Authors: David Yallop
One of the Cardinal’s most notable personal assets was the large number of influential friends he assiduously acquired within the power structure of the Church. His pre-war days in the Roman Curia, working initially in the North American College in Rome and subsequently in the office of the Secretariat of State, reaped rich
dividends in times of need. Cody was from a very early age a man with both eyes to the main chance. Ingratiating himself with Pius XII and the future Paul VI, he established a formidable power base in Rome.
The Vatican’s Chicago connection was by the early 1970s one of its most important links with the USA. The bulk of Vatican Incorporated’s share investment on the US Stock Market was funnelled through Continental Illinois. On the Board of the bank along with David Kennedy, a close friend of Michele Sindona, was the Jesuit priest Raymond C. Baumhart. The large amounts of money that Cody funnelled to Rome became an important factor in Vatican fiscal policy. Cody might not be able to handle his priests, but he undoubtedly knew how to turn his hand to a dollar. When the Bishop controlling the diocese of Reno made some ‘unfortunate investments’ and the finances totally collapsed, the Vatican asked Cody to bail him out. Cody telephoned his banking friends and the money was quickly found.
Over the years the Cody-Marcinkus friendship became particularly close. They had so much in common, so many invested interests. In Chicago, with its very large Polish population unwittingly aiding him, Cody began to divert hundreds of thousand of dollars via Continental Illinois to Marcinkus in the Vatican Bank. Marcinkus would then divert the money to the cardinals in Poland.
The Cardinal took out further insurance by spreading Chicago’s wealth around certain sections of the Roman Curia. When Cody was in town, and he made over one hundred trips to Rome, he distributed expensive presents where they would do him most good. A gold cigarette lighter to this monsignor, a Patek Philippe watch to that bishop.
Complaints continued to flood into Rome and outnumber Cody’s expensive gifts. In the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which acts as the Vatican’s policeman on matters of doctrinal orthodoxy and clerical morality, the pile of letters grew. They came not only from priests and nuns in Chicago, they came from men and women in many walks of life. Archbishop Jean Hamer, OP, in charge of the Congregation, pondered the problem. Moving against a priest is a relatively easy matter. After due investigation, the Congregation would merely lean on the relevant bishop requesting that the priest be removed from the area of contention. Whom do you lean on when the man you want to move is the Cardinal?
The Priests’ Union publicly condemned Cody and stated that he was lying to it. Eventually it passed a vote of censure on him. Despite this Rome remained silent.
By early 1976, Archbishop Hamer was not the only senior member of the Roman Curia who knew the problems that the Chicago connection was causing. Cardinals Benelli and Baggio had independently, and then jointly, decided that Cody must be replaced.
After long consultation with Pope Paul VI a formula was evolved. When Cody made one of his numerous journeys to Rome in the spring of 1976 Benelli offered him a post in the Roman Curia. He would have a wonderful title, but absolutely no power. It was known that Cody was ambitious and believed he had the talent to climb higher than controlling Chicago. What the Cardinal had in mind was to become Pope. It is indicative of Cody’s arrogance, that a man who had caused such mayhem in Chicago could seriously consider his chances of the Papacy. With this ambition in mind, he would have been happy to exchange Chicago for control of one of the Curia Congregations which gave out money to needy dioceses throughout the world. Cody reasoned that he could buy enough bishops’ votes to place himself on the throne of Rome when the opportunity arose. Benelli was aware of this, hence the job offer, but it was not the job Cody was seeking. He declined. Another solution was needed.
In January 1976, a few months before the Benelli/Cody confrontation, a delegation of priests and nuns from Chicago visited Jean Jadot, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington. Jadot had told them that Rome had the situation in hand. As the year progressed without any resolution, the battle in Chicago recommenced. Cody’s public image was by now so appalling that he hired a public relations firm, at the Church’s expense, in an attempt to obtain favourable media coverage.
The irate priests and nuns began to complain again to Jadot in Washington. He counselled patience. ‘Rome will find the solution,’ he promised. ‘You must stop this public attack. Let the issue calm down. Then Rome will handle the problem quietly and discreetly.’
The clergy understood. The public criticism abated, only to be provoked to new heights by Cody himself, when he decided to close a number of inner city schools. Baggio seized this issue in yet another attempt to persuade Pope Paul VI to act decisively. The Pope’s concept of decisiveness was to write a stiff letter to Cody asking for an explanation of the school closures. Cody ignored the letter and boasted openly that he had ignored it.
Back in Chicago, goaded by the Vatican inactivity, more letters were sent to Italy. Among them were new allegations supported by depositions, affidavits and financial records. There was evidence which indicated that Cody’s behaviour in another area left something
to be desired. These allegations concerned his friendship with a woman called Helen Dolan Wilson.
Cody had told his staff in the Chancery that Helen Wilson was a relative. The exact nature of the relationship varied; usually he described her as a cousin. To explain her very stylish mode of life, the fashionable clothes, her frequent travelling, her expensive apartment, the Cardinal let it be known that his cousin had been left very ‘well fixed’ by her late husband. The allegations made to Rome were that Cody and Helen Wilson were not related, that her husband, whom she had divorced long ago, was very much alive at the time Cody had him in the next world, and that further, when the ex-husband did die in May 1969, he left no will and his only worldly goods were an eight-year-old car worth 150 dollars, which went to his second wife.
These allegations, made in the strictest confidence to the Vatican, continued with proof that Cody’s friendship with Helen Wilson had lasted from a very early age, that he had taken out a 100,000 dollar life policy on which he paid the premiums, with Helen Wilson as the beneficiary, that her employment records of work done at the Chicago Chancery had been falsified by Cody to enable her to obtain a larger pension. The pension was based on 24 years’ work for the diocese which was demonstrably false. Evidence was also produced which showed that Cody gave his woman friend 90,000 dollars to enable her to buy a residence in Florida. The Vatican was reminded that Helen Wilson had accompanied Cody to Rome when he was made Cardinal – but then many other people came with Cody. Unlike Helen Wilson, however, they did not have the run of the Chicago Chancery or decide on the furnishings and fabrics for the Cardinal’s residence. It was also alleged that Cody had diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars of Church funds to this woman.
As if this was not enough, the allegations went on to itemize the large amounts of diocesan insurance business put the way of Helen’s son David. David Wilson had first benefited from ‘Uncle’ John’s largesse back in St Louis in 1963. As the Cardinal had moved, so had the insurance business. It was alleged that the commissions David Wilson had earned, by apparently monopolizing Church insurance business which Cody controlled, were in excess of 150,000 dollars.
Baggio carefully studied the long, detailed list. Enquiries were made. The Vatican is unrivalled in the business of espionage: consider how many priests and nuns there are in the world, each one owing allegiance to Rome. The answers came back to Cardinal Baggio, indicating that the allegations were accurate. It was now late June 1978.
In July 1978 Cardinal Baggio again discussed the problem of Cardinal Cody with Pope Paul VI, who eventually accepted that Cody should be replaced. He insisted, however, that it must be done with compassion, in a manner that would enable Cody to retain face. Most important, it must be done in a way that would minimize any possible scandalous publicity. It was agreed that Cody was to be told he must accept a co-adjutor – a bishop who would for all practical purposes run the diocese. Officially it would be announced that this was due to Cody’s failing health, which in reality was not good. Cody would be permitted to stay on as titular Head of Chicago until he reached the retirement age of 75 in 1982.
Armed with the Papal edict, Cardinal Baggio quickly made his travel arrangements, packed his suitcase and departed for Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. Arriving at the airport, he was advised that the Pope wished to speak to him before he flew to Chicago.
Paul had danced yet again, backwards. He told Baggio that the plan for a co-adjutor to strip Cody of power could only proceed if Cody agreed.
Dismayed, Baggio pleaded with the Pope: ‘But Holy Father, can I insist?’
‘No, no, you must not order him. The plan is to go forward only if His Eminence agrees.’
A very angry and frustrated Cardinal Baggio flew to Chicago.
Spy networks are a two-way conduit for information and Cardinal Cody had his own sources within the Roman Curia. The element of surprise that Baggio had hoped would catch Cody off balance, had, unbeknown to Baggio, been lost within a day of his crucial meeting with the Pope. Cody was ready and waiting.
Most men in Cody’s position would subject themselves to a little self-examination, a consideration, perhaps, of events over the years that had led this most sensitive of Popes to the agonizing conclusion that the power Cody wielded must, in the interests of all, be handed to another. Ever considerate of the feelings of the man he wished to replace, the Pope had arranged matters so that Baggio’s stop-over in Chicago would be a secret. Officially he was flying direct to Mexico to finalize arrangements for the Puebla Conference. Such gestures were entirely lost on Cardinal Cody.
The confrontation took place at the Cardinal’s villa in the grounds of the seminary at Mundelein. Baggio laid out the evidence. He established that, in making gifts of money to Helen Wilson, the Cardinal had certainly intermingled money he was entitled to dispose of with
Church funds. In addition, the pension he had awarded his friend was improper. The Vatican investigations had clearly established a wide variety of indiscretions which would certainly bring the Roman Catholic Church into disrepute if they became public knowledge.
Cody was far from contrite as the confrontation rapidly developed into a shouting match. He began to rant about his massive contributions to Rome; about the vast amounts of money he had poured into the Vatican Bank to be used in Poland; about the gifts of money he had bestowed on the Pope during his
ad limina
visits (obligatory 5-yearly visits and reports) – not the pitiful few thousand dollars that others brought but hundreds of thousands of dollars. The two Princes of the Church could be heard shouting at each other all over the seminary grounds. Cody was adamant. Another bishop would come in and run his diocese ‘over my dead body’. Eventually, like the stuck needle in a long-playing record, his tongue could only utter continuously in a single phrase: ‘I will not relinquish power in Chicago.’
Baggio departed, temporarily defeated. A defiant Cody who refused to accept a co-adjutor was in total breach of Canon Law but for it to become public knowledge that the cardinal of one of the most powerful dioceses in the world was openly defying the Pope was, for Pope Paul, unthinkable. The Pope would tolerate Cody to the end of his days rather than face the alternative. For Paul, the days of toleration were few. Within one week of receiving Baggio’s reports the Pope was dead.
By mid-September, Albino Luciani had studied the Cody file in depth. He met Cardinal Baggio and discussed it. He talked of the implications of the Cody affair with Villot, Benelli, Felici and Casaroli. On September 23rd he had another long meeting with Cardinal Baggio. At the end of it he advised Baggio that he would tell him of his decision within the next few days.
In Chicago, for the first time in his long turbulent history Cardinal Cody began to feel vulnerable. After the Conclave he had privately been dismissive of this quiet Italian who had followed Paul. ‘It’s going to be more of the same’, Cody had declared to one of his close Curial friends. More of the same was what Cody wanted; it would enable him to go on ruling the roost in Chicago. Now the news from Rome indicated that he had seriously underrated Luciani. As September 1978 drew to an end John Cody became convinced that Luciani would act where Paul had not. Cody’s friends in Rome advised him that whatever course of action this new Pope decided upon, one thing was certain, he would see it through. They cited many examples from Luciani’s life to indicate an unusual inner strength.
On Luciani’s desk in his study was one of the few personal possessions he treasured. A photograph. Originally it had been contained within a battered old frame. During his time in Venice a grateful parishioner had had the photograph remounted in a new silver frame with semi-precious jewels. The photograph showed his parents against a background of the snow-covered Dolomites. In his mother’s arms was the baby Pia, now a married woman with her own children. During September 1978 his secretaries observed the Pope on a number of occasions lost in thought as he studied the photograph. It was a reminder of happier times, when such men as Cody, Marcinkus, Calvi and the others did not disturb his tranquillity. There had been time for silence and small things then. Now it seemed to Luciani that there was never enough time for such important facets of his life. He was cut off from Canale and even from his family. There were the occasional telephone conversations, with Edoardo, with Pia, but the impromptu visits were now gone for ever. The Vatican machine saw to that. Even Diego Lorenzi attempted to turn Pia away when she telephoned. She had wanted to bring him some little presents, reminders of the north. ‘Leave them at the gate,’ Lorenzi said, ‘The Pope is too busy to see you.’ Luciani overheard this conversation and took the telephone.