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") |
| Employees | Pontifical secret |
| Annual budget | Pontifical secret |
| Parent department | Roman Curia |
The Entity, also known as the Servizio di Intelligence Vaticano (SIV) 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. It is a component of the Roman Curia tasked with clandestine human intelligence and covert action, mitigating 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 engaged in assassinations, coups, terrorism financing, and market manipulation. Before 1930, the organization was known as the Holy Alliance (Italian: Santa Alleanza).
The Entity is the foreign intelligence counterpart to the counterintelligence and security service known as Sodalitium Pianum (SP). Although the Church has never acknowledged the existence of either, their existence is regarded as an open secret among Vatican insiders. In a 2010 issue of Studies in Intelligence, a CIA reviewer stated: "The Holy See denies that either exists. The Vatican archives and other reliable sources...suggest otherwise."