relationship with the occult that is often downplayed by mainstream western history. Mussolini’s party concocted “Fascist Mysticism”, which was a way to connect spirituality with extreme-right wing political ideology and was taught to people in his party. [8][9]

Notebook published by Italy’s School of Fascist Mysticism. To quote Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism: ”The Fascist State , as a higher and more powerful expression of personality, is a force, but a spiritual one”.

Pope Paul VI, who commissioned the project, later on became known as one of the various Popes who was aware of child sexual abuse within the clergy, but did absolutely nothing to stop it. He would not even kick out the offending clergymen. And as you’ll see later, he personally did business with Mafia figures during his reign. Despite this the man was eventually canonized to sainthood. [11][13]

According to documents, before becoming Pope, the so-called “saint” Paul VI aided an army of ex-Nazi mercenaries who operated in Africa. He was also part of the Vatican officials who funded, housed, and gave safe passage to Nazis evading capture. [16]

During his reign, he was criticized by Traditionalists for allowing a number of controversial liturgical changes to modernize the church. [12][13]

Jesus Rising from a Nuclear Hell

The designer Pericle Fazzini, was also associated with the Italian Fascist party, and produced works associated with the ideology. Because not much can be found about his political views, it is safe to say that he didn’t publicly denounce his associations. [15]

While the statue does look creepy, it seems to have been more of a product of the Cold War. At the time of Pope John XXIII and beyond, the Church publicly spoke out against nuclear war. [14]

The Vatican Mafia

This now takes us to the Vatican’s scandal with the Italian Mafia, the Masons, and the CIA. [17]

Back to Pope Paul VI, whose serpent-headed audience hall was named after. He hired Michele Sindona, a banker for the Sicilian Mafia to “manage the Vatican’s immense financial portfolio”. Sindona was described by his criminal colleagues as a “snake charmer” due to his talent for networking with politicians and other criminals, including CIA operatives. [17] [18]

Another criminal, Bishop Paul Marcinkus, was appointed by Paul VI to head the Vatican Bank. Marcinkus supervised the illegal transfers of Vatican funds overseas. [17][18]

(Left to right) Bishop Marcinkus, Pope Paul VI, and Sicilian gangster Michele Sindona

Over the years the group used Sindona’s underworld connections to cultivate business relations with the powerful Masonic lodge P2. Their leader Licio Gelli met with Paul VI and befriended various Vatican officials. Another Freemason and chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi, helped the Vatican Bank turn into Banco Ambrosiano’s main shareholder. The Vatican Bank was useful in that it was not regulated like Italy’s banks, and was immune to outside intrusion like an off-shore bank, allowing them to move huge amounts of money throughout the international market. Other phony banks were propped up by P2 to facilitate their shady business. [17][19]

P2 Lodge Freemason Roberto Calvi, aka “God’s Banker”

Together the group laundered money, and siphoned cash out of many Vatican Incorporated accounts into their coffers. But their problems started when they engaged in risky loans and investments into third parties. A loss of $1.3 billion was reported by Banco Ambrosiano, triggering an investigation and scandal. [17]

The banks were also used to funnel money into various illegal CIA/NATO operations such as the arming of Contra rebels, the drug trade, funding the Greek Junta dictators, and financing false flags carried out through Operation Gladio in Europe. [17][18][19][21]

Pope Paul VI died in 1978 from a heart attack as scandals began to emerge about the Vatican Bank’s corruption. Surprisingly, Vatican officials elected the “straight arrow” Pope John Paul I to weed out the corruption his predecessor Paul VI had hired in. John Paul I seemed serious and soon after began an internal investigation. [17][20]

John Paul I told his Secretary of State Cardinal Villot to investigate the Vatican’s finances and look into everything and everyone involved. According to investigator David Yallop, among the results of the investigation were the names of around 121 members of the clergy who were alleged to be part of Masonic lodges, including his own Secretary of State Cardinal Villot. [17]

John Paul I made his decisions on how to deal with the crooks, such as the removal of Bishop Marcinkus, then the head of the Vatican Bank, and cutting off the Vatican’s links with Banco Ambrosiano and P2. [17]

The Assassination of Pope John Paul I

John Paul I only reigned for 33 days, a rather incriminating number to the Freemasons involved as 33 is a number of major significance to them. [17][26]

There’s 2 main narratives of the Pope’s death. The official narrative told by the Vatican is that he went to bed at 9:20pm, died of a heart attack at 11pm, and was discovered by his secretary Father John Magee. The Pope was found dead sitting up on his bed and smiling while holding a copy of the book “Imitation of Christ”. However as per forensic pathologists, a person’s facial muscles completely relax upon death, so he couldn’t have been smiling. [22]

The Vatican could not keep their story straight in regards to what the Pope died holding, later claiming it was sermons and not the book. It was also discovered that it wasn’t Magee who found his body, but the nun Sister Vincenza, who brought in his morning coffee. [17][21][22]

The nun says she was told not to talk about what she found because the Vatican wanted to say that it was Magee who found him. She did talk however, and as a result was sent to a nunnery in a failed attempt to make her harder to find. [17]

The second main narrative claims that the Pope’s low-blood pressure medicine was poisoned with Digitalis. He took it at 9:20pm and died at around 4:00am. Sister Vincenza says that she entered the Pope’s bedroom at 4:45am only to find him sitting up on his bed with an expression of pain, not smiling. The documents he was holding were on the investigation into Vatican Corruption, and legitimizing the birth control pill (which his predecessor Pope VI delegitimized). [17][22]

However critics argue that his facial muscles would have relaxed in the poisoned scenario as well. One case where his expression could’ve remained would be if he had been strangulated. But there was no autopsy to confirm anything. [22]

Other criticism is that Digitalis poisoning causes a progressive death, which would have given the Pope time to seek help. But others argue that higher doses can kill in around 15 minutes after a bout of violent vomiting, which nobody seems to have found evidence of. Although there is the chance someone cleaned the place and reposition the body. [17][22][23]

Cardinal Marcinkus by the way, had been spotted inside the Vatican at an unusually early hour the same morning the Pope died. [17]

A dose 5–10mg of Digitalis would have been needed, and his medicine would need to be low enough for him to take most of the poison in instead of the medicine — which is doable. [22]

The main issue with the second narrative, is that there is really no evidence that Digitalis was used instead of any other poison, or different method of murder. Stronger and sneakier poisons could’ve been used, including the CIA’s “heart attack gun”. [23][24]

The Vatican picked up the Signoracci brothers at 5:00am, just 15 minutes after the Pope’s body was found, so they could embalm him. It appears the Vatican was in a rush to get the body embalmed before the idea of an autopsy could come up. Considering his investigation into the Vatican Bank involving known mafiosi, it makes perfect sense to consider homicide. [17][21][23]

When it comes to autopsies and Papal Law things get murky. Some say that they are prohibited, but historically there have been at least 4 Popes who did have autopsies performed on them because they died of “mysterious circumstances”. [23]

Regardless the immediate embalming would have prevented an autopsy from being performed. As per investigator David Yallop, the Vatican asked for no blood to be drained or organs removed. Embalming fluids were pumped into the body through the veins. The standard procedure would include the draining of blood, or use of a salt water solution to clear it instead. All of this seem to have been done specifically to prevent an examination of the body, as the blood and organs extracted could be examined. [17][23]

The room was cleaned and the documents the Pope held vanished, hence why the Vatican couldn’t even decided on what he was holding. Here Cardinal Villot is often seen as the one who got rid of the incriminating papers. [17][23]

Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian Pope in centuries.

The successor to John Paul I, was the Polish John Paul II. Which is significant considering the Polish Bishops were directly involved in the illegal schemes of the Vatican Bank. John Paul II also covered up many years of child sexual abuse in the Church, and protected most of the criminal clergy involved in the Vatican Bank scandal. [17]

Fast forward a few years later, and Banco Ambrosiano’s Roberto Calvi was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but soon after he was found hanging in an apparent suicide — or likely homicide. The Masonic lodge he belonged to, P2, was exposed for its involvement in the NATO-funded Gladio false flag operations in Italy. [19][21]

Mafioso Michele Sindona was serving a 25 year sentence in New York for fraud, drug trafficking and murder. He was later extradited back to Italy where he was imprisoned for hiring a hitman, but died after drinking a “potassium cyanide coffee”. [25]

Paul Marcinkus became the governor of the Vatican, and was elevated to the title of Archbishop by the Papal successor John Paul II. Marcinkus moved into the state of Arizona in the US, and died due to “undisclosed causes” in his 80's.[27]

The CIA’s role is usually ignored despite being directly involved with the P2 lodge and the Vatican Bank. The Pope’s personal physician, Dr. Renata Buzonetti, who said the Pope was healthy before his supposed heart attack, was a CIA asset. After the Pope’s death, the CIA fabricated the story that the KGB poisoned him, with the purpose of anti-Russian propaganda and as a fake “conspiracy theory” to misdirect investigators. [28]

When the successor John Paul II became Pope, the CIA began intercepting his calls and bugged “devices in the Secretariat of State, the Vatican bank, and the Apostolic palace, where the Pope actually lived and worked”. [28]

In recent years Anthony Raimondi made claims that him and fellow conspirators murdered John Paul I with cyanide, because he was going to expose stock fraud by Vatican insiders.

“The billion-dollar scam involved a forgery expert at the Vatican who faked the church’s holdings in blue-chip American companies such as IBM, Sunoco and Coca-Cola. Mobsters then allegedly sold the phony stock certificates to unsuspecting buyers”. [29]

Raimondi, a Colombo gangster, is also the nephew of Lucky Luciano, and cousin to Bishop Marcinkus. He says his role was to surveil the Pope’s habits, and keep watch while Marcinkus spiked the Pope’s cup of tea with Valium. [29]

Marcinkus then measured a dose of cyanide in a dropper, and “put the dropper in the pope’s mouth and squeezed”, “when it was done, he closed the door behind him and walked away”. [29]

Raimondi also claims that John Paul II was also going after the scammers in the Vatican, and they were planning on killing him too, but the Pope changed his mind. [29]

Whether Raimondi is telling the truth or not is debatable as he is known for making tall claims. But it is interesting that his cousin was Bishop Marcinkus, which makes his story at least plausible. [29]