Was Pope John Paul I Murdered? Part VII
Here is the last installment of my response to Yallop. It is something of a catchall, and I did have to repeat some things I said earlier, so I hope it is coherent. I may have to take a little break for now because of upcoming work, but I will get to Cornwell as soon as I can.
Yallop’s Answers to his Critics
The first statement from the Vatican about Yallop’s book came in the form of a memorandum released in June 1984, immediately after In God’s Name was published. It admitted officially for the first time that Sister Vincenza had indeed discovered the Pope’s body. However, it insisted that no changes in the Curia were being planned (though it said nothing specific about the Vatican bank, Freemasons or most of Yallop’s other charges) and above all, it insisted that the Pope’s health had not been good. About this it said:
While the death of Pope John Paul I came as a great surprise only a month after his election to the papacy, the Cardinals who gathered in daily meetings in preparation for the (next) conclave saw no reason to question the report of Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, Director of Vatican Health Services that the death of Pope John Paul I was attributable to natural causes.
In addition there was the fact that the Pope’s health had been rather frail. Some time previously, he had complained of swollen ankles. His close relatives did not have any doubts regarding the naturalness of his death, but cited no less than three cases of similar deaths among relatives. (1)
This memorandum was certainly not an extensive treatment of the Pope’s medical problems; it lacked a great deal of detail that was available even back then. In the Postscript to the new edition, Yallop ridicules this memorandum and accuses it of having “assisted immeasurably in the growth of a myth that is still vibrant twenty-eight years later” that is, the myth that Albino Luciani was in poor health when elected Pope.” (2) He spends considerable time in the postscript trying to prove that “Albino Luciani’s condition was far from frail as a study of his factual medical history would have confirmed.” (3)
Yallop once again conveniently ignores the fact that the “factual medical history” contains a statement by Dr. Rama which Yallop himself quotes in his book, that the Pope had a vascular problem that could have led to his death (see Part IV) (4)
Yallop says that Dr. Buzzonetti wasn’t qualified to speak because he wasn’t Luciani’s doctor and had never examined him, and that Buzzonetti’s conclusion that the Pope died from myocardial infarction – a heart attack “has been dismissed . . . by members of the medical profession in Italy, the U.S. Australia New Zealand and the United Kingdom.” (5)
None of the doctors he mentions in different countries had every treated Luciani, any more than Dr. Buzzonetti had. In addition, they didn’t have the advantage Buzzonetti had of actually examining his body, so it’s strange that Yallop should bring them forward as proof.
Yallop then makes one of his most odious claims. He says that the Pope’s relatives and collaborators, nearly all of whom denounced his book for false statements, were lying and changing their stories Again referring to the memorandum, he says:
Confronted with the implications of this book in 1984, ‘close relatives’ of the dead Pope recalled three relatives who had ‘similar deaths’ events which lay forgotten in 1978 and again between 1980-84 when I was engaged in active research. For example the Pope’s brother Edoardo’s response in 1978 when asked if Albino had heart trouble was ‘As far as I know absolutely none.”
Once the allegations contained within the book became public knowledge the memories of a number of the people that either I or my researchers had interviewed underwent remarkable transformations. This phenomenon occurred on both sides of the Tiber. Albino Luciani was in fact in excellent health at the time of his sudden death and his ankles were not swollen.” (6)
Yallop has previously made similar allegations. He was interviewed by John Cornwell, for his book A Thief in the Night, which appeared in 1989. When Cornwell confronted Yallop with the fact that some of his interviewees were saying that things took place differently than Yallop had claimed and that he had attributed to them things they had not said, Yallop said, “but of course they’re all going to be got at; they’re all going to say that black is white now.” (7) He presumably meant that the Vatican had “got at” them. But he doesn’t say how he knows this. Yallop did nothing to prove his own case, however; Cornwell was apparently not allowed to see any of the tapes or transcripts of Yallop’s interviews.
The truth is that the Pope’s family all stress that he died a natural death, and have done so since the beginning. Contrary to Yallop’s insinuations, some family members mentioned the various relatives who had died suddenly – and this was in interviews given immediately after his death. In one of these interviews, Agnes Lacotte, a relative of the Luciani family who lived in Dordogne, near Paris, spoke of those relatives who had died suddenly, including John Paul I’s aunt; she believed they had died of heart attacks (8)
Other close family members have maintained that the Pope did not die of a heart attack, but they certainly believe his death was natural. His niece Amalia Luciani, who was an obstetrical nurse in Trieste, said in an interview immediately after his death; “Almost none of us believe that it was a myocardial infarction that killed my uncle. He was never cardiopathic, he never showed disturbances of that kind. I think his death was due above all to a collapse.” She also noted that hypotension or low blood pressure, which can lead to circulatory collapse, ran in the Luciani family (9)
Yallop also alludes to statements the Pope’s family made after the release of his book in 1984 in regard to the close relatives who died suddenly. He contrasts this to a statement by Edoardo Luciani immediately after the Pope’s death; in it he said his brother had no heart trouble. Yallop neglects to add that it was Edoardo who gave the interview to Gente in 1985, in which he said that the three relatives had died suddenly — see part IV) It’s no clear if Yallop meant to include the Pope’s brother among those who changed their stories. If so, it should be pointed out that Yallop’s investigator never interviewed Edoardo, so he could never have told Yallop something different than he told the press in 1985. (10)
Yallop also spends considerable time trying to prove the Pope’s ankles weren’t swollen, against all the evidence:
Fellow Papal secretary Father John Magee was yet another whose memory post-publication of In God’s Name and more than six years after had “improved” greatly. Interviewed on my behalf by researcher Phillip Willan he had observed “on the last evening he was perfectly fit. During his papacy this business of leg swelling did not occur.” To John Cornwell, Father Magee said, “. . . they were terribly swollen.” (11)
However, Yallop leaves out something crucial in that ellipsis right before “they were terribly swollen.” What Cornwell’s text says in full is “He would walk around the roof garden for around two hours, because he thought the exercise helped his ankles. One day he showed them to me. They were terribly swollen.” (12). Is it possible that all that Magee was saying in the first interview is that the Pope’s ankles were swollen but that his legs were not?
Later on, as further evidence that the Pope was not ill, Yallop quotes an interview given by Dr. Da Ros in 2003. For all of Yallop’s trumpeting that the Pope did not have swollen ankles, Dr. Da Ros does mention them! He called it “a slight swelling up, which had also to do with the fact that life in the Vatican was much more sedentary than in Venice.” (13). That the Pope’s whole legs were swollen was clearly a rumor rampant in the Vatican, and it is probably what Magee was refuting. Many of the people Cornwell quotes in this regard who say the Pope’s whole legs were swollen were those who were repeating rumors, and who weren’t in the papal apartments. The sources most likely to know all speak only of the ankles, including the official Vatican memorandum, the the Pope’s doctor and Fr. Magee.
Even though Edoardo Luciani and the majority of the family members say that John Paul didn’t die of a heart attack –- a conclusion that Yallop produces triumphantly, it’s of little help to his case, for there are a number of other causes of sudden death.
There are in fact, plenty of statements on record that were made by people immediately after the Pope’s death and long before Yallop began his research that confirm his health troubles, specifically those in the weeks and months leading up to his death. See, for example, part IV of this series for statement of Bishop Gottardi, made the day after John Paul I’s body was discovered, disclosing the chest pains he was having in the spring of 1978.
Lastly, Yallop also quotes the interview with Dr. da Ros, who says that Pope had not been to the Stella Maris Institute for medical treatment in August 1978, but only to rest! “No, he had gone to spend seven days on holiday. To be able to read, to walk and to rest.” (14)
This is a particularly important point, because it deals with the medical situation immediately before Luciani’s election as Pope. It turns out that Dr. Da Ros’ reply is far from complete. He does not mention the treatment that Luciani was undergoing at the Lido, the sunbathing for rheumatic pain. It is also well-documented that he was in the hospital and undergoing various medical tests a week before he left for the conclave. I have documented this in Part IV (15).
If Yallop still doesn’t want to believe this, here is incontrovertible evidence from Albino Luciani himself, down in black and white before he became Pope. It comes from a passage no one has noted from his famous interview on the first test-tube baby. Alberto Michelini, an Italian journalist who worked for RAI, had phoned him on August 3. Luciani said to him: “It is not easy for me to answer your question like this, on the spur of the moment, from the telephone in my hospital room, where I am now, without books that I can consult.” (16). His secretary, Mario Senigaglia, confirmed that he was indeed having medical tests at the time (see part IV). This took place three days before Paul VI’s death, and just three weeks before Luciani was elected to succeed him.
Immediately after John Paul I’s death, his brother Edoardo said that Albino had recently suffered “some bad feelings around the heart,” but that a checkup had revealed nothing wrong (17). I believe he must have been referring to this occasion.
There is other evidence as well. At the audience on September 3 for the people from Venice, the Pope said to a group of young nuns: “Before the conclave I was the guest of some sisters and I was rather ill (mezzo malato). One of them had been designated to bring me meals, because at times I ate in my room. I said to her: “You are Sister Disturbata, and when I left well, I said to her ‘Now you are sister Liberata.”(18) This a clear reference to his stay at the Stella Maris Institute.
Perhaps Dr. Da Ros wanted to downplay this episode to prevent questions about why Luciani’s medical condition wasn’t properly diagnosed at the time. (I wouldn’t accuse him of anything without more information). But one thing is clear: the statement isn’t proof that Luciani was perfectly healthy.
Yallop keeps saying John Paul I was not in poor health – yet is forced to admit that he was on medication; Yallop couldn’t do without this, because the medication was supposedly the way the deadly dose of digitalis was delivered. Yet if the Pope was in “excellent health,” as Yallop claims, why was he on medication?
But above all Yallop constantly neglects the distinction between “poor health” and “a fatal medical condition.” A person can have poor health for decades, and not die, because he doesn’t have a fatal condition. Pope John Paul II was ill for more than a decade with Parkinson’s disease, but it wasn’t fatal to him; in the end died at the age of 84 from complications from a urinary tract infection and cardio-circulatory collapse. On the other hand, many people who die of strokes or aneurysms, some of them even in their thirties, are not ill at all before the sudden fatal event. Why Yallop insists that Luciani could have died suddenly without being seriously ill first is beyond me.
In summary, Yallop has not proved his case about anything. His basic scenario is without any credibility.
He is not credible about motives. There is sufficient evidence, even from outside his book, that John Paul I may have wanted to remove Marcinkus from the IOR, but none at all that anyone in the Vatican would have wanted to prevent him from doing so, or participated in the murder or the cover-up. And inside Vatican cooperation would have been absolutely necessary for a such a plot. The whole Masonic conspiracy theory falls apart on examination. The birth-control motive is likewise not credible.
He is not credible about opportunity. There is simply no way the crime could have been committed. Even Vatican insiders are not allowed inside the papal apartment at any time without an invitation, and the doors are locked at all times with only the trusted secretaries possessing the keys. If there was a way this system could have been breeched, Yallop gives us no clue to it. Even if the would-be murderer managed to get inside the papal apartment, he would have to know where the Pope’s medications were kept, and gain access to them, and Yallop gives the name of no one who would have been able to do this.
He is not credible about means. Yallop says that a liquid medication (Effortil) for low blood pressure that the Pope was taking was doctored with digitalis, but according to his family, he was no longer taking it at the time of his death.
Furthermore, even after doing his utmost, Yallop cannot offer a shred of evidence that the Pope died anything but a natural death. In fact, the evidence in favor of natural death is overwhelming, and even the sources Yallop himself relies on to bolster his case prove the opposite.
In particular, the Pope’s medical history right before coming to Rome is very disquieting. It is about his health and his state of mind while in the Vatican that John Cornwell draws his equally scandalous conclusions in A Thief in the Night. So let’s leave Yallop now and look at this book.
(1) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 320. Cornwell gives an English translation of the whole memorandum, A Thief in the Night, Appendix, pp. 282-83.
(2) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 320
(3) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 321.
(4) Yallop, In God’s Name, p. 255.
(5) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 320.
(6) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 321.
(7) Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, p. 143.
(8) Corriere della Sera, September 30, 1978, p. 2.
(9) In an interview with Il Messaggero; cf. Corriere della Sera, September 30, 1978, p. 2; and Jornal de Brasil, October 3, 1978, for another part of the interview.
(10) Antonietta Luciani to the author.
(11) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed, p. 323.
(12) Cornwell, A Thief in the Night, p. 185.
(13) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 327.
(14) Yallop, In God’s Name, 2007 ed., p. 327; the original interview with Andrea Tornielli was published in Il Giornale, September 27, 2003
(15) According to La Stampa, September 30, 1978, p. 4, it was on the advice of Dr. Da Ros that he went to the Stella Maris Institute for treatment, also Bassotto, Il mio cuore, p. 203.
(16) Prospettive nel Mondo, August 1978.
(17) Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1978, p. 22.
(18) Norberto Valentini and Milena Bacchiani, Il papa buono che sorrideva (Milan: Sperling and Kupfer, 1978).
