Living For The Experience and Making No Money With The Bishop And The Vatican Bank

In 1970-1971, I helped found a venture capital group. As it turned out, the enterprise was disaster in spite of my partners being very successful in the venture capital arena. Not only was our basic concept terrible but the business plan really sucked. But the notion took me down a great lifetime experience road with the Vatican Bank (aka The Institute for Religious Works), Archbishop Paul Marcinckus and even The Knights of Columbus. I will be forever grateful to the Bishop for adding to the richness of my life (and I never "sold" him one deal).

One of my partners knew a guy (Lloyd Hand) who had been Chief of Protocol for President Johnson, so he knew everybody and his uncle. We paid him $10,000 ($56,000 today) plus travel expenses which added another $3,000 ($17,000 today) to introduce us to the Bishop who ran the Vatican Bank. The Bishop, we were told, ran the bank and was Mayor of Vatican City as a result of saving the Pope's life in the Philippines when the Pope was attacked by a nut with a knife. More on the Bishop and the Knights of Columbus in a later blog. That trip was, at the end of the day, a wild, booze driven, insane trip. Travel for me back then was a way to get away from a wife who disliked me (though I didn't recognize it at the time), really drink big time and walk around feeling like shit every day.

At that time, one of my kids was on the Mishmar David Kibbutz in Israel. So I thought I would "stop by" and see him before I went to Rome for my business. I thought Rome and Tel Aviv were "kissin' cousins", close by one another. That was a major misconception...almost 5 hours of drinking in the air. So I spent a night at the kibbutz which was memorable but hardly like staying at the Carlyle in N.Y. But this was but a few years after the 67 war and idealism and sacrifice were the mode in Israel. So it was impressive, if uncomfortable.

I went to Rome and the Vatican the following day to meet with the Bishop. The night before the meeting, we went for a horse and buggy ride to get acquainted with Rome. Expensive and a piss poor way to see Rome. Very boring. The next day we went to see the Bishop who was from Cicero. He had been an "advance man" for Pope Paul VI. The Bishop's hands were like ham hocks and he was as tough as nails. Smoked Pall Mall cigarettes like there was no tomorrow. But, at that point I was smoking 4 1/2 packs of Lucky Strikes (no filters) every day with yellow fingers. So the Bishop and I looked like two chimneys and that was right up my alley.

My partner who insisted on doing the major part of the presentation was a very nice, smart guy whose voice never seemed to stop "droning". Your eyes would glaze over as he droned on and on. He could put a sore ass in vinegar to sleep. The Bishop managed to stay awake and while he was not a financial man, he knew a dumb deal when he saw one and turned us down, out of hand. But it was for me, through the booze driven, cigarette haze and yellowed fingers, a fabulous experience and the beginning of a wonderful long term personal relationship with Bishop Marcinkcus...a great person guy in spite of his fruitless efforts to convert me. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. My trip back to SF was out of sight with unreal booze laden memories. More on that later.