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The Vatican had moved slowly; but Cippico's flight spurred it to action. Less than an hour after his escape, Cippico was unfrocked, i.e., forbidden to perform priestly offices, except in extreme emergency. In his lay status he could be arrested by the Italian police, to whom the Vatican reported his flight.
The carabinieri found him in his sumptuous apartment, wearing a lilac dressing gown, hustled him off to jail. There another charge was placed against him: theft of jewelry valued at 100,000,000 lire. The jewels had been entrusted to him during the German occupation by the Salem d'Angeri family of his native Trieste.
The leftish press went wild with the Cippico scandal.
Sad State. Then another Vatican scandal broke. At week's end, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano announced the forced resignation of Monsignor Guidetti, Administrator of Holy See property. Pope Pius had received another letter from an Italian businessman: "The undersigned Alessandro Rossini of Vicolo Massimi 6, Rome, humbly informs Your Holiness that he has carried out three financial operations with the administration of the Holy See. ... In filial confidence in your justice this writer begs Your Holiness to appoint an expert to solve this sad state of affairs."
The sad state of affairs described in the letter told how Rossini had made three loans totaling more than half a million dollars on notes signed by Guidetti on Vatican stationery. Rossini thought he was lending money to the Holy See, but Guidetti, a wealthy landowner, had used the money for private speculation.
The Guidetti scandal would make another busy week for Communist billposters. Apparently Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti and friends were not the only people in Italy making votes for the Reds.
*When German Monsignor Rudolf Gerlach, Assistant to the Papal Master of the Chamber, was unfrocked for having written to Germany concerning the movement of British ships in Italian harbors. Gerlach abjured the Catholic faith, became a Protestant minister in Germany.
*In the nine years since his elevation to the papacy, Pius has not been able to decide who should take his place as Papal Secretary of State.