Lori’s Pilgrimage

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 aquainted 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 authors of 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 eyewitnesses, 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.

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 presumably the Pope destroyed it there. (22) He evidently wrote another one before he died, but Edoardo Luciani says 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 (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 author, October 1, 1985.

(22) Antonietta Luciani to author, October 1, 1985.

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

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