The Nephews

Nepotism is not a new word at the Vatican; evolved from the Latin nepos for nephew, it originally described the fat handouts of princedoms and privileges to the nephews of Popes centuries ago. Last week the word went back to its old meaning and added new fuel to the hot church v. state issue in the campaigning for next month's general elections in Italy.

THE POPES' NEPHEWS DON'T PAY THEIR TAXES, yelled Italy's left-wing (but antiCommunist) weekly L'Espresso. The facts were not that simple, but they were enough to stir Italy's increasingly overt anticlericalism. Don Giulio Pacelli, 47, nephew of Pope Pius XII, has long been a well-known man-about-the-Vatican. A prince and a colonel of the Noble Guard, he has held positions in many offices of the Vatican administration and many Congregations of the Curia. Currently he represents Vatican investments on the boards of the Banco di Roma, and pharmaceutical, shipping and piping companies. In 1946 the Central American Republic of Costa Rica appointed him envoy to the Vatican State, upgraded him to ambassador ten years later. Another papal relative is also a diplomat at the Vatican: Count Stanislao Pecci, grandnephew of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta.

When in 1947 the Italian government imposed a whopping tax on capital, Prince Pacelli and Count Pecci found themselves in an odd position. As Italian citizens, they were subject to the tax, but as diplomatic representatives of foreign powers they were specifically exempt. Experts at the Vatican State Secretariat studied the question, decided they should not have to pay, and the Vatican formally asked the Italian government to exempt them.

The request was turned down. For the next eight years, according to L'Espresso, the notes flew, governments rose and fell, finance ministers came and went, until at last, in 1955, Minister of Finance Giulio Andreotti, a Christian Democratic Party stalwart, said yes. Minister Andreotti promptly defended his decision on legal grounds and pointed out that it applied only to diplomats appointed before the tax was imposed. Prince Pacelli and Count Pecci kept silent. But, crying "anticlericalists!" the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano opened a running debate with critics of the tax exemptions, declared that the implied slap at the Pope might be punishable under Italian law.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.