Gangster's Lover, Bishop's Mistress Part III

(from elpais.com),  This is the final part of translated article.

Roberto Calvi (called God's Banker)

She continues: "One day Renatino came to eat at Pippo l'Abruzzese restaurant. He was accompanied by Sergio, the chauffeur, and they were carrying two bags. "This way we will make all the evidence disappear", they said". In one bag was Orlandi's body, she maintains, and in the other, "the body of an 11 year old boy who they killed on account of a vendetta. He was Domenico Nicitra, son of another gang member".

According to Minardi, this activity had one motive: to pressure the Vatican to return the mafia money invested in the IWR through the Ambrosiano Bank. The name Marcinkus became forever tied to the secret [illegal] Masonic Lodge, Propaganda Due (P2) and the financial scandals of those days like the crash of the Ambrosiano Bank. The Archbishop had solid relationships with figures like Michele Sindona, banker to the mafia, and Licio Gelli, master of the P2. "Renatino had a positive view of Masonry. And he knew Gelli", Minardi explains. "He was part of the secret membership list that was never discovered. He always said that being a Mason opens up a thousand new paths, not just for money, but because Masonic members would never be disgraced".

"Very likely", writes Notariale, "Renatino intervened in the negotiations opened between Vatican chiefs and the Cosa Nostra [Sicilian Mafia], to return the money the mafia had delivered to the Ambrosiano Bank through Calvi". She concludes, "it is certain” that he did this favor. “Otherwise, there is no explaning the treatment they gave him, burying him in St. Apollinaire". According to the journalist, the decision was made by the head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops: his Eminence Ugo Poletti.

But let’s go back to the happy time of the Minardi-Renatino love affair: "He showered me with a thousand gifts; Louis Vuitton suitcases full of 100,000 Lira bank notes, and would tell me: "spend it all; if you come home with money I won’t open the door."

Their romance lasted two years; Minardi thought Renatino was what he said he was, owner of a supermarket. This was partly true: he had invested drug traffic profits in various businesses. Reading the papers, Minardi found out that he was a boss of the feared Magliana Gang. She began to put two and two together, and she panicked. During those two years of cocaine and danger, she had seen many things, too many. "One day some thugs tried to kidnap my daughter Valentina, and Renatino told me: "If you forget everything you've seen, nothing will happen to her."

De Pedis would hug and kiss Pippo Calò, the notorious Sicilian gangster and representative of the Cosa Nostra in Rome; hung out with wheeler-dealer Flavio Carboni (who is now today in prison for Masonic conspiracy on behalf of [Italian prime minister] Silvio Berlusconi), had meetings with Archbishop Marcinkus and Calvi, and gave orders to judges who always managed to exonerate him…In reality, Renatino gave the appearance of a businessman, but he had been a criminal since his youth. Prophetically, soccer star Giordano, who would later play Maradona in Naples, warned Minardi never to let De Pedis hold her daughter in his arms: "If there is a shooting one day, she will get killed too. In the end, all bosses end up the same, face down on the sidewalk".

Indeed, seven thugs machine gunned Renatino on Via del Pellegrino, close to Campo dei Fiori, on February 2, 1990. He was 36. That day, Sabrina Minardi was with him, shopping in the neighborhood. She heard the gunfire from a notions store. Then, the bandit was buried in the Verano Cemetery and later, secretly moved to the Vatican basilica. Recently, the Holy See offered to the prosecutors the possibility of opening his tomb. For now, the latter have ignored the invitation.

[Final thought from Hos: I do not believe everything Sabrina Minardi says. A lot of it may be baseless conspiracy theories. On the other hand, if there is a grain of truth to her story (particularly regarding the kidnapping case), I think it does deserve attention.]

Posted for Hos

Gangster's Lover, Bishop's Mistress, Part II

Apse of the St. Apollinare Basilica

(translated from elpais.com), Part II

The case has provoked the imagination of dozens of police, journalists and judges. Ali Agca, the Turkish man who tried to assassinate the pope, has sworn he knows where she (Emanuela Orlandi) is. But only Minardi seems to have given reliable clues. Thanks to her statements, three people are now under investigation for the kidnapping. For the first time in 30 years. The three are old friends of De Pedis.

According to what Minardi has told the prosecutors, the head of the Testaccino gang, that is, Renatino, head of the most dangerous and mysterious branch of the Magliana gang, had a lot to do with the kidnapping of Orlandi. It has been thought for years that the great secret was hidden in Renatino's unbelievable tomb, located in St. Apollinaire Basilica's crypt, the church managed by Opus Dei since 1992, within a stone's throw of Piazza Navona, exactly where Emanuela Orlandi disappeared.

When the faithful objected to such a hallowed location becoming the tomb of a criminal, the one who came out in defense of the clergy was none other than Giulio Andreotti. According to the now 93 year old senator-for-life, "De Pedis may not have been a benefactor to humanity, but he has been a great benefactor to St. Apollinaire".