User:Abovfold/Sandbox/The Entity (intelligence service)
| L’Entità | |
 Emblem of the Holy See | |
| Service overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1566 |
| Type | Intelligence service |
| Jurisdiction | Holy See |
| Headquarters | Vatican City |
| Motto | Cum cruce et gladio (Latin: "With the cross and the sword")[1] |
| Employees | Pontifical secret |
| Annual budget | Pontifical secret |
| Service executive |
|
| Parent department | Roman Curia |
The Entity (Italian: L’Entità) is the principal intelligence service of the Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and the Vatican City State.
Founded by Pope Pius V in 1566, the Entity is the oldest intelligence service in the world. Prior to 1930, it was known as the Holy Alliance (Santa Alleanza).[2] It is a unique unit of the Roman Curia which, alongside the counterintelligence organization Sodalitium Pianum (SP), works to confront threats to the physical and ideological security of the Church. Its efforts are concerned as much with global conflict and threats against Church leaders, as with schisms, heresy, and mitigating the influences of Communism and Americanism. Across its more than 450-year history, the service is alleged to have carried out assassinations, financed terrorism and dictatorship, armed and profiteered from global conflict, laundered money for the Mafia, and manipulated markets.[1]
Although the Catholic Church has never acknowledged the Entity, its existence is regarded as an open secret among Vatican insiders.[1][3][4] According to a 2010 survey of literature about the Entity published by the Central Intelligence Agency in its in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, "The Holy See denies that [the Entity] exists. The Vatican archives and other reliable sources […] suggest otherwise."[2]
Mission
[edit]For the Entity, intelligence requirements are defined by Papal policy objectives: according to Eric Frattini, "Papal policies have always set the objectives; the Holy Alliance has been a powerful instrument for carrying them out."[1]
According to Allen Dulles, who served as the inaugural Director of Central Intelligence:
Early modern history (1566–1900)
[edit]
The Entity was founded as the Holy Alliance in 1566 by Pope Pius V, in order to gather intelligence from the court of Elizabeth I, deemed to be a heretic, and overthrow her in favor of Mary, Queen of Scots, a practicing Catholic.[1] Pius selected Cardinal Marcantonio Maffei (1521–1583) to serve as the organization's inaugural director.
Throughout its existence, the Entity has been involved in covert and clandestine operations in defense of Catholicism and the interests of the Vatican: it was reportedly involved in the fight against the French Huguenots; in the assassination of William I of Orange, and interfered on behalf of Catholic interests during the War of the Spanish Succession. It undermined the policies of the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. It was allegedly involved in the attack against King Joseph I of Portugal; in the conspiracies against Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as in the fight against the Carboneria in Italy.[9]
Operations in the 20th century
[edit]World War II
[edit]As the papacy of Pius XII (1939-1958) covered a period of drastic change, from the outset of World War II through to the late 1950s, his approach to international affairs left a significant impact on the activities of the Entity.
During and after World War II, the Vatican lacked the resources and desire to compete globally for intelligence. The Papacy's access to information during World War II has been compared to that of Mexico or Portugal.[3]
Alleged Nazi collaboration
[edit]The service's capacity and secrecy led Simon Wiesenthal, the famed Nazi hunter, to describe it as "the best and most effective espionage service I know in the world."[1]
Postwar
[edit]The Entity is often connected to the exfiltration of Nazi and Croatian fascist Ustaše leaders into South America following the conclusion of World War II.[9]
Cold War
[edit]Inactivity under John XXIII
[edit]
Under the pontificate of John XXIII (1958–1963), the Entity is believed to have fallen into relative hiatus, as the Pope did not appoint a successor upon the death of Entity director Pietro Fumasoni Biondi in 1960.[9]
However, under the pontificate of his successor Paul VI (1963–1978), it was more active than ever.[9]
By the 1970s, Cardinal Luigi Poggi, spymaster under Pope John Paul II, saw the need to modernize the intelligence service for the 20th century. He fostered relationships with the Israeli Mossad and the American CIA, among other services.
Despite the Vatican being an exclave microstate situated entirely within the Italian capital of Rome, the service is reported to have only occasional exchanges with the Italian intelligence services.[1]
The Entity pursued Carlos the Jackal (ultimately caught by Billy Waugh of the CIA).[1]
1973: Black September assassination attempt
[edit]
On January 1, 1973, the Black September Organization attempted an attack on the Prime Minister of Israel during a visit to Italy. The plot involved operatives of the Soviet-backed Black September group, led by Ali Hassan Salameh, shipping Russian-built Strela-2 MANPADS by fishing boat down the Adriatic from Dubrovnik to the Italian city of Bari. From there, they were trucked to Fiumicino Airport in Rome, mounted in a station wagon, intended to assassinate prime minister Golda Meir before her meeting with Pope Paul VI. Through cooperation between The Entity and the Mossad, in particular Mossad director Zvi Zamir and CIA-trained papal intelligence officer Father Carlo Jacobini, the plot was disrupted when the pair rammed the station wagon fitted with the missiles. The terrorists in the vehicle were detained, and turned over to the Divisione Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciali (DIGOS), the Italian counterterrorism police.[1]
1980s: Covert operations in Poland
[edit]In November 1981, Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski (QT/GULL), a NATO spy in the General Staff of the Polish People's Army, warned of plans by Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski to impose martial law. When revelations about the planned repression emerged prior to its imposition on December 12, Kuklinski, code name "Gull", fell under suspicion and had to be extracted. Father Kazimierz Przydatek, an Entity agent, in concert with the Canadian Catholic curia and the CIA, secreted Kuklinski and his family into the Canadian Embassy in Warsaw, before they were ultimately resettled in the West.[1][10]
In a meeting on 7 June 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II reached an agreement to provide clandestine support to Polish dissident Lech Wałęsa's outlawed reformist Solidarity trade union, in a bid to advance free expression in the Eastern Bloc, and undermine communism.[11][1] The agreement meant the Entity and the CIA, led by Catholic then-Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, began Operation QR/HELPFUL, smuggling tons of equipment into Poland to support the banned union. Equipment including fax machines (the first in Poland), printing presses, transmitters, telephones, shortwave radios, video cameras, photocopiers, telex machines, computers, and word processors flooded into Poland via channels established by priests, CIA officers, and representatives of the AFL-CIO. Funding came from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, trade unions in the west, and secret accounts in the Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican bank. The intelligence services also began to provide leaders of Solidarity with strategic advice, conveyed by priests or American and European labor experts working undercover in Poland, which reflected the thinking of the Vatican and the Reagan Administration.[10]
Operations in the 21st century
[edit]Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Towering above the Piazza della Minerva in Rome, in what may appear to be just another ancient Roman palace, lies the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Vatican’s "softer equivalent to the CIA’s Camp Peary." There, the cream of the crop of the Roman Catholic Church’s priests are sent by their bishops to be trained to be members of what is still considered to be one of the world’s elite corps of diplomats, the apostolic nuncios of the Holy See.
In 2008, the Vatican joined Interpol, giving the Entity access to vast new troves of intelligence.
Pope Francis is said to have chosen a member of the Argentinian laity, José Luis Uboldi, a trusted confidant of the late Rubén Héctor di Monte, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Mercedes-Luján in Buenos Aires, with whom the Pope shared a friendship. Uboldi is rumored to be a former agent of the Argentine intelligence services.[12]
List of directors of the Entity
[edit] |
| Image | Name | Birth date | Death date |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Ludovico Ludovisi | 22 or 27 October 1595 | 18 November 1632 |
|
Lorenzo Magalotti | 1 January 1584 | 19 September 1637 |
|
Olimpia Maidalchini | 26 May 1591 | 27 September 1657 |
|
Sforza Pallavicino | 28 November 1607 | 4 June 1667 |
|
Paluzzo Paluzzi | 8 June 1623 | 29 June 1698 |
|
Bartolomeo Pacca | 27 December 1756 | 19 April 1844 |
|
Giovanni Battista Caprara | 29 May 1733 | 21 June 1810 |
|
Annibale Albani | 15 August 1682 | 21 September 1751 |
|
|
Pietro Fumasoni Biondi | 4 September 1872 | 12 July 1960 |
|
Luigi Poggi | 25 November 1917 | 4 May 2010 |
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Frattini, Eric (2008). The Entity: Five Centuries of Secret Vatican Espionage. Translated by Cluster, Dick. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-37594-2.
- ^ a b "Intelligence Abroad" (PDF). Studies in Intelligence. 54 (4). Central Intelligence Agency: 62–63. December 2010. ISSN 1527-0874.
- ^ a b Alvarez, David (2002). Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1bmzk5v. ISBN 9780700622894.
- ^ Colonna Vilasi, Antonella (2016). The Entity: The Vatican Intelligence Service. ISBN 9781524661694.
- ^ Bernstein, Carl; Politi, Marco (1997). His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time. Thorndike Press. ISBN 978-0786210503.
- ^ Denoël, Yvonnick (2024). Vatican Spies: From the Second World War to Pope Francis. Translated by McKay, Alan. C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 9781911723400.
- ^ Koehler, John (2009). Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against the Catholic Church. Pegasus Books. ISBN 978-1605980508.
- ^ Recchi, Lou (2023-12-07). "The Vatican's Secret Services". CSactu (in French). Retrieved 2024-11-12.
- ^ a b c d Paternoster, Renzo (2020-10-02). "Entità: Lo spionaggio in nome del Papa e di Dio" [The Entity: Espionage in the name of the Pope and God]. Storia in Network (in Italian). Milan. ISSN 2281-5317.
- ^ a b Bernstein, Carl (1992-02-24). "The Holy Alliance: Ronald Reagan and John Paul II". TIME. Retrieved 2024-11-12.
- ^ Ortuño, Denny (2007-05-25). "The Vatican: Opus Dei, Espionage, Death and Terrorism". Church and State. Retrieved 2024-11-12.
- ^ Gasulla, L (2016-10-15). "El misterioso espía del Papa vinculado con la dictadura y al convento de José López" [The Pope's mysterious spy linked to the dictatorship and the José López convent]. Periodismo Y Punto (in Spanish).
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