Ripping Off the Pope

Understandably, Vatican City is one of the world's least crime-ridden states. Not only are most of its 881 residents law-abiding clerics, but there are 155 Swiss guards and blue-suited security men to police the 108 acres of the tiny country. That works out to about one peace officer for every 4.7 men of God. The Vatican has no jail, and the occasional pickpocket caught plying his trade in St. Peter's Square is normally turned over to Roman authorities.

Nonetheless, the 1929 concordat governing relations between the Vatican and Italy allows the Pope to dispense his own justice, and once in a while a case is considered serious enough to warrant the Holy See's cranking up its rusty court machinery. Last week one such proceeding was under way: four onetime repairmen for the Vatican's telephone exchange were on trial for stealing or receiving $10,000 worth of objets d'art in cat burglaries of several apartments in the Holy See, including the Pope's own chambers.

The trial of the telephone gang is the most serious case to come before the world's most forgotten court since 1929, and at first there was some predictable confusion. Although the trial was supposed to be public, most of the reporters who were able to find the obscure tribunal behind St. Peter's Basilica were turned away before the clerk could cry, "In the name of the Holy Spirit and the reigning Pontiff Paul VI!" When defense lawyers protested that their clients' rights had been violated because they had been interrogated without counsel, the court's three majestically robed and tasseled judges first denied the motions, saying no harm had been intended. Then they reconsidered and dismissed six of eight robbery counts.

Rumors that the Vatican had been burgled began to circulate last May, when one of the Holy See's security officers discovered by chance a one-of-a-kind gold religious medallion in the window of a Roman coin shop. It had been missing from the Pope's apartment since 1969. The original seller was traced to his job at the telephone exchange, where he protested, none too convincingly, that he was just an innocent hobbyist who had bought the medal for a song from coworkers. Within the month, three other telephone men had been arrested, and details of several break-ins emerged. Not only had the Pope been ripped off, but so had his secretary, Monsignor Pasquale Macchi, whose study had been fleeced of coins, a jeweled pectoral cross and a gold watch.

Initially, it seemed that the thieves had had easy access to Vatican chambers because of their jobs. With two for every citizen, phones are even more prevalent in the Vatican than security men and precious objects. In fact, the heists involved considerable ingenuity. According to the confession of one defendant, the thieves had managed to enter the Pope's quarters at the top of the Apostolic Palace in July 1969 while he was supposedly at his summer residence. The gang ransacked his rooms, unlocked his private elevator with a stolen key, ascended to a terrace and escaped over the rooftops. One of the accused argued that he could not possibly have been a member of the gang because his hemorrhoids would never permit him to slide through sewers and negotiate roofs and cornices as the burglars apparently did.

Papal Mercy. Barely a century ago, thieves would have been none too happy to find themselves subject to the Vatican's often draconian justice. It was said of the Papal States' public executioner, Mastro Titta, that he could crush bones with his bare hands. Today, however, the defendants are probably lucky that they were not turned over to Roman civil authorities. They were released on bail, which is rarely allowed by Italian courts. Also, they are getting a speedy trial, which is even more unusual in the litigation-swamped Italian system. On top of that, the Vatican's prosecutor, Leopoldo Jacobelli, last week rose in court to ask the judges for clemency, partly because the thieves had confessed, partly because "the Vatican is benevolent." Even if the judges do impose heavy sentences, the culprits may still get off lightly: they could be pardoned by Pope Paul as an act of mercy befitting the start of the 1975 Holy Year.

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