Just last month two Rome-based priests an American and an Italian were caught

Just last month two Rome-based priests, an American and an Italian, were caught up in a $300m insurance scam. They were reportedly used as a front by fraudster Martin Frankel, currently the FBI’s most wanted man.The Vatican is no doubt hoping that interest in Gone with the Wind in the Vatican will fade away over the summer, and be a dim memory by the time Rome gears up for the Holy Year celebrations. But with another hearing in the libel trial expected in September, and a big promotional drive organised for the Frankfurt Book Fair, that seems highly unlikely. What’s more, the publishers are already talking about a sequel..

There is also evidence of nepotism; Cardinal Giordano’s relatives were awarded lucrative contracts with the diocese. The archbishop of Naples, Michele Giordano, was placed under investigation last year by Italian magistrates for alleged involvement in money-lending and using diocesan funds to finance his family businesses. Under the direction of Cardinal Paul Marcinkus, the bank made deals with some of Italy’s dodgiest financiers, including Michele Sindona, who had close ties with the Sicilian mafia, and Roberto Calvi, president of Italy’s biggest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed shortly after Calvi was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge.There have been more recent cases of financial scandal among men of the cloth. The Vatican inquiry concluded that the killer was angry at being passed over for promotion, while newspapers reported that he was a spy for the East German Stasi, or was involved in a love triangle.The colossal scandals involving the Vatican Bank, the IOR, dating back to the Eighties, have not been forgotten. The Pope has officially asked forgiveness of the Jews, and the Vatican has also come close to apologising to victims of the Inquisition. As the Church prepares its mea culpa for sins past, it is becoming more sensitive to criticism.

Publication of this book, after all, is just the latest in a series of events that have cast the Vatican in a bad light.Last year, a member of the Pope’s personal army, the Swiss Guards, shot his commander and the commander’s wife, before turning the pistol on himself. Much of the emphasis in the run-up to the event has been on atonement and reflection. For the Roman Catholic Church, 2000 is not just the start of a new millennium but a holy year, in which they expect 30 million pilgrims to visit Rome. Unfortunately it has rebounded on them.” He tries not to sound smug. Rights for Spain and Germany have already been sold and negotiations are ongoing with a British publisher. Kaos Edizioni has already received orders for 100,000 more copies.Extreme sensitivity about the book could be attributed to pre-millennium jitters. “People within the Vatican who felt threatened wanted my head.

In the furore surrounding the case, the Vatican even went so far as to issue a statement declaring that it was not trying to curtail anyone’s freedom of expression, but aimed simply to protect the rights of individuals who felt they had been libelled.”It wasn’t enough that for months no one talked about the book and everyone pretended it didn’t exist,” says Marinelli. The case was to be brought by the nephew of a bishop, now dead, who claims that his unnamed relative had been defamed. The ensuing publicity had an electric effect on sales.But the real coup was the announcement that Monsignor Marinelli was to be tried by the ecclesiastical court for libel. It went virtually unnoticed until June, when Marinelli was ordered by the Vatican to hand over copies of the book and halt translation for sales abroad – neither of which lay in his power. One chapter describes attempts to take advantage of the current Pope’s frailty to influence the choice of his successor.Perhaps the greatest mystery of the book is not the secrets it reveals, or the identity of the protagonists, but why the Vatican, usually so diplomatically astute, bungled its handling of the scandal.The book, published by Kaos Edizioni of Milan, had an initial print run of 7,000 when it came out in February. Another was caught at the Swiss border with a suitcase full of banknotes.

The book contains accounts of black Masses, in which participants were naked from the waist down.But there is also fierce criticism of greed and power play within the Vatican state. One bishop was caught by police officers, semi-naked, in a car with another man. He habitually used Church treasures as collateral for bank loans, and on his death most of the money passed to his natural daughter – who knew about his financial dealings and had blackmailed him. According to the book, several priests from India, while lodging at a convent in Rome, watched gay porn on TV at 3am.An elderly American priest allegedly bribed the Roman curia to make him a bishop, and at 72 he was set up with a diocese in the United States. Apparently he used to boast about having access to state secrets.