On Pilgrimage

Remembering John Paul I: “An Incomparable Catechist”

I wasn’t able to write anything on the actual anniversary of Pope John Paul I’s death, because I had be away from home. Only today have I found time to post again. In an online article from the September 29 issue of Il Corriere delle Alpi, the paper from Papa Luciani’s home diocese of Belluno, I read that at the Mass in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice on September 28, Cardinal Angelo Scola, Luciani’s successor in that see, hinted that he may be beatified soon; he is “in the light of canonical sanctity.” All the evidence is gathered, and very shortly the last testimonies on the miracle attributed to him will be sent to Rome.

Also on September 28, Pope Benedict XVI recalled John Paul I in his Angelus address at Castel Gandolfo. It is up only in Italian at the Vatican’s web site; I’m translating the whole text here. This Pope is very devoted to his predecessor; I am praying that he will soon be able to preside at his beatification.

Dear Brothers and sisters!

Today the liturgy proposes to us the Gospel parable of the two sons sent by their father to work in his vineyard. One of them immediately says yes, but then does not go; the other, on the other hand, refuses at the moment, but then, repenting, complies with his father’s wishes. With this parable, Jesus stresses his prediction for sinners who convert, and teaches us that it takes humility to welcome the gift of salvation. St. Paul too, in the passage from the letter to the Philippians that we are meditating on today, exhorts us to humility. “Do nothing out of rivalry or vainglory,” he writes, “but each of you, with all humility must consider others superior to yourselves” (Phil. 2:3). These are the same feeling that Christ had, when, stripping himself of his divine glory for love of us, became man and humbled himself to the point of dying on the cross (cf. Phil. 2:5-8). The verb used – ekenôsen – literally means that he “empties himself,” and clearly demonstrates the profound humility and infinite love of Jesus, the humble Servant par excellence.

Reflecting on these biblical themes, I thought immediately of Pope John Paul I, the thirtieth anniversary of whose death falls today. He chose the same episcopal motto as Charles Borromeo: Humilitas. A single word that synthesizes the essential of the Christian life and indicates the indispensable virtue of the one who is called to the service of authority in the Church. In one of the four general audiences held during his pontificate, he said, among other things, with that familiar tone that he was noted for: “I will limit myself to recommending a virtue so very dear to the Lord. He has said: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart” . . . Even if you have done great things, say: ‘We are useless servants.’ (Luke 17:10). On the contrary, the tendency in all of us is rather the opposite: to put ourselves on display.” (Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo I, p. 51-52). Humility can be considered his spiritual testament.

Thanks to this virtue, 33 days were enough for Papa Luciani to enter into people’s hearts. In his discourses he used examples drawn from the concrete events of life, from his family memories and from popular wisdom. His simplicity was a vehicle for a solid and rich teaching that, thanks to the gift of an exceptional memory and a vast culture, he embellished with numerous citations from ecclesiastical and secular writers. In this way he was an incomparable catechist, in the footsteps of St. Pius X, from his native region, his predecessor first in the chair of St. Mark and then on that of St. Peter. “We must feel little before God,” he said in that same audience. And he adds: “I am not ashamed to feel like a child before its mama; we believe in our mamas, I believe in the Lord, in what he has revealed to me.” (ibid., p. 49). These words show the depth of his faith. While we thank God for have given him to the Church and the world, let us treasure his example, committing ourselves to cultivating the same humility that made him capable of speaking to everyone, especially the little ones and the so-called distant ones. Let us invoke for this purpose Most Holy Mary, the humble servant of the Lord.

Filed under: Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul I | |No Comments

Was Pope John Paul I Murdered? Part VI

Because of a great overload of work, I have had to divide my study of Yallop’s latest work into two parts. I’ll put up the second one as soon as possible.

Updated again March 6, 2009, in regard to Don Germano Pattaro and Francesco Pazienza’s accounts.

In 2007, Yallop brought out a new edition of In God’s Name. The book is still attracting attention and sales. Little seems to have been changed or revised in the book, except for the new introduction and Postscript, in which Yallop does impart some new information, and answers his critics. I will pick out a few points to answer from both of those areas.

New Information?

Yallop says that his original sources are now dead. He still doesn’t name them directly, but he does bring forth some actual names of people who he says know the truth about the changes in the Curia that the Pope was supposedly going to make. So what do these people say? And does it support Yallop’s thesis? Yallop’s main points:

“Father Germano Pattaro brought from Venice by Pope John Paul I as an adviser has stated that among the documents that the Pope was studying were his notes covering the range of changes he had discussed with Cardinal Villot a few hours before retiring for the night.” (1)

As usual, Yallop’s statement is completely undocumented, so his exact source for this is not known. However, I think it can be traced to Vaticanist Giancarlo Zizola’s diary of those days, excerpts from which he later published, which has in the entry for September 30, 1978, “The notes that Luciani was holding in his hands at his death were — according to Don Germano (Pattaro) — notes about the two-hour conversation the Pope had with the Secretary of State Villot the night before.” This evidence isn’t of the best, for while Don Germano Pattaro was or had been in Rome and had met with the new Pope several times, there’s no evidence that he spoke to him on the evening of his death, nor has anyone placed him at the Pope’s bedroom when his body was discovered. So how did Fr. Pattaro, not an eyewitness, know what the Pope had in his hands? Once again, clear statements by the eyewitnesses say something completely different. Furthermore, there is to my knowledge, only one place where Pattaro spoke of his meetings with John Paul I, and that was to Venetian author Camillo Bassotto, who reprinted an account of those conversations in his book Il mio cuore è ancora a Venezia (Venice: Adriatica, 1990) – an account that extends over more than twenty-five pages. Nowhere in those twenty-five pages is there any discussion of a meeting with Villot, dismissing Marcinkus from the Vatican Bank getting rid of Freemasons or dramatic changes in the Curia. It also seems clear from this that John Paul I did not meet with Pattaro on the evening of his death, so he could have learned about the meeting with Villot secondhand. (2) I suspect that Zizola was just recounting a rumor, or even speculation by Pattaro himself, but once again, rumor and speculation aren’t evidence.

“. . . Camilo [sic] Bassotto is also on record as having discussed with Luciani the various changes he was proposing to make.” (3)

This is another example of Yallop’s carelessness about details; he is wrong about Bassotto himself having had any discussion with the Pope on this subject. It was actually an anonymous “person in Rome,” who some people think was a highly placed prelate in the Curia, who sent Bassotto his notes of his discussions with Pope John Paul I in May 1989, and which, once again were published in his book about the Pope (4). There have been attempts to identify this person, none conclusive. (5) Once again, Yallop ends up using an anonymous source, though at least the actual text of this one is available.

I myself have some problems with the credibility with this part of Bassotto’s work. Once again, there are some twenty pages of lengthy reconstructed conversation; it’s not clear if any written notes were taken. And if the person in question really was a friend of and close to John Paul I, and specifically wanted to defend the late Pope, as he claims, why did he not allow his name to be published?

Yet the tone of the remarks and many of the details are far more consonant with Albino Luciani’s character than anything that Yallop puts forward. The great majority of this text is spiritual in tone, and in it the Pope supposedly discusses his plans for encyclicals, his upcoming travels, etc.

This account does, in fact describe a discussion between the Pope and Villot about the Vatican Bank. However, the details don’t agree at all with those of Yallop’s sources. The discussions supposedly took place about three weeks into his pontificate (roughly September 16-17), and not the night before his death, when Yallop says notification of these changes was given to Villot. The Pope is recorded as saying to his confidant:

One afternoon, before leaving me, Villot spoke to me about the IOR, saying to me: ‘the IOR is a hot potato which is sizzling in everyone’s hands. Some people may end up burning themselves.’ I answered that the Church must be transparent in money matters, it must work in the light of day. Its credibility is at stake.

I am also telling this to you, (6) the Church cannot have power, nor must it possess riches. I know that the Institute for Religious Works was established in its present form by Paul VI, in order to aid, assist and promote the works of religion and charity throughout the world. I want it to be the bishops and cardinals, through their representatives, who decide what to do about the IOR: whether to maintain it or suppress it, and what new structure to give it. I ask that its actions all be licit and clean and in harmony with the Gospel spirit. The world must know what it is, what the IOR does: what are its real ends, how the money is gathered and how it is spent. We must achieve transparency in the Vatican economic account books: we must publish the balances audited in their entirety.

The president of the IOR [i.e. Marcinkus] must be replaced: as soon as you think the time is right. It must be done in the proper way and with respect for the dignity of the person. A bishop cannot be chairman of and govern a bank. The See that is called the See of Peter, the See which is also called the Holy See, cannot degrade itself to the point that it mingles its financial activities with those of bankers, for whom the only law which holds good is profit, and where usury is practiced, a kind that is permitted and accepted, but it is still usury. We have lost the sense of evangelical poverty: we have made ours the rules of the world. I have already suffered bitterness and insults as a bishop because of events connected with money. I don’t want it to be repeated when I am Pope. The IOR must be completely reformed.

Don’t forget that Masonry, hidden or open, as the experts call it, has never died, it is more alive than ever. Just as that horrible thing called the Mafia has never died. They are two powers for evil. We must courageously set ourselves against their perverse actions. We must be vigilant, everyone: lay people, priests, and especially pastors, and bishops. We must protect the people of our communities. It is a subject that we will one day deal with more clearly in front of everyone. (7)

So this anonymous person not only has Villot in agreement with the Pope that something had to be done about the IOR, but actually being the first to broach the subject with him; in addition, he has the Pope saying that Marcinkus should be removed “as soon you [Villot] think the time is right” – in other words, no order by the Pope for an immediate removal of Marcinkus; it is left up to Villot’s discretion. Nor was the date given the last day of his life. Nowhere does the Pope speak of any wrongdoing on Marcinkus’ part. The reason is simply that a bishop should not run a bank.

The allusions to Masonry and the Mafia evidently refer to Gelli, Calvi and Sindona. However, this source has nothing about the long list of removals of Masons in the Curia that Yallop’s anonymous sources suggested to him. There is no evidence here that Villot objected to these changes, or John Paul distrusted him because he was a Mason. In fact, the source took pains to collect information from others in the Vatican who had spoken to Villot and who were able to confirm the admiration Villot had for the Pope and the close relationship between the two. In other words, more evidence that Villot could not have been involved in any conspiracy to kill the Pope – and his involvement, as I mentioned in Part IV, would be crucial if such a plan were to succeed. All in all, not very good evidence for any of Yallop’s theories. Yallop does not quote a single word from this source, yet brazenly contrives to make it support his theories when it does nothing of the kind.

This source does mention some changes that the Pope was planning to make in the Curia, but they did not have to do with getting rid of Freemasons, but simplifying the structures of the Church bureaucracy, and making it possible for the Pope to delegate some of the work to others. (8)

Yallop goes on to say:

“Then there were others. Men such as Archbishop Giuseppe Caprio who had taken a leading role in the investigation ordered by the late Pope, or Monsignor Giovanni Angelo Abbo, the man chosen by the pope to replace Marcinkus, or Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the man the Pope planned to place in charge of the Florence archdiocese.” (9)

Yallop says that the authors of the Vatican memorandum about his book released in 1984, could have gained information from these men about the Pope’s plans. He himself conveniently comes out with their names after they are dead and cannot contradict him. (Msgr. Abbo, the secretary to the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See died in 1985, Cardinal Poletti in 1997, and Cardinal Caprio in 2005). Once again, Yallop gives no documentation of how he learned what these prelates supposedly knew.

But finally we come to Yallop’s triumphantly displayed “smoking gun.” He describes it as “the crucial dossier that the late Pope was studying shortly before his death. If there was ever within this entire affair a smoking gun it is the Vagnozzi dossier.” He goes on:

As of September 1978 Cardinal Egidio Vagnozzi knew more about the inner workings of Vatican finances than anyone else in or out of the Vatican. From 1967 he had been in control of the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. His role was comparable to that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the United Kingdom or the Auditor General in the United States. Vagnozzi had intimate knowledge of the Sindona and Calvi relationships with the Vatican and their various dealings with the Holy See. As recorded earlier in this book in 1968-69 Vagnozzi was still struggling to prise out many of the Vatican’s financial secrets that lay buried but long before Pope John Paul I was elected he had the answers.

When Albino Luciani sought an urgent investigation the information that Vagnozzi had acquired over a decade ensured that a highly detailed dossier was soon in the pope’s hands. Immediately after the discovery of the Pope’s body, the Vagnozzi report along with the papers covering the various changes were removed by Cardinal Villot, whose deputy Caprio was most certainly aware of the contents of that report. An indication of just how explosive the contents were can be gauged by the fact that Roberto Calvi subsequently became aware of the Vagnozzi report and its contents and after being offered a copy by a Vatican contact for three million dollars haggled the price down to one point two million dollars then kept the copy close to himself for the rest of his life. (10).

Yallop has apparently dropped his original contention that the Pope was holding a list of Masonic cardinals who were to be replaced, and replaced it with the notes about his conversation with Villot and the Vagnozzi dossier. Once again, he provides absolutely no documentation, especially for the part about Calvi. Given Yallop’s habitual lack of accuracy, not to mention his penchant for sheer fantasy, an intelligent reader might wonder what if anything can be believed of all this.

For all that Yallop trumpets Vagnozzi’s importance in the Postscript, he apparently merited only a couple of brief mentions within the actual text of his book, even in the same new edition that contains this postscript. Both of these mentions detailed Vagnozzi’s work drawing up a balance sheet for the various departments of the Vatican for the Prefecture. He evidently had difficulty doing so. Through the juxtaposition of these ideas in the Postscript, the reader is lead to believe that the “secrets” that Vagnozzi was unearthing referred to Sindona and Calvi, in the book itself, they refer only to getting the departments to release the actual total on their balance sheets. In reality, the Vatican Bank was not under the authority or jurisdiction of the Prefecture. In Yallop’s book itself, there is nothing detailing Vagnozzi’s supposed intimate knowledge of the relations between Marcinkus and Sindona (11).

Here is what appear to be the real facts behind this from documented source. First, there is an account by long-time Vatican analyst, Benny Lai, who had close ties to a number of Curial cardinals. As head of the Prefecture for Economic affairs, Vagnozzi had for some years been coordinating the economic administrations of the various departments under his control, and putting together an annual balance based on income and expenditures. He had written his first report on this for Pope Paul VI in 1969, more or less consonant with the facts and date Yallop mentions. But it was nothing more than a balance sheet, concerned exclusively with the various departments of the Vatican under the Prefecture — which did not include the Vatican Bank.

During the pre-conclave period in August 1978, Vagnozzi had written, at the request of Cardinal Villot, a report or balance sheet of income and expenditures to inform the cardinals meeting in the General Congregations about the general financial state of the Holy See. This was the first time that information like this had been shared with the majority of the Sacred College. Most of the cardinals would not even have known if the Vatican was solvent or not, or what its operating budget was. Villot had instructed Vagnozzi, nevertheless, to not dwell on the value of the Vatican’s stock portfolio, real estate holdings and gold reserves. “The African cardinals,” he said, “would not understand these things, and would draw from them who knows what conclusions.”

Someone who actually was known to have been collecting information on the Vatican Bank, Marcinkus, and his relationship with Calvi and Sindona, was Cardinal Pietro Palazzini, who was a member of the Curia, but not directly a part of the financial administration. During the General Congregations, Palazzini challenged the parameters of the report Villot had asked for, and asked why the Vatican Bank was not under the Administration of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs, and presumably also why its affairs could not be reported on to the cardinals. Cardinal Villot had at first dismissed his request. In all probability, he didn’t consider discussion of a lightning-rod issue like the controversial Vatican Bank appropriate at a moment when all the cardinals needed to work for unity in electing a new Pope. But Palazzini pressed his case, and a commission of cardinals was selected to look into the matter: they eventually reported that the IOR was not under the administration of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs. (12).

Palazzini’s request was going to have to wait until later. No doubt he would have been eager to take up the matter with the new Pope. And Cardinal Luciani, who regularly attended the pre-conclave General Congregations, would have been sitting in on these discussions. But whether Palazzini or Vagnozzi ever spoke to John Paul I about his information either before or after his election, has never been made clear, and certainly not by Yallop. Nor does it seem that at the time of John Paul I’s election, either Palazini or Vagnozzi knew much about the IOR’s relationship with Sindona or Calvi; they were simply trying to find information.

I think that Yallop’s source for his information about Vagnozzi was ultimately the story told by Francesco Pazienza, an associate of Roberto Calvi, who later went to prison for his part in the Banco Ambrosiano affair. In his memoirs, titled Il Disubbediente, published from prison, Pazienza said that he in 1981 he was asked to do some work for a faction in the Vatican that wanted to oust Marcinkus; Pazienza was asked to dig up dirt on him.

Pazienza went to a rather dubious contact of his own — a man named Giorgio Di Nunzio, who moved in P2 circles and who peddled Vatican gossip to the right-wing magazine Il Borghese. Di Nunzio claimed to be in possession of a dossier on Marcinkus and Sindona drawn up by Cardinal Vagnozzi, who had died the previous year (1980), before he had any chance to use the information himself. The dossier resided in a strongbox in a Swiss bank. Instead of taking this information to the Vatican, Pazienza sold it to Calvi to the tune of 1.2 million dollars. He also claimed that he later used the fact that he knew of this dossier and had kept it out of the Vatican’s hands to get into Marcinkus’ good graces.

If this dossier genuinely contained any dirt about Marcinkus and Sindona, it would have been ideal fodder for Calvi, who was looking for every possible way to blackmail Marcinkus and the Vatican bank into continuing to participate in his schemes. Pazienza, a convicted criminal, who has changed his story a number of times, is a dubious source of information at best.

This account in Pazienza’s memoirs was repeated by Philip Willan in his 2007 book The Last Supper: The Mafia, the Masons and the Killing of Roberto Calvi. (Willan, coincidently, was Yallop’s original researcher for In God’s Name). Neither Pazienza’s memoir nor the account in Willan’s book, however, make the slightest mention of Pope John I ever having seen this dossier. In fact, Willan, on the whole, seems to have distanced himself somewhat from Yallop’s conclusions about the Pope’s death (13)

However, at least one statement Yallop reported can be connected with Vagnozzi. Shortly after John Paul I’s election, Vagnozzi spoke to author Lai. They talked about how John Paul I seemed hemmed in by the Curia and Vagnozzi said: “I don’t know how long this state of affairs will last, because he has his own ideas and will want to implement them. They have told me he has no love for Marcinkus. He once came to Rome to speak his mind about the sale of the Banca Cattolica del Veneto, and Marcinkus treated him brusquely. We’ll see how it will end up.” (13). Here is a very clear summary of Yallop’s own version of the relationship between Luciani and Marcinkus. But not that it was based on a rumor – “they told me” (m’hanno detto) — who is “they? In short, he had heard a rumor. Nothing here is evidence that Vagnozzi had any direct information from conversations with the new Pope.

So in the first matter, that of new evidence about John Paul I’s supposed changes in the Church, Yallop basically provides nothing of value.

(To be continued)

(1) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 319.

(2) The diary excerpt was published in Giancarlo Zizola, Il Conclave: storia e segreti: l’elezione papale da San Pietro a Giovanni Paolo II. Rome: Newton Compton, 1993, p. 289, note; see also Bassotto, Il mio cuore, pp. 121-147.

(3) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 319.

(4) Bassotto, Il mio cuore, pp. 227-248.

(5) For instance, Jesus Lopez Saez, a Spanish priest who has two books of his own theorizing that the Pope was murdered, has carried out an investigation to determine the identity of Bassotto’s source. He believes that it was the late Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, who did live in the Vatican in 1989, and who was a friend of Luciani’s. However, he is unable, at least in my opinion, to provide any convincing evidence for this claim. See his The Day of Reckoning (English version of the Spanish original El Dia de Cuenta) at http://www.comayala.es/Libros/ddc2i/. Incidentally, if Yallop, who apparently doesn’t know Italian, read any version of Bassotto’s work, it was probably the English translation of long extracts from it that are available on this website, including most or all of the revelations of “the person in Rome.” It is the only English translation so far available, except for the extracts I am providing here. Interestingly, Yallop consistently misspells Camillo Bassotto’s first name as “Camilo,” which is, in fact, the Spanish version of his name, and which Lopez uses even in the English translation on the website.

(6) Because of the general lack of quotation marks, and the somewhat confusing editing of Bassotto’s book, it’s difficult to tell whether this sentence alone is part of the apparent aside to his confidant, or whether the following sentences were supposed to have been spoken to him as well, or to Villot. I am presuming it was to Villot, for there is no reason to believe the confidant could have been anyone with any authority to fire Marcinkus.

(7) Bassotto, Il mio cuore, pp. 237-38. One of my problems with the credibility of this source, in fact, is the space given to John Paul I speaking about Freemasonry as an power for evil in the world. I have studied his writings for more than twenty-five years, and have translated a great many of them, and I have never come across a single mention of Freemasonry good or bad, in them. He was certainly not the type to be obsessed about Freemasonry, as many of the traditionalists are. That is why I think that the words attributed to him here were more than likely filtered through the sensibility and thought of the anonymous confidant, whoever he may have been. At most, the Pope’s original comment referred to the Masonic organization P2, and was expanded in transmission to Masonry in general.

(8) Bassotto, Il mio cuore, pp. 229-30.

(9) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 319.

(10) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed, pp. 319-320.

(11) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed, pp. 81, 94-95.

(12) Lai, I segreti del Vaticano, pp. 137-42. Cardinal Palazzini himself later testified in the Banco Ambrosiano bankruptcy trial that he had indeed pressed for access to the IOR’s accounts at the time of John Paul I’s election, but had not succeeded. See the Banco Ambrosiano bankruptcy verdict, April 16, 1992, pp. 3081-85; cited in Philip Willan, The Last Supper: The Mafia, the Masons and the Killing of Roberto Calvi (London: Robinson, 2007), p. 187.

(13) Willan, The Last Supper, p. 143.

(14) Lai, I segreti del Vaticano, p. 159.

Filed under: Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul I, Pope Paul VI | |No Comments

Was Pope John Paul I Murdered? Part V

There is still one more part of my original work that I feel I should post before I get to Yallop’s newest claims. I had originally intended to save the question of the true cause of the Pope’s death until later, but I now think that both this and the question of why there was no autopsy should be put here so that my later analysis of Yallop and Cornwell will be clearer. But I needed some time to revise this part slightly. Then a few days ago, I came across some information, soon to be published, that includes some very interesting details confirming what I already knew, and throwing new light on the whole question. I’ll include or link to that information when it’s published. Sorry to be so mysterious! In the meantime, here are my original findings.

Update, October 22, 2008: Unfortunately, the information I was hoping to put here has not yet been published. I hope to track down and interview the person who has it myself in the near future.

The Lack of an Autopsy

Cardinal Villot was widely blamed for not having ordered an autopsy on the Pope at the time of his death, and this is, of course, one of Yallop’s major causes of suspicion against him. What’s the truth here? Did Villot somehow decide unilaterally not to have an autopsy, and make the decision on the morning of the Pope’s death or even before his “murder”? Certainly if he really knew of, or had participated in the Pope’s murder by poison, he would have had to be absolutely sure there was no autopsy.

In fact, this is very far from the case. Villot himself submitted the question to the first General Congregation of cardinals meeting on September 30, the morning after the Pope’s body was discovered. He informed the cardinals that the doctors who had examined the Pope’s body wanted to carry out an autopsy so that they could sign the death certificate, which had not yet been published. He wanted their opinion. This was noted by Benny Lai, an Italian journalist who was a Vatican “insider” and who had access to some of the cardinals in the Curia. (1) Clearly this was not the action of someone who wanted to be 100 percent certain of not having an autopsy! The cardinals discussed the question, and there were various opinions for and against. Some thought a good idea, given the climate of public opinion in Rome. Others didn’t want to set a precedent, and thought that the provisions of the Apostolic Constiutions on the death and election of a Pope should be strictly adhered to – and these made no provisions for an autopsy. On the other hand, according to the same source, the cardinals didn’t consider themselves competent to confirm the medical diagnosis on their own.

In fact, steps were taken preserve the Pope’s body on the evening of September 29, before any question of an autopsy was publicly raised. An autopsy after that time would perhaps not have been impossible, but was rather impractical. And even though public opinion was taken into account, the cardinals themselves, including Villot, did not seem to have had any suspicions of foul play.

In addition, Vatican spokesmen insisted several times to the press in the days following John Paul’s death that an autopsy would not satisfy those who were clamoring for it. Since this reference was probably to the traditionalists, it was made with good reason. An autopsy may have established the cause of John Paul’s death with medical certainty, but it would probably not have stopped the absurd murder plot theory that is still being spread today, since the fanatics who believe that John Paul I was murdered do so on ideological, not medical grounds. There are, of course, other people whose confusion and suspicion are not ideologically motivated, and who would have welcomed some medical proof of the cause of Pope John Paul’s death. But although it is unfortunate that an autopsy was not performed, and also unfortunate that the Vatican rarely seems to give as much importance as it should to public opinion, there is no reason to think that the decision not to have an autopsy was made in order to cover up a murder.

The True Cause of the Pope’s Death

There is one final question: What was the real cause of the Pope’s death? Yallop claims that the lack of an autopsy is suspicious, and that John Paul I, who was, he claims, in excellent health, and had never suffered from heart trouble, could hardly have died of a heart attack, as the Vatican said.

According to the statement released by the Vatican, Dr. Buzzonetti said that the Pope’s sudden death “could be related to acute myocardial infarction,” (2) As I indicated above, the doctors were uncertain about the cause of death and wanted clarification. Dr. Buzzonetti’s original opinion was evidently just a rough guess that would have required an autopsy to clarify. In reaching his first opinion, he relied primarily on the age of the victim, the external appearance of the body and the suddenness of death. According to later interviews by Lorenzi and Magee with John Cornwell and others, they did state that the Pope had chest pains the night before, but never told the doctor about this (I will talk about these when I discuss Cornwell’s book). There is an element of doubt obvious in Buzzonetti’s diagnosis, which is natural, since he made it from external evidence only, and without having any exact knowledge of the Pope’s previous medical history.

It is true that Pope John Paul had never shown any cardiopathic symptoms in the medical tests carried out at various times during his life, and his low blood pressure made the development of coronary heart disease unlikely. Perhaps it is true that to someone who was acquainted with Albino Luciani’s medical history, a diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction would not have been immediately apparent. But Dr. Buzzonetti did not have this knowledge. Yallop did an investigation into the Pope’s medical history, and trumpets the fact that he had no heart trouble as evidence for murder. He ignored the fact that there are a number of other causes of sudden death, including some that John Paul I was susceptible to. Yallop was also either ignorant of or kept from his readers many of the details of Luciani’s medical history. Now let’s turn to those details and those possible causes of death.

Yallop failed to mention the fact that Luciani suffered from hardening of the arteries, or arteriosclerosis, a contributing factor in heart attacks and strokes. In January 1978, Luciani had told a priest in Venice that arteriosclerosis had been causing his difficulties with his vision, and that he thought it would mean “a quick old age” for him. (3) While arteriosclerosis is most common in those with high blood pressure, it is by no means confined to these people. Yallop claims that Luciani’s low blood pressure lessened his chances of a heart attack. Perhaps this is true, but as Dr. Baima Ballome explains, his low blood pressure might mean that he was “inclined to collapse and thrombosis.” (4) That is, he may have been particularly subject to the formulation of a thrombus, or blood clot, which can block a blood vessel, causing what is known as an embolism. It is an embolism which usually causes myocardial infarction, which is the blockage of a blood vessel in the heart. One form of stroke, a cerebral embolism, is caused by a clot blocking the arteries in the brain, and a pulmonary embolism is a clot which blocks the pulmonary artery leading to the lungs. Both of these types of embolisms rank with myocardial infarction among the leading causes of sudden death.

Luciani did suffer from such an embolism in a blood vessel in his eye in 1975. According to Dr. Rama, who treated him for it, it may have been that sign of a vascular problem that could have caused his death. After explaining this to Yallop, Rama told him, “I was very surprised that they did not ask me to come and examine the Pope’s body.” (5) It is amazing that after hearing from the Pope’s doctor that he had such a condition, and publishing the information in his book, Yallop still thought that a death due to natural causes was unlikely.

Msgr. Senigaglia, who was Luciani’s secretary from 1970-76 in Venice, and in fact had known him since 1964, when he was bishop of Vittorio Veneto, told me that the embolism he suffered at that time was probably linked to circulatory problems, although nothing showed up on the medical tests that were performed afterwards in Venice to show the exact cause. He explained that some years before while bishop of Vittorio Veneto, Luciani had experienced rheumatic back pains, of the type that are often linked to circulatory disturbances, and in fact, he had worn a body corset for a time because of them. (This is another thing that Yallop neglects to mention, in spite of his frequent boast that he is the only author to have Luciani’s compete medical history). Senigaglia also said that for a long time after coming to Venice, Luciani had not suffered from these disturbances, but that he began experiencing them again in 1978, including some circulatory disturbances in his legs. (6) Then in the spring, at a meeting of the bishops of the Triveneto, he told his friend Archbishop Gottardi of Trent that he had been having some chest pains. He said he didn’t know whether the pain had to do with heart trouble or his respiratory problems, which dated back to an episode of severe viral pneumonia he had gone through as a young priest (7) It was these various pains, including swollen ankles and knees, that prompted Luciani to spend some time at the Stella Maris Institute on the Lido, a seaside resort in Venice, at the end of July and beginning of August 1978, less than a month before was elected Pope. His doctor, Dr. Da Ros, had advised him to do some sunbathing, because this could relieve rheumatic symptoms. (8) At the same time, Luciani went to a hospital for some medical tests, but they did not indicate the cause of the disturbances. (9) Yet is it impossible that these circulatory disturbances may have led to his death a few weeks later, especially when several hours before his death he experienced a recurrence of the pains? Yallop says nothing of these pains, and maintains instead that this stay in the hospital was intended “to counter-act a possible recurrence of gallstones.” But he does not say where he got this information. (10)

Circulatory problems also run in the Luciani family. In an interview he gave after Yallop’s book was published, Edoardo Luciani reacted to the charges that his brother’s death was not due to natural causes by saying:

Sudden deaths are frequent in our family. My great-grandfather and two of my aunts died suddenly, without ever having felt any pain: he while he was putting wood in the fireplace, one of my aunts while she was gathering potatoes in the fields, and the other while she was working in the kitchen. They were all around 65 or 66 years old–which was my brother’s age. I am convinced that had he stayed in Venice, nothing would have changed. His time had come, that’s all there is to it. When I heard about his death, I thought right away about my great-grandfather and my aunts . . . I have never had the least perplexity about his death. (11)

It is therefore quite possible that John Paul I may have died from a cerebral or pulmonary embolism. The Pope’s niece Lina, who is a doctor, said: “According to my professor of pathological anatomy at the Gemelli [Mario Alberto Dina] he heard that when they were preserving the body they had great difficulty injecting the fluids. This could be further indication of massive blockage in the pulmonary artery.” (12)

A conversation between the Pope and Sister Vincenza on the last day of his life, September 28, confirms this theory as well. The sister had been in Luciani’s household for about 12 years. She was a trained nurse and often reminded him about taking his medication. She said that she had noticed that morning that the Pope’s hands and feet were swollen, and that he confessed to her that his knees were swollen as well; a sign that he earlier troubles had returned. Nevertheless, he didn’t think it serious enough to see the doctor about, at least not immediately. Sister Vincenza was well acquainted with the Pope’s medical history, and she told Venetian author Camillo Bassotto: “I am of the opinion that the Pope died of a pulmonary embolism and not of an heart attack.” (13)

Msgr. Senigaglia also told me that he thought an embolism was a likely answer, because of Luciani’s medical history. He thought that the effect of stress on a man with John Paul’s sensitive personality may have helped to trigger it. “It had been a summer when he hadn’t had a vacation,” he said. “Then there was the added stress of the papacy. It could also have been the effect of fatigue.” He added: “There was no need for an autopsy. The family didn’t request it. If there had been the least doubt about a death that was not natural, I’m sure the Vatican would have had an autopsy done. But no one thought of a violent death. Given his [the Pope's] personality type and the family precedents, there was no problem.”(13)

Yet in spite of all the evidence provided by the Pope’s doctor, his secretaries, his nurse and his family, Yallop still stands by his opinion that John Paul I was in perfect health when elected Pope. During the course of a debate on Italian television with Father Lorenzi in October 1987, Yallop dismissed Lorenzi’s statement that the Pope had experienced chest pain a few hours before he died as a mere fantasy. Yet Yallop offered nothing that would support his own theory. (15)

There are many other errors in very simple facts, as well as many contradictory statements in In God’s Name. Many of Yallop’s statements are heavily loaded with hyperbole and a large number are partially or completely undocumented. He also distorted or even ignored statements by important witnesses which did not happen to suit his theories. But Yallop’s greatest mistake was to trust his anonymous sources blindly. In order to measure the usefulness of the information he gathered from them, he would have had to have been better acquainted with affairs in the Catholic Church, especially with the persistent campaign by the traditionalists and the right in general against the Curia, but, as he himself states, he was almost totally ignorant about the Vatican when he began his investigation. (16) This is perhaps the most telling point against him: ignorance. Yallop has at least one thing in common with the authors of many other recent sensational works about the Vatican: their ignorance of the history and theology of the Catholic Church. Those who write about the Church should have at least a little bit of knowledge about it first. Their failure to realize or admit this has caused untold damage.

(1) Benny Lai, I segreti del Vaticano, pp. 163-64.

(2) See the declaration in L’Osservatore Romano, 29 September 1978, p. 1. Drs. Renato Buzzonetti and Mario Fontana did eventually sign the death certificate, stating the death to be by “acute myocardial infarction” but it was not immediately released by the Vatican. It was later published in the Acta Apostolica Sedis for 1978.

(3) Arturo D’Onofrio, Giovanni Paolo I: Il Papa del sorriso (Napoli-Roma: La Redenzione, 1978), p. 198.

(4) Baima Ballone, “Si distrugge da solo,” p. 17.

(5) Yallop, In God’s Name, p. 255.

(6) Personal interview with Mario Senigaglia, November 2, 1985.

(7) Gottardi related his conversation with Luciani in La Vita Trentina (Trent), September 30, 1978; quoted in Huber, Giovanni Paolo I: o la vocazione di Giovanni Battista (Rome: Edizioni “Pro Sanctitate”, 1979), p. 167.

(8) Bassotto, Il mio cuore, p. 203.

(9) Personal interview with Mario Senigaglia, November 2, 1985.

(10) Yallop, In God’s Name, p. 247.

(11) Edoardo Luciani, “Mio fratello non è stato ucciso,” p. 92.

(12) Interview with Lina Petri in Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, p. 243. I have some difficulty with the accuracy of many of Cornwell’s statements; even his translations of his interviews are often not correct (more about this later); in this case, however, the statement has been confirmed by other family members and friends of the Pope. According to Don Licio Boldrin, a priest from the Veneto who was a friend of John Paul I, indicates that when the preserving injections were performed, a swelling was found on the Pope’s arm that could indicate the presence of an embolism; Licio Boldrin, “Ma come è morto Giovanni Paolo?” Papa Luciani Humilitas, 2 (August 1985), p. 11.

(13) Bassotto, Il mio cuore, p. 212.

(14) Personal interview with Mario Senigaglia, November 2, 1985.

(15) Orazio Petrosilli in Il Tempo, October 4, 1987; Willi, In Namen des Teufels?, p. 147.

(16) Yallop ignorant about the Vatican: “Le incredibili rivelazioni,” p. 5.

Filed under: Pope John Paul I | |No Comments

New Look!

I finally went ahead and did it . . . I like this new look better, since it uses up more of the page creatively. I expect I will be able to tinker with it and put in a more pilgrimage-like image soon. I hope you like it too.

Oh, and I finally noticed a little while back that the RSS feed was missing. It somehow got removed when I was tinkering with the sidebar widgets . . . I have now fixed it. My apologies. Hopefully the site will now be more useful to everyone.

Filed under: Uncategorized | |No Comments

Was Pope John Paul I Murdered? (Part IV)

Update: September 16. Just two days after I posted this istallment, with lengthy excerpts from a long-ago interview of mine with Msgr. Mario Senigaglia, John Paul I’s secretary when he was Patriarch of Venice, I learned that Don Mario, as he was always called, died in Venice on August 9. He was 70 years old. He first became acquainted with Albino Luciani, then bishop of Vittorio Veneto in 1964, when Senigaglia was secretary to Cardinal Urbani, then patriarch of Venice, and the two bishops were attending the Second Vatican Council together. When Luciani was named patriarch of Venice himself in 1969, he asked Don Mario to be his secretary as well. Don Mario served Luciani faithfully in that job for almost seven years, until Luciani gave him his long desired parish work in 1976, as pastor at Santo Stefano, one of the largest parishes in the city. He remained there for more than 30 years.

I would have dearly loved for Don Mario to be able to read what I have put here, because he was very upset by Yallop’s book. But I hadn’t yet had time to inform him. I also greatly hoped to be able to see him again if I returned to Italy to continue my research. I’m truly saddened by his loss, but grateful for the kindness he showed in granting me those two interviews in 1985, between pressing obligations in the parish to which he was so devoted. I’m happy that he was able to write a great deal about “his” patriarch and Pope over the years, especially for Humilitas, the Italian periodical devoted to him. These writings were also an act of great devotion to this great man and to the truth. May he rest in peace with Papa Luciani.

An Inside Job?

Yallop tried as hard as he could to prove Marcinkus’ involvement in the murder plot, and failed. But Marcinkus is not the most important potential conspirator. After all, he was not in the Pope’s bedroom that morning. But Cardinal Villot was. If there were a murder plot, Cardinal Villot’s involvement would be absolutely essential, since every single decision, including verifying the Pope’s death, the disposition of his body and his burial was in his hands as Camerlengo and the interim head of the Holy See. The conspirators would have to depend on him to make absolutely certain that there would be no autopsy, and that no evidence of the murder would remain. But what motives could the cardinal have had participating in a plot to kill the Pope?

Yallop considered Villot his main suspect partly because Villot was also the main suspect for his anonymous traditionalist sources, who wanted to demonstrate that the Cardinal murdered the Pope to keep him from carrying out his plans to put conservatives in all the key posts in the Vatican and the Italian hierarchy. Yallop faithfully reports their version; he says that Villot called the Pope’s policies “a betrayal of Paul’s will” and “a triumph for the restoration” — a word-for-word quotation from the story that Gennari gathered, which appears to be linked to the ANSA story. (1) Yallop says that his sources also told him of the Pope’s supposed plans to remove Cardinal Baggio, who was also accused of being a Mason, as head of the Congregation of Bishops. (2) The haters of Masonry who thought that Baggio and other prelates were keeping the “truth” about the Lefebvre movement from the Pope, were hoping that once Baggio was out of the way, the Pope might decide to re-instate Lefebvre as a bishop. Yallop obviously did not understand his sources’ explanation of the motives for the Pope’s “murder,” since throughout his book, he portrayed John Paul I as a liberal champion of Vatican II. Or he preferred to ignore this contradiction, as he did many others. And as has already been made clear, John Paul I was not a supporter of the traditionalists and would not have made any of these changes to begin with.

Yallop himself seems to have had little interest in the traditionalists’ theories; he preferred to concentrate on P2, Calvi and Sindona as the masterminds of the plot. If Yallop is correct, Villot would have to have been under direct orders from Gelli or Gelli’s lieutenant Ortolani in order to make sure the plot was carried through. But Yallop absolutely fails to provide any evidence of a connection between Villot and these men. He doesn’t even seem to try very hard. Villot was not on the list of P2 members, as I showed in the previous instalment. Yallop only says vaguely that since Villot was the head of APSA, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, which he claims helped bring Sindona into the Vatican world, then he must have been involved with Sindona. But he offers absolutely no proof for his involvement. (The administration of APSA is completely separate from that of the Vatican Bank).

A Rebel on Birth Control?

Yallop himself seems to have been uneasy about the plausibility of the motives he brings forth for Cardinal Villot’s supposed complicity in the murder plot, so he adds another one: the Secretary of State was determined to prevent the Pope from carrying out his plans to liberalize the Church’s teaching on birth control. (He apparently did not notice that this was in contradiction to the statements of his sources that the Pope was planning some very conservative changes — and this is further evidence of Yallop’s lack of understanding of Church issues).

Almost immediately after Cardinal Luciani’s election, the news stories began to pour out suggesting that as John Paul I, he might change the Church’s stand on birth control. This was based on the fact that while bishop of Vittorio Veneto in the 1960’s, and the special papal commission on birth control had been set up, Luciani had studied the problem of in great depth. More than once he had expressed a hope that a good pastoral solution could be found that would correspond to the hopes of many couples that the pill and other forms of artificial contraception might be allowed. (3)

In 1968, Pope Paul VI, dissatisfied with the commission’s conclusions, asked the episcopal conferences of Lombardy and the Veneto (where Luciani’s diocese was located) for their advice. Luciani drafted the document that came out of the meeting of the two conferences and that was sent to the pope. The text, a private internal Church document, has never been released. But those who knew him have said that it expressed a great deal more openness than Humanae Vitae showed. And yet, when the encyclical came out shortly afterwards, Luciani fully adhered to it, and asked his people to do the same. In his pastoral letter, he said:

I must confess that I hoped in my heart, even though I didn’t let it out in writing, that the very serious existing difficulties might be overcome and that the reply of the Teacher, who speaks with a special charism and in the name of the Lord, might coincide, at least in part, with the hopes raised in so many couples. . . I know for certain that concern for these souls in pain and an ardent desire to bring them light and comfort were the only reasons for the notable delay in the coming of the Pope’s answer. . . Now he gives his judgment, conscious that he is performing a duty and in a spirit of great faith. He knows indeed, that he is going to be the cause of bitterness in many people, he knows that a different solution would probably have brought him more human applause; but he puts his faith in God, and in order to be faithful to His word, he re-proposes the traditional teaching of the Magisterium in this very delicate matter in all its purity. What about the recent scientific discoveries? The social evolution of our times? The increasing need for “responsible parenthood?” The need to harmonize this “responsible parenthood” with the demands of conjugal love? All of these things are kept in mind, but they do not postulate a new doctrine. The doctrine that has always been taught, presented in the new framework of positive and encouraging ideas on marriage and conjugal love, better guarantee the true good of man and the family. . . I am confident that I have everyone with me in a sincere adherence to the papal teaching, and in this assurance, I bless and greet you (4)

Luciani continued to defend the Pope’s teaching on many occasions throughout his time as Patriarch of Venice. Nevertheless, Yallop was convinced that Luciani still wanted a change in the Church’s teaching on birth control, and this, along with the new Pope’s desire for a poorer Church and his supposed stand against financial corruption in the Vatican, is what attracted Yallop most to him.

Here, as elsewhere in the book, Yallop provides long descriptions of “reconstructed” conversations that the Pope was said to have had with his co-workers in the Vatican, but many of the details of these conversations are open to serious question. In this case, Yallop states that, on September 19, after hearing that a U.S. Congressional delegation wanted to discuss birth control with him, the Pope decided that this meeting was so important that he gave up the idea of going to the Latin American Bishops’ Conference in Puebla in October, but instead asked Villot to set up an October meeting with the congressional delegation in Rome. Yallop claims that this decision of the Pope may have convinced Villot to help murder him. (5)

The truth, however, is that the announcement that the Pope had decided not to go to Puebla had already been made by the Vatican — and published in newspapers all over the world — more than two weeks earlier, on September 2. (6) Consequently, the Pope could hardly have still been planning to go to Puebla on September 19. Also, it is hardly likely that even if John Paul did decide to make a change in the Church’s doctrine on birth control, he would reveal it to U. S. Congressmen before he discussed it with moral theologians, or his fellow bishops. This is particularly true of someone who valued episcopal collegiality as Luciani had always done. The very unlikeliness of all these details and the ignorance they betray of the way the Church functions indicates that they are largely the product of imagination.

Apart from this fantasy, what can actually be said about the subject? We can go to the eyewitnesses. Father Lorenzi, who certainly would have known, denies that the Pope had yet even spoken to Villot about the subject of birth control. (7)

The person who knows perhaps the most about Luciani’s feelings on the subject is his secretary in Venice, Mario Senigaglia. When I asked him what he thought Luciani might have done about birth control as Pope, he told me: “He would have carried on the discussion. He had studied a great deal about the subject.” But he added: “The line he would have taken as Pope can’t be determined from the line he took as a bishop. The line he took in Belluno was different from the line he took in Vittorio Veneto and the line he took in Vittorio Veneto was different from the one he took in Venice. The same with any Pope. Pope John — we thought he was a nice little old man and that he would be a ‘transitional Pope’. Instead he turned the world upside down. The same with Wojtyla, whom I also knew. He is different now than when I knew him as a bishop. I am sure that as Pope, Luciani would have learned about Paul VI’s documentation on Humanae Vitae and that he would have found the scientific and pastoral motives for his decision. Maybe it could have convinced him [that Pope Paul was right]. I do know that he suffered over the drama of couples in difficult situations.”

“Do you think he would have been in a hurry to make a decision on birth control?” I asked.

“No! It wasn’t his style. He was very prudent, he knew how to listen to people. Some decisions in Venice he made only after eight and a half years there.” (8)

In fact, it is certain that Luciani was always sensitive to all ramifications of every problem, and especially that of birth control. He had seen the availability of birth control lead to an “abortion mentality,” including the legalization of abortion in Italy, to an increase in sexual immorality outside of marriage and other evils as well. Whatever he had to say about birth control as Pope would certainly have been influenced by these considerations. But above all, he would have been obedient to whatever he had determined was the real teaching of Christ.

The question of how John Paul I might have handled the difficult pastoral problems connected with the Church’s teachings on birth control as Pope is certainly a legitimate one, but it deserves a much more serious treatment than Yallop gives it. And he utterly fails to prove that such a change was imminent.

Villot in Charge of a Coverup?

But the evidence against Villot that Yallop believes most important is his claim that the Cardinal lied about the circumstances of the Pope’s death, obviously in order to cover up his murder. He says Villot lied about what time the Pope’s body was discovered, who discovered it, and, most importantly, what he was reading at the time of his death. Once again, Yallop obtained all his information directly from the sources behind the ANSA story. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that these people were eyewitnesses to any of the events they claimed to be describing. It cannot be proved that even one of them was anywhere near the Pope’s bedroom on the morning of September 29, 1978. There is a possibility that they may have known some Curial monsignors, even a Curial cardinal who sympathized with their views, and were able to pick up rumors from them. But that would have provided them with only a very remote link with the actual events. For the most part, Yallop’s sources simply seized on the few confused or contradictory details contained in the Vatican statements and news stories about the Pope’s death and embroidered on them, in order to spread their insinuations about the “evil” cardinals in the Curia. Most important of all, their story contradicts that of the eyewitnesses to the scene at a number of points.

John Magee, who was the Pope’s secretary at the time, has stated that Sister Vincenza discovered the Pope’s body and then ran to wake him up at 5:25.(9) Father Lorenzi had stated, long before Yallop’s book appeared, that he was awakened at 5:45, shortly after the Pope’s body was discovered. (10) Sister Vincenza herself stated that she discovered shortly before 5:00 that the Pope had not drunk his morning coffee placed outside his door, and yet it was some time after that before she entered his room (11) But Yallop says nothing of this, although he claims to have interviewed both the secretaries and the nun. Instead, he stands by his sources’ version, that the Pope’s body was discovered an hour earlier. Upholding his own version, Father Lorenzi told me: “I was there. Yallop wasn’t.” (12)

Yallop regards the time that the Pope’s body was discovered as especially important. He believes that the actual discovery took place shortly after 4:30 a.m., not at the time announced by the Vatican, which was about 5:30. During this hour, he says, Cardinal Villot concocted the details of the cover-up of the Pope’s murder. But Yallop’s version is not only contradicted by all the eyewitnesses, it is also illogical. The Pope’s co-workers in Venice had stated for the press at the time of his election that he habitually got up around 5 a.m. According to Father Lorenzi, he usually rose between 4:30 and 5:00 in the Vatican. If the Pope’s alarm was set for 4:45, (or even granting that Yallop is correct, 4:30), why would Vincenza have become concerned over his failure to appear and gone into his bedroom at or even before the time his alarm was due to ring? Shouldn’t she have at least allowed him some time to get up before deciding he was late?

The Signoracci brothers, who embalmed the Pope, told Yallop that they do not remember exactly when they were summoned on the morning of September 29. Yet Yallop ignores this and insists that they were brought to the Vatican at 5:00 a.m., a half hour before the Pope’s body was “officially” found. This is also inconsistent with the statement of Father Lorenzi, who Yallop quotes, saying that the embalmers did not arrive until 11:00 a.m.

As for what the Pope was reading at the time of his death, Lorenzi, who was among the first in the Pope’s bedroom that morning, had indeed stated publicly on September 30 that John Paul was holding some papers in his hand when his body was discovered. But Lorenzi denies that they were a list of changes in the Curia. He told me emphatically: “He would not have had any list of cardinals in his hands!” He says that they were John Paul’s own personal notes, sermons, articles, and so on, and that he was “trying to get ideas from his old writings for his next Sunday Angelus sermon, because that was coming up very quickly.” (13) Magee has also very clearly said that the Pope was holding some pages from a homily. (14) Villot, another eyewitness, said they were pages from a discourse, as I described in Part II above. Yet Yallop does not quote their description of these papers. Once again, he believes that his sources, who were not present, somehow infallibly knew what was in the Pope’s hands.

It is difficult to believe that Yallop did not ask the eyewitnesses what time the Pope’s body was discovered, what he was holding in his hands, and so on. If he did, why didn’t he publish their answers? Yallop states several times that Magee, Lorenzi and Vincenza gave him the facts in his interviews with them. And yet by maintaining silence on every point where their accounts differ from that of his sources, he leads his readers to believe these eyewitnesses are in agreement with his version of events, while in fact they contradict it on almost every point.

Yallop later claimed that the Pope’s family and secretaries told him “the truth” and then later changed their stories at the Vatican’s insistence, but this is patently ridiculous (for this claim, see part VII). If they had really told him the truth and it agreed with his theories, he would given their statements as supporting evidence in his book, but he remained silent on their take on the controversial points until it was later made public — which is very good evidence in itself that they had told him nothing that he found useful to support his theories to begin with.

Even if there were reason to believe that the members of the papal household lied, and that their testimony should be rejected, (and I have not found the slightest reason to believe this), there would still be no reason to regard sources whose names are not given and who may be totally dependent on hearsay as the only source of the truth about Pope John Paul’s death. The story that these sources gave to ANSA and later to Yallop did contain one correct unpublished detail which could have been obtained from someone working inside the Vatican — that Sister Vincenza was the first person in the Pope’s bedroom that morning — but that is almost the only true statement in it. By ignoring the eyewitness accounts, Yallop not only misrepresents the statements of the Pope’s co-workers, but also seriously misleads his readers.

Yallop claims that Cardinal Villot invented the story about the Imitation of Christ, in order to cover up the fact that the Pope had his list of proposed changes in his hands. As I have already pointed out, this story originated not with Villot, but with speculation was broadcast by all the news sources, not just Vatican Radio. At any rate, it could scarcely have been invented to cover up what the Pope had in his hands when he died, since it did not refer to what was in his hands, but rather to a book open on the covers beside him. The only statement that can possibly be connected to Cardinal Villot is the original Vatican press release, which did not say what the Pope had been reading.

Yallop portrays the relationship between John Paul and Cardinal Villot as a cold and reserved one. This may have been the view of Yallop’s traditionalist sources, who hated Villot, but it is contradicted by the rest of the witnesses, including some of the people Yallop himself interviewed, who were in a position to know, and who state that Villot admired the new Pope. Mgr. Ausilio Da Rif of Belluno, a friend of John Paul I, whose statements Yallop uses, pointed this out to me with some indignation. (15) In short, the story that Villot covered up the murder of John Paul I is about as probable as the story that Villot substituted a double for Paul VI.

In addition, those who knew Pope John Pau I most intimately completely reject Yallop’s theory that he was planning any sweeping changes in the Curia. Father Lorenzi, who as the Pope’s secretary in the Vatican, was in a better position to know than anyone else, said to me: “In 1973, Pope Paul had appointed well-informed and competent cardinals to high posts. Did Luciani have any reason to put them aside? Luciani was intelligent and had keen insight into men and events. But the virtue of prudence always kept him good company. He had to rely on people who were experienced in different fields and who had been serving and helping Paul VI for a number of years.” (16)

Mgr. Senigaglia agrees. “The person described by Yallop is the opposite of Luciani,” he said. “He wouldn’t have moved people from the Curia. He didn’t do it in Vittorio Veneto or Venice. He never even really appointed me as his secretary. He always said, `Wait, stay with me until I can find someone else, do me this favor.’ He was always respectful towards people.” (17) In fact, Luciani had followed his usual policy in regard to his co-workers when he reappointed the Curia of Paul VI across the board two days after becoming Pope.

There is simply no way that Yallop’s contentions about any of these points holds up. The same is true of his opinions about the supposed murder method.

Murder method?

Yallop believes that the Pope was poisoned by digitalis added to his low blood pressure medicine. But Pia Basso, the Pope’s niece, has said that he had stopped taking his blood pressure medication two weeks before his death. (18) And Father Lorenzi told me: “The Pope was not taking any liquid medication at the time of his death, only pills. There was no medicine that could have been doctored. So that destroys Yallop’s theory right there.” (19)

Even presuming that there was a way for the poison to be administered, the theory of digitalis poisoning itself is implausible. According to Pier Luigi Baima Ballone, an Italian expert on legal medicine, the time necessary for digitalis to take effect and the fact that even then it would not cause loss of consciousness for several hours, means that the Pope would have had ample time to summon help. (20)

Yallop suggests that Villot hid the Pope’s glasses and slippers because they were stained by vomiting from the digitalis poisoning. This is mere speculation. If there had been signs of vomiting, the two priests and the sister would surely have noticed them, since they saw the Pope’s body before Villot even entered the room. But Yallop provides no statements from his interviews with them that they noticed anything of the kind. In addition, there is no evidence that the objects in question ever disappeared. According to Antonietta Luciani, absolutely nothing was missing from the Pope’s personal effects when they were returned to their home. Above all, she declared emphatically, “None of the pairs of glasses were lost.” He actually had three pairs: Sister Vincenza had kept one, and she had kept the others. In fact, Antonietta was wearing his bifocals herself. She showed me both pairs of glasses, with his name embossed, and the prescription from Dr. Rama. (21) Finally, since vomiting also frequently accompanies heart attacks and other illnesses as well, how can it be used, even if it did take place, to prove that the Pope died from digitalis poisoning?

Yallop makes a great deal of the fact that John Paul’s will disappeared. He believes that Villot destroyed it because it contained some important evidence. But once again, the Pope’s family denies this. Antonietta Luciani explained to me that the Pope had asked his secretary who had remained in Venice, Don Carlo Bolzan, to destroy his will because he wanted to make another. Don Carlo instead brought it to the Vatican, and the Pope told him to put it in a drawer; he presumably destroyed it later. (22) He may have written another will before he died, but Edoardo Luciani said that it would not be at all surprising if the will was not discovered, since it probably would have been written, like the first one, on a small piece of paper and put it in an ordinary envelope. It might not even have been noticed among his other papers. (23) At any rate, it is only speculation on Yallop’s part that the will contained something important that needed to be hidden.

I hope I have shown definitively that every single one of Yallop’s contentions is flawed, almost always fatally so. Conspiracy theorists love his book, but very few serious reviewers find his work credible. Nevertheless, more than 20 years after the original was written, Yallop issued a new edition, with an afterward that attempts to deal with evidence that came out after the first edition was published. I will go over this evidence in the next installment.

NOTES

(1) Yallop, In God’s Name, p. 301.

(2) Yallop, In God’s Name, p. 242.

(3) See for instance, Albino Luciani, Il Buon Samaritano (Padua: Edizioni Messaggero, 1980), p. 244.

(4) Albino Luciani / Giovanni Paolo I, Opera Omnia (Padua: Edizioni Messaggero, 1989), 4:198-99.

(5) Yallop, In God’s Name, pp. 171-73, 206-207.

(6) Among others, Correio do Povo, September 3, 1978, p. 3. More information has come to light since I originally wrote this, from those who talked to the Pope, that suggests John Paul I might have later asked that the conference be postponed until February of 1979 so that he might go, but in no way was this decision said to be connected with birth control or a desire to meet with the American delegation (See Camillo Bassotto, Il mio cuore e ancora a Venezia, pp. 145, 231).

(7) Personal interview with Diego Lorenzi, October 24, 1985

(8) Personal Interview with Mario Senigaglia, November 2, 1985.

(9) John Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, pp. 194-95.

(10) Diego Lorenzi, Il Gazzettino, 28 September 1978, p. 5; cf. Ch. 22 and Yallop, In God’s Name, p. 218-19.

(11) Sister Vincenza told this to Venetian author Camillo Bassotto; see his Il mio cuore e ancora in Venezia (Venice, Adriatica, 1990), p. 209.

(12) Personal interview with Diego Lorenzi, October 24, 1985.

(13) Personal interview with Diego Lorenzi, October 24, 1985.

(14) Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, p. 196.

(15) Personal interview with Mgr. Ausilio Da Rif, October 15, 1985.

(16) Personal interview with Diego Lorenzi, October 24, 1985.

(17) Personal interview with Mario Senigalia, November 2, 1985.

(18) Michael Schwartz, “Hard Cover Hate Book Mere Yelps from Author Yallop,” Our Sunday Visitor, 22 July 1984, p. 3;

(19) Personal interview with Diego Lorenzi, October 24, 185.

(20) Dr. Pier Luigi Baima Ballone,”Si distrugge da solo lo scrittore-detective,” Jesus, 10 November 1985, p. 17.

(21) Antonietta Luciani to the author, October 1, 1985.

(22) Antonietta Luciani to the author, October 1, 1985. see also Don Carlo Bolzan, I miei vescovi, cardinali, supremi pontefici. Privately published by the author, 1981.

(23) Edoardo Luciani, “Mio fratello non e` stato ucciso: lo ha,” [interview] Gente, June 21, 1985, p. 92.

Filed under: Pope John Paul I | |3 Comments