"Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the CIA and the Mafia" by Paul L. Williams.

For those skeptical about conspiracy research or the history of deep politics who might dismiss a book connecting these three elements/institutions as "far-fetched"... try to keep an open mind.

What this book and others like it aim to show is that the marriages and intersections between intelligence agencies, the mob, and the Vatican are ones of ideological similarity and geopolitical convenience.

A lot of what ties these figures together are banks/shell companies and what has defined the research into exposing these relationships is methodical, dense, and (I daresay) boring forays into their publicly available statements.

I'll stick to the highlights, but this book is 258 pages of text and 113 pages of citations/bibliography so to the author's credit the paths he takes to all of his conclusions are laid out plainly for all to see. If you want to dig more it is all there.

We begin with Paul Helliwell, a high ranking OSS (forerunner to the CIA) official in China in the 1940s, who came up with a world-altering idea... sell heroin stateside (to black people in urban ghettos, mostly) and use the funds for clandestine operations.

During WWII, US spymasters recruited mafiosos, including Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese, to assist with the invasion of Sicily and other parts of Italy. The "Men of Respect," driven out by Mussolini, were ushered back into power.

After WWII ended, and the OSS became the CIA, the new organization's primary order of business concerned the looming communist ascension in Italy. Provincial elections were going red, and only the mafia could turn away the red tide that was rising:

In essence, the Vatican, due to its status as a sovereign nation-state, had financial freedom to launder money from black operations (the sale of narcotics, etc) to mob bosses in Italy without the prying eyes of Italian or American oversight complicating things.

Thus, the Vatican became a hub for clandestine money, intelligence sharing, and strategic planning in the fight against communism. The tactics, as you can imagine, were violent, anti-democratic and oppressive:

The mob was great for strikebreaking, especially in the shipping industry, which needed to run without interruption in order to efficiently move heroin around:

Gladio footsoldiers as anti-democratic enforcers: they beat and repressed Italian communist demonstrators and prevented them from being part of a coalition government there in 1963. Had the repression failed, the backup plan was to assassinate Aldo Moro, Christian Democratic PM:

The CIA began to get into the banking game in more direct ways:

A brief summary of why international banking was like the wild west throughout the post-WW II period:

The Italian economy, and the life savings of many Italian civilians, soared and plummeted with the Vatican's holdings and various financial decisions. This, despite little or no state oversight of the transactions. An incredibly dysfunctional arrangement:

Worse still: the terror attacks.

The Piazza Fontana bombing, the CIA, and the right-wing Gladio units who carried it out:

Dec 12, 1969: the bombing occurs
March 3, 1972: suspects arrested. One provides documentation that shows the CIA directed the planning and deployment of bombs at the square, to be blamed on the left and drive public opinion away from coalition government with the left.

May 31, 1971: car bomb in Peteano, killing three police officers and wounding one. For nearly a year, communists were rounded up and questioned, until the Italian police came upon an arms cache with the same C4 used in this bombing.

May 28, 1974: a bomb at a neo-fascist political rally at Piazza della Loggia in Brescia. The CIA's fingerprints were on this attack, as well, and the man arrested for planning the bombing was on the payroll of the US Embassy in Rome.

March 16, 1978: the kidnapping and murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, probably the most brazen act of terror committed by Gladio in Italy:

And on August 2, 1980, the most deadly: the bombing of the Central Station in Bologna. 84 killed, hundreds wounded. Followed shortly by a bombing at Oktoberfest, all of it blamed on the Red Brigades:

Operation Condor - Gladio goes to Latin America

An introduction to the role of the Catholic Church in Condor, including Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known today as Pope Francis:

And despite his reputation as force for modernization, the Vatican Bank is still open for business, and thus, for modern covert, presumably anti-communist action:

That may simply be self-preservation on Francis' part. In the late 70s and early 80s, messing with the Vatican Bank led to the assassination of one Pope and the attempted assassination of another.

After the death of Pope Paul VI, the Vatican's financial portfolios were found in disarray but his successor, John Paul I. He announced reforms on September 28th, 1978, 33 days after he had taken office. That night, he died under very peculiar circumstances:

Thus, the IOR (the Institute for the Works of Religion, aka, the Vatican Bank) could continue as a front for black funds and covert ops.

This was critically important for the US intelligence community on two fronts: the US War in Afghanistan and the heroin trade through Turkey:

"By 1978, when John Paul II ascended to the Papal throne... (Pablo Escobar) was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine into the United States every day." The profits were stored primarily in shell companies the Vatican had formed.

15 tons of cocaine per DAY

John Paul II had a keen interest in directing funds to Polish anticommunist groups, especially to Lech Walesa. Here's a Walesa quote from Blackshirts and Reds to give some context on who he was:

But by 1981, the Pope's welcome with the powers that be was wearing out. He'd advocated detente with the Soviets and failed to maneuver the IOR through some turbulent financial times, thus leading the intelligence community to believe it was time for him to go:

The chief planners of the hit on JPII: Ted Shackley (CIA), de Marenches (French secret service), and General Santovito (Italian Military Intelligence)

The Bulgarian connection, which was parroted by CIA press syndicates to western audiences, was horseshit from the get-go, but that didn't stop the western press and intelligence services from ruining a man's life to propagate the lie: Sergei Antonov.

Gladio was finally brought to light by whistle-blowers and journalists in 1990, in places all around Europe where the stay-behind armies had acted:

Gladio didn't die, though. It merely changed forms. In Turkey, where the deep state held a lot of power, the examples were clear in the 90s and persist to today with Gulen's movement.

The CIA had similar ideas for Xianjiang, radicalizing Uyghur Muslims to destabilize/balkanize China and thereby gain access to that region's rich natural resources:

"The high profits of the drug trade serve as one of the main components of the US economy." How important were narcodollars to keeping banks afloat following 2008?

"And so it came to pass... the Roman Catholic Church was presented in US Court as a criminal organization via the RICO act.

Couple closing notes: Paul L. Williams' Catholic bona fides are listed below. He was a lifelong believer and churchgoer.

And a note on me: I was raised very, very Catholic. 1st-12th grade, considered priesthood, the whole 9 yards.

I don't think writing, reading or sharing the book is an inherently anti-Catholic thing to do, though I suspect learning about the church's actions would wound the faith of any believer. But it's crucial to understand this stuff if you want to understand how the world works.