Who killed God's Banker?

Did Roberto Calvi, aka "God's banker", make a last-minute plea to Pope John Paul II to save him from financial ruin shortly before his death in 1982? Does the church know something about his mysterious murder in which his corpse was found hanging from underneath the Blackfriars Bridge in London, bricks stuffed into his pocket? Was Calvi executed by disgruntled shareholders for running the former Banco Ambrosiano into the ground? Or, was it Communist mobsters?

The Calvi case will go to trial next month, and hopefully we will get some clarification on one of the biggest murder mysteries of the past Century. Accused in his death are his former girlfriend, two shady businessmen and a Sicilian mobster known as "The Cashier". Church officials of course have not been asked to testify.

In a new book, one of Calvi's final statements was recently revealed. Two weeks before his death, Calvi wrote JP2, saying: “I have thought a lot, Holiness, and have concluded that you are my last hope.”

According to the Times, Calvi is said to have given warning to the pontiff that the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano would “provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage”. He reminded the Pope that he had helped to fund many political and religious associations in both East and West that the Vatican supported, and had created banks in South America to fund the effort to halt the expansion of Marxist ideologies.