Departures of note

Pavol Mária Hnilica, a Slovak Jesuit bishop, was secretly ordained a priest and then a bishop during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, before fleeing to Rome in 1951. From there, he led the Pia Unione Pro Fratribus (later the Family of Mary), an organization that provided religious and material support to Catholics in Eastern Europe under Soviet control. In 1964, he was appointed titular bishop of Rusadir by Pope Paul VI.

Hnilica became a central figure in a global network of Marian apparition movements, promoting the cult of the Lady of All Nations in the Netherlands and supporting the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje. He claimed to have been the Pope's personal delegate and that the Pope privately supported the apparitions, but the Vatican and local dioceses declared these claims false. In 1992, he attempted to create a similar Marian cult in Denver, Colorado, with alleged seer Theresa Lopez, but the local archbishop concluded the visions were not supernatural in origin.

In 1992, Hnilica was indicted in connection with the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, after investigators found checks from his Vatican Bank account. He had tried to retrieve stolen documents from Roberto Calvi, hoping they would clear the Vatican Bank of wrongdoing. Initially found guilty, his conviction was annulled on procedural grounds, and in a second trial he was acquitted, with the court ruling he had acted under duress.