Part 4: In God's Name... The 33 Days

In God’s Name

David Yallop

The Thirty-three Days 

When Albino Luciani threw open the windows of the Papal Apartments within twenty-four hours of his election, the gesture personified his entire Papacy. Fresh air and sunlight rushed into a Roman Catholic Church which had grown increasingly dark and sombre during the last years of Paul VI. 

Luciani, the man whose self-description during his Venice days had been, ‘I am just a poor man accustomed to small things and silence’, now found himself obliged to confront the Vatican grandeur and the Curial babble. The son of a bricklayer was now Supreme Head of a religion whose founder was the son of a carpenter. 

Many of the Vatican experts who had failed even to consider the possibility of Luciani’s election hailed him as ‘The Unknown Pope’. He had been well enough known by ninety-nine cardinals to be entrusted with the Church’s future, this man without any diplomatic training or Curial experience. The considerable number of Curial cardinals had been rejected. In essence the entire Curia had been rejected in favour of a quiet, humble man who promptly announced that he wished to be called Pastor rather than Pontiff. Luciani’s aspirations quickly became clear: total revolution. He was intent on taking the Church back to its origins, back to the simplicity, honesty, ideals and aspirations of Jesus Christ. Others before him had had the same dream only to have the reality of the world as perceived by their advisers impinge upon the dream. How could this small, unassuming man accomplish even the beginnings of the transformation, both material and spiritual, that would be required? 

In electing Albino Luciani, his fellow cardinals had made a number of profound statements about what they wanted and what they did not want. Clearly they did not want a reactionary Pope who might make his mark upon the world with dazzling examples of incomprehensible intellectualism. It would seem they had sought to make an impact on the world by electing a man whose goodness, wisdom and exemplary humility would be manifest to all. In the event that was what they got. A shepherd intent upon pastoral care. 

His new name was considered a bit of a mouthful by the Romans and they quickly abbreviated it to the more intimate ‘Gianpaolo’, a corruption the Pope happily accepted and used to sign letters, only to have them returned by Secretary of State Villot for correction to the formal title. One such letter written in his own hand was to thank the Augustinians for their hospitality during his stay before the Conclave. This simple act was typical of the man. Two days after being elected Pope to over eight hundred million Catholics Luciani made time to thank his former hosts. 

Another letter, written on the same day, struck a more sombre note. Writing to an Italian priest whose work he admired, Luciani revealed his awareness of the burden that was now uniquely his. ‘I don’t know how I could have accepted. The day after I already regretted it, but by then it was too late.’ One of his first acts upon entering the Papal Apartments had been to phone his homeland in the north. He spoke to an astonished Monsignor Ducoli, a long-time friend and working associate, now Bishop of Belluno. He told the Bishop he was ‘lonely for my people’. Later he spoke to his brother Edoardo, ‘Now look what’s happened to me.’ These acts were private; others of a more public nature caught the world’s imagination. 

To begin with there was his smile. With just that facial expression of joy he touched many. It was impossible not to warm to the man, and as one warmed the feeling was good. Paul VI with his agonizing had turned people off in millions. Albino Luciani dramatically reversed the trend. He recaptured world interest in the Papacy. When the world listened to what was behind the smile the interest quickened. His smile cannot be found in any book that claims to make its reader a better Christian but it effectively caught the joy that this man had discovered in Christianity. What Luciani demonstrated in a manner and to a degree never before seen from a Pope, any Pope, was the ability to communicate, whether directly or through radio, Press and television. It was an undreamed-of asset to the Roman Catholic Church. 

Luciani was an object lesson in how to win the battle for mankind’s heart, mind and soul. For the first time in living memory a Pope was talking to his people in a manner and a style they could understand. The sigh of relief from the faithful was almost audible. The murmurs of delight continued through the Indian summer of 1978. Luciani began to take the Church on the long walk back to the Gospel. 

The public rapidly judged this charismatic man a huge success. Vatican observers simply did not know what to make of him. Many had given instant and learned opinions about the choice of Papal name, they had talked of ‘symbolic continuity’. Luciani had unwittingly demolished all of that on the first Sunday with, ‘John made me a bishop, Paul made me a cardinal’. Not much symbolic continuity there. The experts wrote speculative articles about what the new Pope might or might not do on a range of issues. A large amount of that speculation was rendered superfluous by one comment in Pope John Paul’s very first speech when he had stated, ‘As the Second Vatican Council, to whose teachings I wish to commit my total ministry, as priest, as teacher, as pastor . . .’ There was no need to speculate; all they had to do was to refer to the various conclusions of the Council. 

Luciani, speaking to a packed St Peter’s Square on Sunday September 10th, talked of God and said, ‘He is our Father; even more he is our Mother’. The Italian Vatican experts, in particular, were beside themselves. In a country noted for its macho image to suggest that God was a woman was deemed by some to be confirmation of the end of the world. There were many anxious debates about this fourth member of the Trinity until Luciani gently pointed out that he had been quoting Isaiah. The male dominated Mother Church relaxed. 

Earlier, on September 6th, during a General Audience, members of the Papal entourage, fussing around the Holy Father in a manner reminiscent of irritating flies around a horse, publicly displayed embarrassment as Luciani held over 15,000 people spellbound. Entering almost at a trot into the Nervi Hall, which was filled to overflowing, he talked about the soul. There was nothing remarkable in that. What was unusual was the manner and the style. 

Once a man went to buy a new motor car from the agent. The salesman gave him some advice. ‘Look, it’s an excellent car, make sure you treat it correctly. Premium petrol in the tank, the best oil in the engine.’ The customer replied, ‘Oh no, I can’t stand the smell of petrol or oil. Fill the tank with champagne, which I like very much and I’ll oil the joints with jam.’ The salesman shrugged, ‘Do what you like: but don’t come and complain if you end up in a ditch with your car.’ 

The Lord did something similar with us: he gave us this body, animated by an intelligent soul, a good will. He said, ‘This machine is a good one, but treat it well.’ 

While the Vatican elite shuddered at such profanity Albino Luciani knew full well that his words were being carried around the earth. Scatter enough seed, some will grow. He had been presented with the most powerful pulpit on earth. His use of the gift was deeply impressive. Many within the Church talk ad nauseam of the ‘Good News of the Gospel’, while giving the impression that they are informing the listeners of unmitigated disasters. When Luciani talked of the Good News, it was clear from his whole demeanour that the news was very good indeed. 

Several times he brought a young boy out of the choir to share the microphone with him, to help him work not only the audience inside the Nervi Hall but the wider audience outside. Other world leaders were adepts at picking up the young and kissing them. Here was a man who actually talked to them and even more remarkably listened and responded to what they had to say. 

He quoted Mark Twain, Jules Verne and the Italian poet Trilussa. He talked of Pinocchio. Having already compared the soul to a car he now drew an analogy between prayer and soap. ‘Prayer well used, would be a marvellous soap, capable of making us all saints. We are not all saints because we have not used this soap enough.’ The Curia, particularly certain bishops and cardinals, winced. The public listened. 

A few days after his election he faced over one thousand members of the world’s Press and, gently chiding them for concentrating excessively on Conclave trivia rather than on its true significance, he acknowledged that theirs was not a new problem by recalling the advice an Italian editor had given to his reporters: ‘Remember, the public does not want to know what Napoleon III said to William of Prussia. It wants to know whether he wore beige or red trousers and whether he smoked a cigar.’ 

Luciani obviously felt at home with the reporters. He was a man who more than once in his life had remarked that if he had not become a priest he would have become a journalist. His two books and numerous articles indicate a talent that could have held its own with many of the listening correspondents. Recalling the late Cardinal Mercier’s observations that if the Apostle Paul were alive today he would have been a journalist, the new Pope showed a keen awareness of the importance of the various news media by enlarging on the Apostle’s possible modern role: ‘Not only a journalist. Possibly Head of Reuters. Not only Head of Reuters, I think he would have also asked for airtime on Italian television and NBC.’ 

The correspondents loved it. The Curia were less amused. All the above remarks to the reporters were censored out of the official records of the speech. What remains for posterity is a drab, unctuous, prepared speech, written by Vatican officials – though in fact the Pope had continually departed from it – mute, inaccurate testimony to the wit and personality of Albino Luciani. This Vatican censorship of the Pope became a constant feature during September 1978. 

Illustrissimi, the collection of his letters to the famous, had been available in book form in Italy since 1976. It had proved to be highly successful. Now with its author the leader of 800 million Roman Catholics, the commercial potential was not lost on the publishing world. High-powered executives began appearing at the office of Il Messaggero di San Antonio in Padua. The Catholic monthly was sitting on the proverbial gold mine, less author’s royalties. For the author, the real payoff was that the ideas and observations in the letters would be read by a worldwide audience. The fact that they would be read only because he had now become Pope mattered not one jot to Luciani. More seed was being scattered. More would grow. 

One of the truly delightful results that became apparent in the days following the August Conclave was that as long as Luciani was in charge, Vatican interpreters, watchers, experts and seers had all been made redundant. What was needed was verbatim reporting. Given that, the new Pope’s intentions were very clear.

On August 28th the beginning of his Papal revolution was announced. It took the form of a Vatican statement that there was to be no coronation, that the new Pope refused to be crowned. There would be no sedia gestatoria, the chair used to carry the Pope, no tiara encrusted with emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. No ostrich feathers, no six-hour ceremony. In short the ritual with which the Church demonstrated that it still lusted after temporal power was abolished. Albino Luciani had been obliged to engage in long, tedious argument with the Vatican traditionalists before his wishes prevailed. Luciani, who never once used the royal ‘we’, the monarchical first person plural, was determined that the royal Papacy with its appurtenances of worldly grandeur should be replaced by a Church which resembled the concepts of its founder. The ‘coronation’ became a simple Mass. The absurdity of a swaying Pontiff reminiscent of a Caliph from the Arabian Nights was supplanted by a supreme Pastor quietly walking up the steps of the altar. With that gesture Luciani abolished a thousand years of history and moved the Church a little farther back down the road towards Jesus Christ.

The triple-decked, bee-hive-shaped tiara was superseded by the pallium, a white woollen stole around the Pope’s shoulders. The monarch had made way for the shepherd. The era of the poor Church had officially begun.

Among the twelve Heads of State and other representatives of their countries at the ceremony were men whom the Pope had been anxious to avoid meeting. In particular he had asked his Secretariat of State not to invite the leaders of Argentina, Chile and Paraguay to his inaugural Mass, but Cardinal Villot’s department had already sent out the invitations before checking with Albino Luciani. They had assumed there would be the traditional coronation and the invitation list reflected that assumption.

Consequently taking part in the Mass in St Peter’s Square were General Videla from Argentina, the Chilean Foreign Minister and the son of the President of Paraguay – representatives from countries where human rights were not considered pressing priorities. Italian protestors demonstrated against their presence and there were nearly 300 arrests. Later Albino Luciani would be criticized for the presence of such men at the Mass. The experts who criticized were unaware that the blame should be laid at Cardinal Villot’s door. When the critical comments appeared Luciani was in no position to respond and Villot remained silent. 

The audience with Vice-President Mondale of the USA was a happier affair. Mondale gave the new Pope a book containing the front page of over fifty US newspapers recording Luciani’s election. A more thoughtful present was a first edition copy of Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. Someone in the State Department had evidently done his homework. 

Thus the Papacy of John Paul I began; a Papacy with clear aims and aspirations. Immediately Luciani set cats among a variety of Vatican pigeons. Before the inaugural Mass he had addressed the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Vatican. His own diplomatic staff visibly blanched when he observed on behalf of the entire Roman Catholic Church:

We have no temporal goods to exchange, no economic interests to discuss. Our possibilities for intervention are specific and limited and of a special character. They do not interfere with purely temporal, technical and political affairs, which are matters for your government. In this way, our diplomatic missions to your highest civil authorities, far from being a survival from the past, are a witness to our deep-seated respect for lawful temporal power, and to our lively interest in the humane causes that the temporal power is intended to advance. 

‘We have no public goods to exchange . . .’ It was a public sentence of death upon Vatican Incorporated. All that remained uncertain was the number of days and months during which it would continue to function. The men of the international money markets of Milan, London, Tokyo, and New York pondered Luciani’s words with interest. If he really meant what he said then clearly there were going to be changes. Those changes would not be confined to the movement of people out of the Vatican Bank and the APSA, but would inevitably include a curtailment of a number of Vatican Incorporated’s activities. For the men in the world’s money markets there were billions to be made if they could correctly guess the direction this new Vatican philosophy would take. Albino Luciani wanted a poor Church for the poor. What did he plan to do with those who had created a wealthy Church? What did he plan to do with the wealth?

Luciani’s humility was responsible for the birth of several misconceptions. Many observers concluded that this demonstrably holy man was a simple, uncomplicated person who lacked the cultural talents of his predecessor, Paul VI. The reality was that Luciani had a far richer cultivation and a good deal more sophistication than Paul. His gifts were such that this extraordinary man could appear completely plebeian. His was a simplicity that is acquired only by a very few; a simplicity stemming from a deep wisdom.

One of the peculiarities of this age is that humility and gentleness are inevitably taken to be indications of some form of weakness. Frequently they indicate precisely the opposite, great strength. 

When the new Pope remarked that he had been leafing through the Vatican Year Book to find out who did what, many in the Curia smirked and concluded that he would be a pushover, a man they could control. There were others who knew better. 

Men who had known Albino Luciani over many years watched and waited. They knew the steel within; the strength to take difficult or unpopular decisions. Many spoke to me of these hidden attributes. Monsignor Tiziano Scalzotto, Father Mario Senigaglia, Monsignor Da Rif, Father Bartolomeo Sorge and Father Busa were just five of those who talked of the inner strength of Pope John Paul I. Father Busa observed:

His mind was as strong, as hard and as sharp as a diamond. That was where his real power was. He understood and had the ability to get to the centre of a problem. He could not be overwhelmed. When everyone was applauding the smiling Pope, I was waiting for him ‘tirare fuori le unghie’, to reveal his claws. He had tremendous power.

Without an entourage – no Venetian Mafia followed the Milan clique into the Papal Apartments – Albino Luciani would need every scrap of inner strength he could muster if he was to avoid becoming the prisoner of the Vatican Curia.

In the early days after the August Conclave the Vatican Government machine had not been idle. On Sunday, August 27th, after his noon speech to the crowds, Luciani lunched with Cardinal Jean Villot. As Pope Paul’s Secretary of State since April 1969, Villot had built a reputation for quiet competence. During the run-up to the Conclave Villot, as chamberlain, had virtually functioned as a caretaker Pope aided by his committees of cardinals. Luciani asked Villot to continue as Secretary of State for ‘a little while, until I have found my way’. Villot, 73 years of age, had been hoping that the moment had come when he might retire. In the event Luciani appointed Villot as his Secretary of State and reconfirmed all the Curial heads in their previous positions but the Curia were made aware that this was merely a temporary measure. Ever the prudent man of the mountains, the new Pope preferred to bide his time. ‘Deliberation. Decision. Execution.’ If the Curia wanted to know how their new Pope would act they had merely to read his letter to St Bernard. A great many did. They also did much deeper research on Pope John Paul I. What they discovered caused consternation in many Vatican departments and a deep pleasure of anticipation in others.

The death of Pope Paul VI brought bubbling to the surface many animosities that existed in the Vatican village. The Roman Curia, the central administrative body of the Church, had been engaging in internecine warfare for many years; only Paul’s expertise had kept the majority of the battles from public view. Now after the rebuff within the Conclave the Curial warfare reached the Papal Apartments. Albino Luciani complained bitterly about the situation to a number of friends who came to see him. ‘I want to learn quickly the trade of Pope but almost no one explains problems and situations in a thorough and detached manner. Most of the time I hear nothing but bad spoken about everything and everyone.’ To another friend from the north he observed: ‘I have noticed two things that appear to be in very short supply in the Vatican. Honesty and a good cup of coffee.’

There were as many Roman Curial factions as choirboys in the Sistine Chapel Choir. There was the Curia of Pope Paul VI committed to ensuring that the memory of the late Pope was constantly and continually honoured and also that there would be no deviation from the late Pope’s views, opinions and pronouncements.

There was the Curia which favoured Cardinal Giovanni Benelli and the Curia which wished he was in Hell. Pope Paul VI had made Benelli his Under-Secretary of State, number two to Cardinal Villot. He rapidly became the Pope’s muscle, ensuring that policy was adhered to. Paul had moved him to Florence and promoted him in order to protect him during Paul’s last years. Now his protector was dead but the long knives remained sheathed. Luciani was Pope because of men like Benelli. 

There were Curial factions which favoured or opposed Cardinals Baggio, Felici, and Bertoli. There were Curia factions wanting more central power and control, others wanting less.

Throughout his life Albino Luciani had avoided visits to the Vatican. He had kept his contact with the Roman Curia to a minimum. As a result, before his election, he probably had fewer Curial enemies than any other cardinal. It was a situation which quickly changed. Here was a Pope who considered ‘mere execution’ as the basic function of the Curia. He believed in greater power-sharing with the bishops throughout the world and planned to decentralize the Vatican structure. By refusing to be crowned he had distressed the traditionalists. Another innovation hardly likely to endear Luciani to the more materially-minded members of the Curia was his instruction that the extra month’s salary paid automatically upon the election of a new Pope should be cut by half.

Obviously there were many within the 3,000 or so members of the Curia who would loyally serve and love the new Pope; but the way of the world is to ensure that negative forces often predominate. As soon as the result of the election was known the Curia, or certain sections of it swung into action. Within hours a special edition of L’Osservatore Romano was available with a full biography of the new Pope. Vatican Radio was already broadcasting similar details.

As an example of how to influence the world’s thinking about a hitherto unknown leader, L’Osservatore Romano’s treatment of Albino Luciani is definitive. Because it deliberately portrayed a person who existed only in the reactionary, oppressive mind of whoever wrote the biographical details, this particular edition of L’Osservatore Romano is also an excellent example of why the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper has been compared unfavourably with Pravda. Using the ‘official facts’, many journalists fighting deadlines filed copy which portrayed a man who did not exist. The Economist, to take one of several hundred examples, said of the new Pope, ‘He would not be much at home in the company of Dr Hans Kung.’ Research would have revealed that Luciani and Hans Kung had exchanged very friendly letters as well as sending one another books. Further research would have shown that Luciani had several times quoted Kung favourably in his sermons. Virtually every newspaper and periodical in the world that carried profiles of the new Pope made similar totally erroneous assertions.  

To read the special edition of L’Osservatore Romano is to read of a new Pope who was even more conservative than Pope Paul VI. The distortion covered a wide range of Luciani’s views but one in particular is highly relevant when considering the life and death of Albino Luciani: birth control. 

The Vatican newspaper described a man who was an intrepid and unquestioning supporter of Humanae Vitae. 

He made a meticulous study of the subject of responsible parenthood and engaged in consultations and talks with medical specialists and theologians. He warned of the grave responsibility of the Church (the ecclesiastical Magisterium) in pronouncing on such a delicate and controversial question. 

That was entirely accurate and truthful. What followed was completely inaccurate. 

With the publication of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae there could be no room for doubt, and the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto was among the first to circulate it, and to insist with those who were perplexed by the document, that its teaching was beyond question. 

When the Curia moves it is a formidable machine. Its efficiency and speed would make other Civil Services breathless. Men from the Roman Curia appeared at the Gregorian College and removed all notes and papers that referred to Luciani’s period of study for his degree. Other members of the Curia went to Venice, Vittorio Veneto, Belluno. Wherever Luciani had been the Curia went. All copies of the Luciani document on birth control were seized and immediately placed in the Vatican’s Secret Archives along with his thesis on Rosmini and a large quantity of other writings. It could be said that the beatification process for Albino Luciani began the day he was elected Pope. It would be equally accurate to observe that the Curial cover-up of the real Albino Luciani began the same day. 

What certain sections of the Curia had realized with a profound shock was that in electing Albino Luciani, the cardinals had given them a man who would not let the issue of birth control rest with Humanae Vitae. Careful study by members of the Curia of what Luciani had actually said, not only to his parishioners in public but to his friends and colleagues in private, quickly established that the new Pope favoured artificial birth control. The inaccurate and false picture L’Osservatore Romano painted of a man who rigorously applied the principles of Humanae Vitae was the opening shot in a counter-attack designed to hem Albino Luciani inside the strictures of his predecessor’s encyclical. It was quickly followed by another blast. 

The Press Agency UPI discovered that Luciani had been in favour of a Vatican ruling which would allow artificial birth control. Italian newspapers also carried stories referring to the Luciani document sent to Pope Paul by Cardinal Urbani of Venice in which the strong recommendation in favour of the contraceptive pill had been made. The Curia speedily located Father Henri de Riedmatten who had been secretary to the Papal Birth Control Commission. He described the reports that Luciani had been opposed to an encyclical that condemned artificial birth control as ‘a fantasy’. Riedmatten also asserted that Luciani had never been a member of the Commission, which was accurate. He then went on to deny that Luciani had ever written a letter or a report on the subject that had been sent to Pope Paul. 

This denial and the manner of it is an example of the duplicity that abounds in the Curia. The Luciani document went to Rome via Cardinal Urbani and therefore had the Cardinal’s imprimatur upon it. To deny that a document existed, actually signed by Luciani, was technically correct. To deny that Luciani on behalf of his fellow bishops in the Veneto region had not forwarded such a document to the Pope via the then Patriarch of Venice was an iniquitous lie. 

Ironically, within the first three weeks of his Papacy, Albino Luciani had already taken the first significant steps towards reversing the Roman Catholic Church’s position on artificial birth control. While those steps were being taken the world’s Press, by courtesy of L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio, and off the record briefings by certain members of the Roman Curia, had already firmly established a completely false image of Luciani’s views. 

During his Papacy Luciani referred to and quoted from a number of the pronouncements and encyclicals that had come from Pope Paul VI. Notably absent was any reference to Humanae Vitae. The defenders of the encyclical had first been alerted to the new Pope’s views when they learned with consternation that the draft acceptance speech, which had been prepared for Paul’s successor by the Secretariat of State’s office, containing glowing references to Humanae Vitae, had had all such references excised by Luciani. The anti birth control element within the Vatican then discovered that in May 1978, Albino Luciani had been invited to attend and speak at an International Congress being held in Milan on June 21st–22nd. The main purpose of the Congress was to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Luciani had let it be known that he would not speak at the Congress and that further he would not attend. Among those who did attend and speak in glowing terms about Humanae Vitae was the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. 

Now in September, while the world’s Press unquestioningly repeated the lies of L’Osservatore Romano, Albino Luciani was heard in the Papal Apartments talking to his Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot: ‘I will be happy to talk to this United States delegation on the issue. To my mind we cannot leave the situation as it currently stands.’ 

The issue was world population. The ‘situation’ was Humanae Vitae. As the conversation progressed Villot heard Pope John Paul I express a view that many others, including his private secretary Father Diego Lorenzi, had heard many times before. Father Lorenzi is only one of a number of people who have been able to quote to me Luciani’s exact words: 

I am aware of the ovulation period in a woman with its range of fertility from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Even if one allows a sperm life of forty-eight hours the maximum time of possible conception is less than four days. In a regular cycle this means four days of fertility and twenty-four days of infertility. How on earth can it be a sin to say instead of twenty-four days, twenty-eight days? 

What had prompted this truly historic conversation had been a tentative approach to the Vatican from the American Embassy in Rome. The American Embassy had been contacted by the State Department in Washington and also by US Congressman James Scheuer. The Congressman headed a House Select Committee on Population and was also Vice-Chairman of the UN fund for population activities, inter-parliamentary working group. The story of the Luciani document to Pope Paul VI on birth control had alerted Scheuer and his Committee to the possibility of change in the Church’s position on birth control. It seemed to Scheuer that it was unlikely that his group would obtain an audience with Luciani so soon in his Papacy but he still considered it worth the effort of putting pressure on the State Department and also, through the Embassy in Rome, on the Vatican. Scheuer was destined to hear some good news. 

Villot, like many of the men who surrounded Luciani, was having considerable difficulty in adjusting to the new Papacy. He had developed over the years a close working relationship with Paul VI. He had grown to admire the Montini style. Now the world-weary 81-year-old Hamlet had been replaced by an optimistic Henry VI who at 65 years of age was a relative stripling. 

The relationship between Luciani and his Secretary of State was an uneasy one. The new Pope found Villot cold and aloof, full of observations about how Paul VI would have approached this problem or what Paul VI would have said about this particular issue. Paul VI was dead but it became apparent that Villot and a significant section of the Curia had not accepted that the Montinian approach to problems had died with him. 

The speech that the new Pope had delivered twenty-four hours after the Conclave had been largely a generalized statement. The real programme began to be formulated only during the early days of September 1978. He was fired with the inspiration of Pope John XXIII’s first 100 days. 

John had been elected Pope on October 28th, 1958. Within the first 100 days he had made a number of crucial senior appointments including filling the post of Secretary of State with Cardinal Domenico Tardini, a post that had been vacant since 1944. Most significant of all had been his decision to call the Second Vatican Council. That decision was made public on January 25th, 1959, eighty-nine days after his election. 

Now that Albino Luciani was wearing the shoes of the fisherman he determined to follow John’s example of a revolutionary 100 days. At the top of his list of priorities of reform and change were the need to alter radically the Vatican’s relationship with capitalism and the desire to alleviate the very real suffering he had personally witnessed that had stemmed directly from Humanae Vitae. [And because of his murder, it did not,and the entanglement is as worst as ever DC]

According to Cardinal Benelli, Cardinal Felici and other Vatican sources, the austere Villot listened askance as the new Pope elaborated on the problems the encyclical had caused. It was clear from his attitude during my interviews with him that on this issue Felici was heavily in sympathy with Villot. 

Only a few weeks earlier Villot had been extolling the encyclical on the tenth anniversary of its publication. In a letter to Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, Villot reaffirmed Paul’s opposition to artificial contraception. The Secretary of State had stressed how important Paul had considered this teaching to be, that it was ‘according to God’s Law’. 

There was much more in a similar vein. Now, less than two months later, he was obliged to listen to Paul’s successor taking a reverse position. The coffee grew cold as Luciani, rising from his desk, began to pace his study and quietly talk of some of the effects that Humanae Vitae had produced over the past decade. 

The encyclical which had been designed to strengthen Papal authority by denying that there could be any change in the traditional teaching on birth control, had had precisely the opposite effect. The evidence was irrefutable. In Belgium, Holland, Germany, Britain, the United States and in many other countries there had not only been marked opposition to the encyclical, there had also been marked disobedience. The maxim had rapidly become that if one priest did not take a tolerant attitude within the confessional the sinner shopped around for a more liberated priest. Luciani cited examples of that contradiction he knew of personally in the Veneto region.

The theory of Humanae Vitae might well look like an ideal moral viewpoint when proclaimed from within the all-male preserve of the Vatican. The reality Luciani had observed in northern Italy and abroad clearly demonstrated the inhumanity of the edict. In that decade world population had increased by over three-quarters of a billion people. 

When Villot demurred to point out that Pope Paul had stressed the virtues of the natural method of contraception Luciani merely smiled at him, not the full beaming smile that the public knew; it was more of a sad smile. ‘Eminence, what can we old celibates really know of the sexual desires of the married?’ 

This conversation, the first of a number the Pope had with his Secretary of State on the subject, took place in the Pope’s study in the Papal Apartments on Tuesday, September 19th. They discussed the subject for nearly forty-five minutes. When the meeting ended and Villot was about to leave, Luciani walked to the door with him and said: 

Eminence. We have been discussing birth control for about forty-five minutes. If the information I have been given, the various statistics, if that information is accurate, then during the period of time we have been talking over one thousand children under the age of five have died of malnutrition. During the next forty-five minutes while you and I look forward with anticipation to our next meal a further thousand children will die of malnutrition. By this time tomorrow thirty thousand children who at this moment are alive, will be dead – of malnutrition. God does not always provide. 

The Secretary of State for the Vatican was apparently unable to find an adequate exit line. 

All details of the possible audience with a United States delegation, on the subject of population, were kept a carefully guarded secret both by the Vatican and the State Department. Such a meeting coming so early in Luciani’s Papacy would rightly be seen as highly significant if it became known publicly. 

Even greater significance would have been attached to this by world opinion if it had become known that this was one reason why Pope John Paul I was not going to attend the Puebla Conference in Mexico. This Conference was to be the follow-up to a most important conference that had taken place in Medellin, Colombia in 1968. 

At Medellin, the cardinals, bishops and priests of Latin America had injected new life into the Roman Catholic Church in the South American continent. Their declaration contained within the ‘Medellin Manifesto’ included the statement that the central thrust of their Church in the future would be to reach out and relate to the poor, the neglected and impoverished. It was a revolutionary change in a Church that had previously been identified with the rich and powerful. The ‘Theology of Liberation’ which came out of Medellin put the various juntas and oppressive regimes in South America on clear notice that the Church intended to work towards an end of financial exploitation and social injustice. It had, in effect, been a call to arms . . . Inevitably, resistance to this liberal philosophy came not only from the various regimes but also from the reactionary element within the Church. The Puebla meeting, a decade later, promised to be crucial. Would the Church continue farther down the same path or would there be a retrenchment to the old invidious position? For the new Pope to decline the invitation to attend the conference underlies just what importance he placed on his meeting with Scheuer’s Committee. He certainly knew the implications of the Puebla meeting, 

In the Conclave, less than an hour after he had been elected Pope, Cardinals Baggio and Lorscheider, two key figures in the projected series of meetings in Mexico, had approached Luciani. Puebla had been postponed as a result of the death of Pope Paul VI. The Cardinals were anxious to know if the new Pope was prepared to sanction a new date for the Mexico meeting.

Luciani discussed the issues which would be raised at Puebla, in depth, less than an hour after his election. He agreed that the Conference should take place and the dates of October 12th to 28th were decided upon. During his discussion with Baggio and Lorscheider he astonished both Cardinals with his knowledge and grasp of the central issues which would be explored at Puebla. With regard to his own attendance, he declined to committ himself so early in his Papacy. When Villot advised him that Scheuer’s Committee would like an audience on October 24th he told Baggio and Lorscheider that he would not he attending Puebla. He also told Villot to confirm the meeting with the US delegation. It had been for Luciani the final confirmation that for the next few weeks his place was in the Vatican. There were other very cogent reasons for the decision to stay in Rome. Pope John Paul I had concluded by mid-September that his first priority should be to put his own house in order. The problem of the Vatican Bank and its entire operating philosophy had become of paramount importance to him.

Luciani moved with an urgency that had been noticeably lacking in his immediate predecessor’s last years. The new broom was not minded to sweep right through the Vatican in his first 100 days but he was anxious that within that time the Church should begin to change direction, particularly with regard to Vatican Incorporated. 

Within his first week the new Pope had given an indication of the shape of things to come. He ‘assented’ to the desire of Cardinal Villot to be relieved of one of his many posts, the Office of President of the Pontifical Council, ‘Cor Unum’. The job went to Cardinal Bernard Gantin. Cor Unum is one of the great funnels through which pass monies collected from all over the world to be distributed to the poorest nations. 

To Luciani, Cor Unum was a vital element in his philosophy that Vatican finance, like every other factor, should be inspired by the Gospel. Villot was gently replaced, but replaced nonetheless, by Gantin, a man of great spirituality and transparent honesty. 

The Vatican village buzzed with speculation. Some proclaimed that they had never met Sindona or Calvi or any of the Milan Mafia who had infested the Vatican during Pope Paul’s reign. Others in their individual bids for survival began to filter information to the Papal Apartment. 

A few days after the Gantin appointment the new Pope found a copy of an Italian Office of Exchange Control (UIC) circular on his desk. There was no doubt that the circular was a direct response to Il Mondo’s long, open letter to the Pope outlining an untenable situation for a man committed to personal poverty and a poor Church. 

The circular, signed by the Minister of Foreign Trade Rinaldo Ossola, had been sent to all Italian banks. It reminded them that the IOR, the Vatican Bank, is ‘to all effects a non-residential banking institute’, in other words foreign. As such, relationships between the Vatican Bank and Italian credit institutes were governed by precisely the same rules that applied to all other foreign banks. 

The Minister was particularly concerned with currency abuses involving the illegal flight of money from Italy. His circular was a clear Ministerial admission that these abuses were a reality. It was seen in Italian financial circles as an attempt to curb at least one of the Vatican Bank’s many dubious activities. In the Vatican City it was generally regarded as further confirmation that the death knell for Bishop Paul Marcinkus’s presidency of the Bank was ringing loudly..

A story which I believe to be apocryphal, but which many within the Vatican and within the Italian media have assured me is true, began to circulate around the Vatican village in early September 1978. It concerned the sale of Banca Cattolica del Veneto and Albino Luciani’s trip to the Vatican seeking to stop the sale of the bank to Roberto Calvi. In reality Luciani had the meeting with Benelli recorded earlier in this book. The version that buzzed through the village introduced elegant Italian variations. Luciani had confronted Paul VI who had responded: ‘Even you must make this sacrifice for the Church. Our finances have still not recovered from the damage caused by Sindona. But do explain your problem to Monsignor Marcinkus.’ 

A short while later Luciani presented himself in Marcinkus office and repeated the list of diocesan complaints concerning the bank sale. Marcinkus heard him out then said, ‘Your Eminence, have you nothing better to do today? You do your job and I’ll do mine.’ At which point Marcinkus showed Luciani the door. 

Any who have seen Marcinkus in action will know that his manners match his nickname of The Gorilla. To the bishops, monsignors, priests and nuns in the Vatican City the general feeling was that the confrontation had happened. Now out of the blue, the small quiet man from Belluno could remove Marcinkus at a moment’s notice. 

Members of the Curia organized a lottery. The object was to guess on which day Marcinkus would be formally removed from the Bank. Apart from the investigation being conducted on the Pope’s behalf by Cardinal Villot, the smiling Pope, with typical mountain shrewdness, opened up other lines of enquiry. He began to talk to Cardinal Felici about the Vatican Bank. He also telephoned Cardinal Benelli in Florence. 

It was from Giovanni Benelli that the Pope learned of the Bank of Italy investigation into Banco Ambrosiano. It was typical of the way the Roman Catholic Church operated. The Cardinal in Florence told the Pope in Rome what was happening in Milan. 

The former number two in the Secretary of State’s Department had built a strong network of contacts throughout the country. Licio Gelli of P2 would have been suitably impressed at the range and the quality of information to which Benelli had access. It included very well placed sources within the Bank of Italy. These were the sources which had informed the Cardinal of the investigation taking place within Roberto Calvi’s empire, an enquiry which was moving to its climax in September 1978. What particularly concerned Benelli, and subsequently Luciani, was the part of the investigation that was probing Calvi’s links with the Vatican. The Bank of Italy contact was certain that the investigation would be followed by serious criminal charges against Roberto Calvi and possibly against some of his fellow directors. Equally certain was the fact that the Vatican Bank was deeply implicated in a considerable number of deals that broke a variety of Italian laws. The men at the top of the investigating team’s list of potential criminals inside the Vatican Bank were Paul Marcinkus, Luigi Mennelli and Pellegrino De Strobel. 

Benelli had learned over nearly a decade that one did not influence Luciani by strenuously urging a particular course of action. He told me: 

With Pope Luciani, you laid out the facts, made your own recommendation, then gave him time and space to consider. Having absorbed all the available information, he would decide and when Pope Luciani decided, nothing, and understand me on this, nothing would move or shift him. Gentle, yes. Humble, yes. But when committed to a course of action, like a rock. 

Benelli was not alone in having access to the thoughts of senior Bank of Italy officials. Members of P2 were feeding precisely the same information to Licio Gelli in Buenos Aires. He in turn was keeping his travelling companions Roberto Calvi and Umberto Ortolani fully briefed.

Other P2 members planted inside Milan’s magistrates’ offices advised Gelli that upon completion of the investigation into Banco Ambrosiano the papers would be passed to Judge Emilio Alessandrini. A few days after this information became available to Gelli a left-wing terrorist group based in Milan, Prima Linea, received word from their contact within the magistrates’ offices about the man whom the contact recommended as their next potential victim. The terrorist leader pinned a photograph of the target on his apartment wall: Judge Emilio Alessandrini. P2 moved in many directions, including the Vatican.

In early September Albino Luciani found that in some mysterious way he had been added to the exclusive distribution list of an unusual news agency called L’Osservatore Politico (OP). It was run by journalist Mino Pecorelli and invariably carried scandalous stories that subsequently transpired to be highly accurate. Now, along with top politicians, journalists, pundits and others with a need to know first, the Pope read about what OP called ‘The Great Vatican Lodge’. The article gave the names of 121 people who were alleged to be members of Masonic Lodges. A number of laymen were included in the list but it largely comprised cardinals, bishops, and high-ranking prelates. Pecorelli’s motives for publishing the list were simple. He was involved in a struggle with his former Grand Master, Licio Gelli. Pecorelli was a member of P2: a disenchanted member. 

He believed that the publication of lists of Vatican Masons would cause the Grand Master of P2 maximum embarrassment, particularly as a considerable number of them were good friends of Gelli and Ortolani. 

If the information was authentic then it meant Luciani was virtually surrounded by Masons and to be a Mason meant automatic excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. Before the Conclave there had been various murmurings that several of the leading papabili were Masons. Now on September 12th, the new Pope was presented with the entire list. With regard to the issue of Freemasonry, Luciani held the view that it was unthinkable for a priest to become a member. He was aware that a number of the lay Catholics he knew were members of various Lodges – in much the same way that he had friends who were Communists. He had learned to live with that situation but for a man of the cloth there was in Luciani’s view a different criterion. The Roman Catholic Church had decreed long ago that it was implacably opposed to Freemasonry. The new Pope was open to discussion on the issue, but a list of 121 men who were confirmed members hardly constituted discussion.

Secretary of State Cardinal Villot, Masonic name Jeanni, Lodge number 041/3, enrolled in a Zürich Lodge on August 6th, 1966. Foreign Minister Monsignor Agostini Casaroli. Cardinal Vicar of Rome Ugo Poletti. Cardinal Baggio. Bishop Paul Marcinkus and Monsignor Donato de Bonis of the Vatican Bank. The disconcerted Pope read a list that seemed like a Who’s Who of Vatican City. Noting with relief that neither Benelli nor Cardinal Felici appeared on the list, which even included Pope Paul’s secretary, Monsignor Pasquale Macchi, Albino Luciani promptly telephoned Felici and invited him over for coffee.

Felici advised the Pope that a very similar list of names had been passed quietly around the Vatican over two years earlier in May 1976. The reason for its re-emergence now was obviously an attempt to influence the new Pope’s thinking on appointments, promotions and demotions. 

‘Is the list genuine?’ Luciani asked. 

Felici told the Pope that in his view it was a clever mix. Some on the list were Masons, others were not. He elaborated. ‘These lists appear to have emerged from the Lefebvre faction . . . Not created by our rebel French brother but certainly used by him.

Bishop Lefebvre had been a thorn in the side of the Vatican and particularly of Pope Paul VI for a number of years. A traditionalist who considered the Second Vatican Council to be the ultimate heresy, he largely ignored the Council’s conclusions. He had obtained worldwide notoriety by his insistence that the Mass should be celebrated only in Latin. His right-wing views on a variety of subjects had resulted in his public condemnation by Pope Paul VI. With regard to the Conclave that had elected Pope John Paul I Lefebvre’s supporters had initially stated that they would refuse to recognize the new Pope because he had been elected by a Conclave which excluded cardinals over the age of eighty. They had subsequently bemoaned the choice of names as being ‘ominous’. 

Luciani considered for a moment. ‘You say lists like this one have been in existence for over two years.’ 

‘Yes, Holiness.’ 

‘Have the Press got hold of them?’ 

‘Yes, Holiness. The full list has never been published, just a name here, a name there.’ 

‘And the Vatican’s reaction?’ 

‘The normal one. No reaction.’ 

Luciani laughed. He liked Pericle Felici. Curial to his finger-tips, traditional in his thinking, he was nevertheless a witty, sophisticated man of considerable culture. ‘Eminence, the revision of Canon Law that has preoccupied so much of your time, did the Holy Father envisage a change in the Church’s position on Freemasonry?’

‘There have been over the years various pressure groups. Certain interested parties who urged a more “modern” view. The Holy Father was still considering the arguments when he died.’ 

Felici went on to indicate that among those who strongly favoured a relaxation of the canon rule that declared that any Roman Catholic who became a Freemason was automatically excommunicated, was Cardinal Jean Villot. 

In the days that followed their discussion the Pope took to looking carefully at a number of his visitors. The trouble was that Freemasons look uncommonly like the rest of the human race. While Luciani considered this unforeseen problem, several members of the Roman Curia who were strongly sympathetic to Licio Gelli’s right-wing view of the world were channelling information out of the Vatican. The information eventually reached its destination, Roberto Calvi. 

The news from the Vatican was grim. The Milanese banker was convinced the Pope was seeking revenge for the takeover of Banco Cattolica del Veneto. He could not envisage that Luciani’s probe into the Vatican Bank was other than personally directed and inspired by his desire to attack Roberto Calvi. Calvi recalled the anger among the clergy in Venice and Luciani’s protests, the closure of the many diocesan accounts and their transfer to a rival bank. What should he do? A substantial gift to the Vatican perhaps? A lavish endowment for charitable works? Everything he had learned of Luciani, however, would have told Calvi that he was dealing with a type of man he had met only rarely in his business, someone who was completely incorruptible. 

As the days of September ticked by, Calvi moved around the South American continent, Uruguay, Peru, Argentina. Close by him at all times was either Gelli or Ortolani. If Marcinkus fell, a new man would soon discover the state of affairs and the true nature of the relationship between the Vatican Bank and Banco Ambrosiano. Mennini and De Strobel would be removed. The Bank of Italy would be informed and Roberto Calvi would spend the rest of his life in prison. 

He had covered every eventuality, considered every potential danger, blocked every loophole. What he had created was perfect: not one theft – not even one big theft. His was continuing theft, on a scale hitherto undreamed of. By September 1978 Calvi had already stolen over 400 million dollars. The off-shore concerns, the foreign associates, the dummy companies – most thieves would feel a sense of triumph at pulling off one bank robbery. Calvi was simultaneously engaged in robbing banks by the dozen. They were queueing up to be robbed, fighting each other for the privilege of lending money to Banco Ambrosiano.

Now in the midst of his irresistible success, he already had to contend with officials from the Bank of Italy who could not be corrupted and who were every day moving closer to the conclusion of their investigation. Gelli had assured him that the problem could and would be handled, but how could even Gelli, with the massive power and influence that he controlled, handle a Pope? 

If by some miracle Albino Luciani were to drop dead before Marcinkus was removed, then Calvi would have time. Only a month, it was true. But much can happen in a month. Much could happen in the next Conclave. Surely to God it would not produce another Pope who wanted to reform Vatican finances? He turned as he always did to Licio Gelli and confided his worst fears. As they conversed in a variety of South American cities, Roberto Calvi felt some relief. Gelli had reassured him. The ‘problem’ could and would be resolved. 

Meanwhile the daily routine within the Papal Apartments rapidly settled down to a pattern around the new incumbent. Maintaining the habit of a lifetime Luciani rose very early. He had chosen to sleep in the bed used by John XXIII in preference to that used by Paul VI. Father Magee told Luciani that Paul had declined to sleep on John’s bed ‘because of his respect for Pope John’. 

Luciani responded: ‘I will sleep in his bed because of my love for him.’ 

Though his bedside alarm clock was habitually set for 4.45 a.m. in case he overslept, the Pope would be awakened by a knock on his bedroom door at 4.30 a.m. The knock informed him that Sister Vincenza had left a flask of coffee outside. Even this simple act had been subjected to Curial interference. In Venice the nun had been accustomed to knock on the door, call out a ‘Good morning’ and bring the coffee directly into Luciani’s bedroom. The busy monsignors in the Vatican considered this innocent gesture to be a breach of some imaginary protocol. They remonstrated with a baffled Luciani, who agreed that the coffee could be left in his adjoining study. The habit of a coffee consumed immediately upon waking derived from a sinus operation performed many years previously. The operation had left Luciani with an unpleasant taste in his mouth when he awoke. When travelling, if coffee was not available, he would suck a sweet. 

Having drunk his coffee, he would shave and take a bath. From five to five-thirty he practised his English with the aid of a cassette course of instruction. At five-thirty, Luciani would leave his bedroom and go to the small private chapel nearby. Until 7.00 a.m. he prayed, meditated, and said his Breviary. 

At 7.00 a.m. he would be joined by the other members of the Papal Household, particularly secretaries Father Lorenzi and Father Magee. Lorenzi, like himself a new boy within the Vatican, had asked the Pope if Magee, previously one of Pope Paul’s secretaries, could stay on at his post. The Pope, who had been particularly impressed with Father Magee’s ability in procuring cups of coffee during the first two days of his Papacy, readily agreed. The three men would be joined for Mass by the nuns from the Congregation of Maria Bambina, whose duties were to clean and cook for the Pope. The nuns, Mother Superior Elena, Sisters Margherita, Assunta, Gabriella and Clorinda were augmented, at Father Lorenzi’s suggestion, by Sister Vincenza from Venice. 

Vincenza had worked for Luciani since his Vittorio Veneto days and she knew his ways, his habits. She had accompanied him to Venice and had been the Mother Superior of the Community of four nuns who looked after the Patriarch. In 1977 she suffered a heart attack and had been hospitalized. The doctors told her she must never work again, that she should sit and merely give instructions to the other nuns. She had ignored the advice and continued to supervise Sister Celestina’s cooking and had fussed over the Patriarch, reminding him to take his medicine for his low blood pressure. 

For Albino Luciani, Vincenza and Father Lorenzi represented his only link with the homelands of northern Italy, a home he would now see but rarely, and never live in again. It is a sobering thought that when a man is elected Pope he immediately begins to live where he will, in all probability, die and, in all certainty, be buried. Premature residence in one’s own cemetery. 

Breakfast of café latte, a roll and fruit, was taken immediately after Mass at 7.30 a.m. As Vincenza was to tell the other nuns, feeding Albino Luciani was a considerable challenge. He was usually oblivious to what he ate and his appetite was like a canary’s. Like many who had known acute poverty he abhorred waste. The remnants of a special dinner for invited guests would form one of his meals for the following day. 

At breakfast, Luciani would read a variety of Italy’s morning papers. He had the Venice daily II Gazzettino added to the list. Between 8.00 a.m. and 10.00 a.m. the Pope would work quietly in his study preparing for the first of his audiences. Between 10.00 a.m. and 12.30 p.m., with men such as Monsignor Jacques Martin, the prefect of the Pontifical Household, attempting to keep people moving in and out on time, the Pope met visitors and conversed with them on the Second Floor of the Apostolic Palace. 

Martin and other members of the Curia soon discovered that Luciani had a mind of his own. Despite muttered objections, the Pope’s conversations with his guests had a habit of over-running and throwing the schedule into confusion. Men like Monsignor Martin epitomize a very prevalent attitude within the Vatican which runs along the lines that, if it were not for the Pope, they could all get on with their jobs. 

A lunch of minestrone or pasta, followed by whatever Vincenza had created for a second course, was served at 12.30 p.m. Even this was cause for comment. Pope Paul had always lunched at 1.30 p.m. That such a trivial event could inspire excited comment within the Vatican is indicative of just how much a village the place is. Tongues wagged even faster when the word went around that the Pope had introduced members of the female sex to his dinner table. Pia his niece and his sister-in-law probably entered the Vatican record books. 

Between 1.30 p.m. and 2.00 p.m., Luciani took a short siesta. This would be followed by walks on the roof garden or in the Vatican gardens. Occasionally he was accompanied by Cardinal Villot; more frequently Luciani read. Apart from his Breviary he found light relief with works by authors as diverse as Mark Twain and Sir Walter Scott. Shortly after 4.00 p.m. he would be back at his office, studying the contents of a large envelope received from Monsignor Martin, containing a list of the following day’s visitors with a full briefing. 

At 4.30 p.m., while sipping a cup of camomile tea, the Pope received in his office ‘The Tardella’, the various cardinals, archbishops, secretaries of Congregations, his inner cabinet. These were the key meetings ensuring that the nuts and bolts of running the Roman Catholic Church were all in place. 

The evening meal was at 7.45 p.m. At 8.00 p.m., while still eating, Luciani would watch the news on television. His dinner companions, unless augmented by guests, were Fathers Lorenzi and Magee. 

After dinner there was further preparation for the audiences of the following day, then with the final part of the daily Breviary said, the Pope would retire for the night at approximately 9.30 p.m. 

Dinner, like the lunch that had preceded it, would be a simple unsophisticated meal. On September 5th he entertained a Venetian priest, Father Mario Ferrarese. Luciani’s excuse for inviting the priest to the Papal Apartments was that he wished to repay the hospitality that Father Mario had shown to him in Venice. The fact that the rich and the powerful of Italy were attempting to get Albino Luciani to their dinner tables was an irrelevance; he preferred the company of an ordinary parish priest. That particular meal was served by two members of the Papal staff, Guido and Gian Paolo Guzzo. The Pope asked his guest for news of Venice, then quietly remarked, ‘Ask the people there to pray for me because it’s not easy being a Pope.’

Turning to the Guzzo brothers the Pope said, ‘As we have a guest we must serve him a dessert.’ After some delay bowls of ice cream arrived on the Papal table. For others at the table wine was freely available. Luciani was content with mineral water. 

This was the daily routine of Pope John Paul I – a routine that he took delight in occasionally disturbing. Without reference, he would go for walks in the Vatican gardens. A simple diversion, one might think, but an impromptu stroll threw Vatican protocol and the Swiss Guards into total confusion. He had already caused consternation within the ranks of the senior officers of the Guards by talking to men on sentry duty and also requesting that they should refrain from kneeling at his every approach. As he observed to Father Magee: ‘Who am I that they should kneel to me?’ 

Monsignor Virgilio Noe, the Master of Ceremonies, begged him not to talk to the Guards and to content himself with a mute nod. The Pope asked why. Noe spread his hands wide in amazement. ‘Holy Father, it is not done. No Pope has ever spoken to them.’ 

Albino Luciani smiled and continued to talk to the Guards. It was a far cry from the early days of Paul’s reign when priests and nuns would still drop to their knees to converse with the Pope even when they were carrying on a telephone conversation with him. 

Luciani’s attitude towards telephones also provoked alarm among many of the Curial traditionalists. They now had to contend with a Pope who considered he was capable of dialling numbers and answering phones. He phoned friends in Venice. He phoned several Mothers Superior, just for a chat. When he advised his friend Father Bartolomeo Sorges that he would like the Jesuit priest Father Dezza to hear his confession, Father Dezza phoned within the hour to arrange his visit. The voice on the telephone informed him, ‘I’m sorry the Pope’s secretary isn’t here at the moment.

 Can I help?’ 

‘Well, to whom am I speaking?’ 

‘The Pope.’ 

It simply was not done this way. It never had been and perhaps never will be again. Both of the men who functioned as Luciani’s secretaries strenuously deny it ever happened. It was unthinkable. Yet it definitely happened. 

Luciani began to explore the Vatican with its 10,000 rooms and halls, with its 997 stairways, 30 of them secret. He would suddenly take off from the Papal Apartments, either alone, or with Father Lorenzi for company. Equally suddenly he would appear in one of the Curial offices. ‘Just finding my way about the place’, he explained on one occasion to a startled Archbishop Caprio, the Deputy Head of the Secretariat of State. 

They did not like it. They did not like it at all. The Curia were accustomed to a Pope who knew his place, one who worked through the bureaucratic channels. This one was everywhere, into everything, and worse he wanted to make changes. The battle over the wretched sedia gestatoria, the chair on which previous Popes had always been carried during public appearances, began to assume extraordinary proportions. Luciani had it banished to the lumber room. The traditionalists began a fight to have it brought back. That issues so petty should take up a Pope’s time is an illuminating comment on the perspectives of certain sections of the Roman Curia. 

Luciani attempted to reason with men like Monsignor Noe as one does with a child. Their world was not his and he was clearly not about to join theirs. He explained to Noe and to others that he walked in public because he considered that he was no better than any other man. He detested the chair and what it epitomized. ‘Ah but the crowds cannot see you,’ the Curia said. ‘They are demanding its return. All should be able to see the Holy Father.’ Luciani doggedly pointed out that he was frequently on television, that he came to the balcony every Sunday for the Angelus. He also said how much he detested the idea of being carried virtually upon the backs of other men. 

‘But Holiness’, the Curia said, ‘if you seek an even deeper humility than you already clearly have, what could be more humiliating than to be carried in this chair which you detest so much?’ Faced with this argument the Pope conceded defeat. At his second public audience he was carried into the Nervi Hall on the sedia gestatoria. 

While some of Luciani’s time was occupied on Curia trivia, the majority of his waking hours were given to more serious problems. He had told the diplomatic corps that the Vatican renounced all claims to temporal power. Notwithstanding, the new Pope rapidly discovered that virtually every major world problem passed through his in-tray. The Roman Catholic Church, with over 18 per cent of the world’s population owing spiritual allegiance to it, represents a potent force; as such, it was obliged to take a position and have an attitude on a wide range of problems. Apart from his attitude towards Argentina’s General Videla, what would be Albino Luciani’s response to the plethora of dictators who presided over large Catholic populations? What would be his response to the Marcos clique in the Philippines with its 43 million Catholics? To the self-elected Pinochet in Chile with its over 80 per cent Catholic population? To General Somoza of Nicaragua, the dictator so much admired by Vatican financial adviser Michele Sindona? How would Luciani restore the Roman Catholic Church to a home for the poor and underprivileged in a country like Uganda where Amin was arranging fatal accidents for priests as an almost daily event? What would be his response to the Catholics of El Salvador, where some members of the ruling junta considered that to be a Catholic was to be the ‘enemy’? This, in a country with a 96 per cent Catholic population, promised to be a recipe for genocide, and a problem slightly more serious than the Vatican debate about the Pope’s chair. 

How would the man who had uttered harsh words about Communism from his pulpit in Venice speak to the Communist worlds from St Peter’s balcony? Would the Cardinal who had approved of a ‘balance of terror’ with regard to nuclear weapons hold to the same position when the world’s unilateral disarmers came seeking an audience? 

Within his own ranks there was a multitude of problems inherited from Pope Paul. Many priests were urging the end of the vow of celibacy. There was pressure to allow women into the priesthood. There were groups urging reform of the Canon Laws covering divorce, abortion, homesexuality, and a dozen other issues – all reaching up to one man, demanding, pleading, urging. 

The new Pope very quickly demonstrated, in the words of Monsignor Loris Capovilla, the former secretary of Pope John XXIII, that ‘there was more in his shop than he put in the window’. When Foreign Minister Monsignor Agostino Casaroli came to the Pope with seven questions concerning the Church’s relationship with various Eastern European countries, Albino Luciani promptly gave him answers on five of them and asked for a little time to consider the other two. 

A dazed Casaroli returned to his office and told a colleague what had occurred. The priest enquired: ‘Were they the correct solutions?’ 

‘In my view, totally. It would have taken me a year to get those responses from Paul.’ 

Another of the problems tossed into the new Pope’s lap concerned Ireland and the Church’s attitude towards the IRA. Many considered that the Catholic Church had been less than forthright in its condemnation of the continuing carnage occurring in Northern Ireland. A few weeks before Luciani’s election the then Archbishop O’Fiaich had hit the headlines with his denunciation of the conditions in the Maze prison, Long Kesh. O’Fiaich had visited the prison and later talked of his ‘shock at the stench and filth in some of the cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls’. There was much more in a similar vein. Nowhere in his very long statement, released to the news media with considerable professionalism, did the Archbishop acknowledge that the prison conditions were self-created by the prisoners. 

Ireland was without a cardinal; a great deal of pressure was exerted by a variety of people attempting to influence Luciani. Some elements were for O’Fiaich, others felt his previous promotion to the archdiocese of Armagh had proved an unmitigated disaster. 

Albino Luciani returned the dossier on O’Fiaich to his Secretary for State with a shake of the head and a one-line epitaph: ‘I think Ireland deserves better.’ The search for a cardinal was extended. It ended when Luciani’s successor gave O’Fiaich a cardinal’s hat. 

In September 1978 the troubles in Lebanon were not considered to rank particularly high in the list of the world’s major problems. For two years there had been a kind of peace, interspersed with sporadic fighting between Syrian troops and Christians. Long before any other Head of State, the quiet little priest from the Veneto saw the Lebanon as a potential slaughterhouse. He discussed the problem at considerable length with Casaroli and told him that he wished to visit Beirut before Christmas 1978. 

On September 15th, one of the men whom Luciani saw during his morning audiences was Cardinal Gabriel-Marie Garrone, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education. This particular audience is an excellent example of just how remarkable were the talents of Luciani. Garrone had come to discuss a document called Sapientia Christiana, which dealt with the apostolic constitution and with the directives and rules governing all Catholic faculties throughout the world. As long ago as the early 1960s, Vatican Council II had revised the guidelines for seminarians. After two years of internal discussion the Roman Curia had sent its proposals to the world’s bishops for their recommendations. All the relevant documents had then been submitted to two more Curial meetings attended by non-Curial consultants. The results were then examined by at least six Curial departments and the final document had been handed to Pope Paul VI in April 1978, sixteen years after the proposed reforms had first been discussed. Paul had wanted to issue the document on June 29th, the Feast Day of St Peter and St Paul, but a document with a gestation period of some sixteen years could not be rushed so quickly through the Curia’s department of translation. By the time they had the document prepared, Pope Paul was dead. Any initiative unproclaimed at the time of a Pope’s death falls, unless his successor approves it. Consequently, Cardinal Garrone approached his audience with the new Pope with considerable trepidation. Sixteen years of long, hard work could be tossed into the waste-paper basket if Luciani rejected the document. The former seminary teacher from Belluno told Garrone that he had spent most of the previous day studying the document. Then without referring to a copy of it he began to discuss it at length and in great detail. Garrone sat astonished at the Pope’s grasp and understanding of such a highly complex document. At the end of the audience, Luciani advised him that the document had his approval and that it should be published on December 15th. 

Like Casaroli, Baggio, Lorscheider and a number of other men, Garrone left a discussion with Luciani in complete awe. Returning to his office he chanced to meet Monsignor Scalzotto of Propaganda Fide and remarked: ‘I have just met a great Pope.’ 

The ‘great Pope’ meanwhile continued to work his way through the mountain of problems left by Paul. One such was Cardinal John Cody, Cardinal of one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful dioceses, Chicago.

For a cardinal, any cardinal, to be considered by the Vatican to be a major problem was unusual, but then Cody was a very unusual man. The allegations made about Cardinal Cody in the ten years before Luciani’s Papacy began were extraordinary. If even 5 per cent of them were true then Cody had no business being a priest, let alone Cardinal of Chicago. 

Before his promotion to the Chicago Archdiocese in 1965 he had run the diocese of New Orleans. Many of the priests who attempted to work with him in New Orleans still have the scars to prove it. One recalled: ‘When that son of a bitch was given Chicago, we threw a party and sang the “Te Deum” (Hymn of Thanksgiving). As far as we were concerned our gain was Chicago’s loss.’ 

When I discussed the Cardinal’s subsequent career in Chicago with Father Andrew Greeley, a noted Catholic sociologist, author and long a critic of Cody, I observed that another Chicago priest had compared Cardinal Cody with Captain Queeg, the paranoid, despotic naval captain in The Caine Mutiny. Father Greeley’s response was: ‘I think that’s unfair to Captain Queeg.’ 

In the years that followed Cardinal Cody’s appointment to Chicago it became fashionable in the Windy City to compare him with Mayor Richard Daley, a man whose practices in running the city were democratic only by accident. There was one basic difference. Every four years Daley was, at least in theory, answerable to the electors. If they could overcome his political machine, they could vote him out of office. Cody had not been elected. Short of very dramatic action from Rome he was there for life. Cody was fond of observing: ‘I am answerable to no one except Rome and God.’ Events were to prove that Cody declined to be answerable to Rome. That left God. 

When Cody arrived in Chicago he had the reputation of being an excellent manager of finances, a progressive liberal who had battled long and hard for school integration in New Orleans, and a very demanding prelate. He soon lost the first two attributes. In early June, 1970, whilst treasurer of the American Church he put 2 million dollars in Penn Central stocks. A few days later the shares collapsed and the company went bankrupt. He had illegally invested the money during the administration of his duly elected successor to whom Cody refused to hand over the account books until well after the loss. He survived the scandal. 

Within weeks of his arrival in Chicago, he had demonstrated his own particular brand of progressive liberalism towards some of his priests. In the files of his predecessor, Cardinal Albert Meyer, he discovered a list of ‘problem’ priests, men who were alcoholic, senile, or unable to cope. 

Cody began to spend Sunday afternoons arriving at their rectories. He then personally dismissed the priests, giving them two weeks to leave their homes. There were no pension funds, no retirement schemes or insurance policies for priests in Chicago in the mid 1960s. Many of the men were over seventy. Cody simply tossed them out on to the street. 

He began to move priests from one part of the city to another, without consultation. He took similar action with regard to closing convents, rectories and schools. On one occasion, by order of Cody, a wrecking crew began to demolish a rectory and a convent while the occupants were bathing and having breakfast. 

Cody’s basic problem would appear to have been a profound inability to recognize the Second Vatican Council as a fact of life. There had been endless talk at the Council of power sharing, of a collegial style of decision making. The news never reached the Cardinal’s mansion. 

In a diocese with 2.4 million Catholics, the battle lines began to be drawn between factions for and against Cody. The majority of Catholics in the city were in the meantime wondering what was going on. 

The priests formed a Trade Union of sorts, the ACP (Association of Chicago Priests). Cody very largely ignored their requests. Letters asking for meetings were not answered. Phone calls found the Cardinal constantly ‘unavailable’. Some stayed to continue the fight for a more democratically run Church. Many left. In a decade, one third of Chicago’s clergy left the priesthood. Throughout these massive demonstrations proving that there was something very rotten in the State of Illinois, Cardinal Cody continued to insist that his opponents were ‘merely the highly vocal minority’. 

The Cardinal also pilloried the local Press, declaring them hostile. In truth the Chicago news and television media were extraordinarily fair and tolerant during most of Cody’s reign. 

The man who fought for integration in New Orleans became known in Chicago as the man who closed the black schools, claiming that the Church could no longer afford to run them; this in a diocese with an annual revenue approaching 300 million dollars. 

Like much else that Cody did, many of the school closures were effected without reference to anyone, including the school board. When a cry of ‘racist’ went up, Cody defended himself by stating that many of the blacks were non-Catholics and that he did not consider the Church had a duty to educate middle-class black Protestants. But the label of racism was a hard one for him to throw off. 

As the years passed, the charges and allegations against Cody increased tenfold. His conflict with large sections of his own clergy grew bitter. His paranoia blossomed. 

He began to tell tales of how he had been employed on secret espionage work for the US Government. He recounted his contributions to the FBI. He told priests that he had also undertaken special assignments on behalf of the CIA which included flying into Saigon. The details were always vague but if Cody was telling the truth he had been involved in secret service activities on behalf of the Government since the early 1940s. It would seem that John Patrick Cody, the son of a St Louis fireman, had lived many lives. 

The reputation for financial astuteness which he had brought to Chicago, a reputation which was rather dented by the 2 million dollar Penn Central debacle, took a further knock when some of Cody’s opponents began to dig into his earlier, highly colourful career. In between his real or imaginary flights over enemy territories he had unwittingly succeeded in bringing some of the Church to a state of poverty, though not quite in the manner envisaged by Albino Luciani. He had left the diocese of Kansas City, St Joseph, 30 million dollars in debt. He had performed the same feat in New Orleans, which gave added significance to the Te Deum of thanks when he departed. At least he left a permanent memento of his stay in Kansas City, having spent substantial amounts of money to gild the dome of the restored down-town cathedral. 

He began to monitor the day-by-day movements of priests and nuns he suspected of disloyalty. Dossiers were assembled. Secret interrogations of friends of ‘suspects’ became the norm. What all of this had to do with the Gospel of Christ is unclear. 

When some of the activities described above became cause for complaint to Rome by the Chicago clergy, Pope Paul VI worried and agonized. 

It would seem abundantly clear that the most senior member of the Roman Catholic Church in Chicago had demonstrated by the early 1970s that he was unfit to preside over the diocese, yet the Pope, with a strange sense of priorities, hesitated. Cody’s peace of mind seemed to weigh more heavily than the fate of 2.4 million Catholics. 

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the Cody affair is that the man controlled, apparently without reference to anyone, the entire revenue of the Catholic Church in Chicago. A sane, highly intelligent man would be stretched to control with total efficiency an annual sum of between 250 and 300 million dollars. That it should be placed in the hands of a man like Cody defies explanation. 

The total assets of the Roman Catholic Church in Chicago were by 1970 in excess of one billion dollars. Because of Cardinal Cody’s refusal to publish an annual certified account, priests in various parts of the city took to holding back sums of money, which in happier days would have been destined for control by the Cardinal. Eventually in 1971, six years after his despotic rule had begun, Cody deigned to publish what passed for a set of annual accounts. They were a curious affair. They did not reveal real estate investments. They did not include the share portfolio investments. With regard to the revenue from cemeteries they did give, at last, some evidence of a life after death. The movement of the profit was very lively. Six months before the figures had been published, Cody had confided to an aide that the figure was 50 million dollars. When the accounts were made public this had dropped to 36 million dollars. Perhaps for a man who could simultaneously be in Rome, Saigon, the White House, the Vatican and the Cardinal’s mansion in Chicago, misplacing some 14 million dollars’ worth of cemetery revenue was child’s play. 

Sixty million dollars’ worth of parish funds were on deposit with the Chicago chancery. Cody declined to tell anyone where the money was invested, or who was benefiting from the interest. 

One of the Cardinal’s most notable personal assets was the large number of influential friends he assiduously acquired within the power structure of the Church. His pre-war days in the Roman Curia, working initially in the North American College in Rome and subsequently in the office of the Secretariat of State, reaped rich dividends in times of need. Cody was from a very early age a man with both eyes to the main chance. Ingratiating himself with Pius XII and the future Paul VI, he established a formidable power base in Rome. 

The Vatican’s Chicago connection was by the early 1970s one of its most important links with the USA. The bulk of Vatican Incorporated’s share investment on the US Stock Market was funnelled through Continental Illinois. On the Board of the bank along with David Kennedy, a close friend of Michele Sindona, was the Jesuit priest Raymond C. Baumhart. The large amounts of money that Cody funnelled to Rome became an important factor in Vatican fiscal policy. Cody might not be able to handle his priests, but he undoubtedly knew how to turn his hand to a dollar. When the Bishop controlling the diocese of Reno made some ‘unfortunate investments’ and the finances totally collapsed, the Vatican asked Cody to bail him out. Cody telephoned his banking friends and the money was quickly found. 

Over the years the Cody-Marcinkus friendship became particularly close. They had so much in common, so many invested interests. In Chicago, with its very large Polish population unwittingly aiding him, Cody began to divert hundreds of thousand of dollars via Continental Illinois to Marcinkus in the Vatican Bank. Marcinkus would then divert the money to the cardinals in Poland. 

The Cardinal took out further insurance by spreading Chicago’s wealth around certain sections of the Roman Curia. When Cody was in town, and he made over one hundred trips to Rome, he distributed expensive presents where they would do him most good. A gold cigarette lighter to this monsignor, a Patek Philippe watch to that bishop. 

Complaints continued to flood into Rome and outnumber Cody’s expensive gifts. In the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which acts as the Vatican’s policeman on matters of doctrinal orthodoxy and clerical morality, the pile of letters grew. They came not only from priests and nuns in Chicago, they came from men and women in many walks of life. Archbishop Jean Hamer, OP, in charge of the Congregation, pondered the problem. Moving against a priest is a relatively easy matter. After due investigation, the Congregation would merely lean on the relevant bishop requesting that the priest be removed from the area of contention. Whom do you lean on when the man you want to move is the Cardinal? 

The Priests’ Union publicly condemned Cody and stated that he was lying to it. Eventually it passed a vote of censure on him. Despite this Rome remained silent. [just like they did with their pervert priests DC]

By early 1976, Archbishop Hamer was not the only senior member of the Roman Curia who knew the problems that the Chicago connection was causing. Cardinals Benelli and Baggio had independently, and then jointly, decided that Cody must be replaced. 

After long consultation with Pope Paul VI a formula was evolved. When Cody made one of his numerous journeys to Rome in the spring of 1976 Benelli offered him a post in the Roman Curia. He would have a wonderful title, but absolutely no power. It was known that Cody was ambitious and believed he had the talent to climb higher than controlling Chicago. What the Cardinal had in mind was to become Pope. It is indicative of Cody’s arrogance, that a man who had caused such mayhem in Chicago could seriously consider his chances of the Papacy. With this ambition in mind, he would have been happy to exchange Chicago for control of one of the Curia Congregations which gave out money to needy dioceses throughout the world. Cody reasoned that he could buy enough bishops’ votes to place himself on the throne of Rome when the opportunity arose. Benelli was aware of this, hence the job offer, but it was not the job Cody was seeking. He declined. Another solution was needed. 

In January 1976, a few months before the Benelli/Cody confrontation, a delegation of priests and nuns from Chicago visited Jean Jadot, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington. Jadot had told them that Rome had the situation in hand. As the year progressed without any resolution, the battle in Chicago recommenced. Cody’s public image was by now so appalling that he hired a public relations firm, at the Church’s expense, in an attempt to obtain favourable media coverage. 

The irate priests and nuns began to complain again to Jadot in Washington. He counselled patience. ‘Rome will find the solution,’ he promised. ‘You must stop this public attack. Let the issue calm down. Then Rome will handle the problem quietly and discreetly.’ 

The clergy understood. The public criticism abated, only to be provoked to new heights by Cody himself, when he decided to close a number of inner city schools. Baggio seized this issue in yet another attempt to persuade Pope Paul VI to act decisively. The Pope’s concept of decisiveness was to write a stiff letter to Cody asking for an explanation of the school closures. Cody ignored the letter and boasted openly that he had ignored it. 

Back in Chicago, goaded by the Vatican inactivity, more letters were sent to Italy. Among them were new allegations supported by depositions, affidavits and financial records. There was evidence which indicated that Cody’s behaviour in another area left something to be desired. These allegations concerned his friendship with a woman called Helen Dolan Wilson. 

Cody had told his staff in the Chancery that Helen Wilson was a relative. The exact nature of the relationship varied; usually he described her as a cousin. To explain her very stylish mode of life, the fashionable clothes, her frequent travelling, her expensive apartment, the Cardinal let it be known that his cousin had been left very ‘well fixed’ by her late husband. The allegations made to Rome were that Cody and Helen Wilson were not related, that her husband, whom she had divorced long ago, was very much alive at the time Cody had him in the next world, and that further, when the ex-husband did die in May 1969, he left no will and his only worldly goods were an eight-year-old car worth 150 dollars, which went to his second wife. 

These allegations, made in the strictest confidence to the Vatican, continued with proof that Cody’s friendship with Helen Wilson had lasted from a very early age, that he had taken out a 100,000 dollar life policy on which he paid the premiums, with Helen Wilson as the beneficiary, that her employment records of work done at the Chicago Chancery had been falsified by Cody to enable her to obtain a larger pension. The pension was based on 24 years’ work for the diocese which was demonstrably false. Evidence was also produced which showed that Cody gave his woman friend 90,000 dollars to enable her to buy a residence in Florida. The Vatican was reminded that Helen Wilson had accompanied Cody to Rome when he was made Cardinal – but then many other people came with Cody. Unlike Helen Wilson, however, they did not have the run of the Chicago Chancery or decide on the furnishings and fabrics for the Cardinal’s residence. It was also alleged that Cody had diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars of Church funds to this woman.

As if this was not enough, the allegations went on to itemize the large amounts of diocesan insurance business put the way of Helen’s son David. David Wilson had first benefited from ‘Uncle’ John’s largesse back in St Louis in 1963. As the Cardinal had moved, so had the insurance business. It was alleged that the commissions David Wilson had earned, by apparently monopolizing Church insurance business which Cody controlled, were in excess of 150,000 dollars. 

Baggio carefully studied the long, detailed list. Enquiries were made. The Vatican is unrivalled in the business of espionage: consider how many priests and nuns there are in the world, each one owing allegiance to Rome. The answers came back to Cardinal Baggio, indicating that the allegations were accurate. It was now late June 1978. 

In July 1978 Cardinal Baggio again discussed the problem of Cardinal Cody with Pope Paul VI, who eventually accepted that Cody should be replaced. He insisted, however, that it must be done with compassion, in a manner that would enable Cody to retain face. Most important, it must be done in a way that would minimize any possible scandalous publicity. It was agreed that Cody was to be told he must accept a co-adjutor – a bishop who would for all practical purposes run the diocese. Officially it would be announced that this was due to Cody’s failing health, which in reality was not good. Cody would be permitted to stay on as titular Head of Chicago until he reached the retirement age of 75 in 1982. 

Armed with the Papal edict, Cardinal Baggio quickly made his travel arrangements, packed his suitcase and departed for Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. Arriving at the airport, he was advised that the Pope wished to speak to him before he flew to Chicago. 

Paul had danced yet again, backwards. He told Baggio that the plan for a co-adjutor to strip Cody of power could only proceed if Cody agreed. 

Dismayed, Baggio pleaded with the Pope: ‘But Holy Father, can I insist?’ 

‘No, no, you must not order him. The plan is to go forward only if His Eminence agrees.’ 

A very angry and frustrated Cardinal Baggio flew to Chicago. 

Spy networks are a two-way conduit for information and Cardinal Cody had his own sources within the Roman Curia. The element of surprise that Baggio had hoped would catch Cody off balance, had, unbeknown to Baggio, been lost within a day of his crucial meeting with the Pope. Cody was ready and waiting. 

Most men in Cody’s position would subject themselves to a little self-examination, a consideration, perhaps, of events over the years that had led this most sensitive of Popes to the agonizing conclusion that the power Cody wielded must, in the interests of all, be handed to another. Ever considerate of the feelings of the man he wished to replace, the Pope had arranged matters so that Baggio’s stopover in Chicago would be a secret. Officially he was flying direct to Mexico to finalize arrangements for the Puebla Conference. Such gestures were entirely lost on Cardinal Cody. 

The confrontation took place at the Cardinal’s villa in the grounds of the seminary at Mundelein. Baggio laid out the evidence. He established that, in making gifts of money to Helen Wilson, the Cardinal had certainly intermingled money he was entitled to dispose of with Church funds. In addition, the pension he had awarded his friend was improper. The Vatican investigations had clearly established a wide variety of indiscretions which would certainly bring the Roman Catholic Church into disrepute if they became public knowledge. 

Cody was far from contrite as the confrontation rapidly developed into a shouting match. He began to rant about his massive contributions to Rome; about the vast amounts of money he had poured into the Vatican Bank to be used in Poland; about the gifts of money he had bestowed on the Pope during his ad limina visits (obligatory 5-yearly visits and reports) – not the pitiful few thousand dollars that others brought but hundreds of thousands of dollars. The two Princes of the Church could be heard shouting at each other all over the seminary grounds. Cody was adamant. Another bishop would come in and run his diocese ‘over my dead body’. Eventually, like the stuck needle in a long-playing record, his tongue could only utter continuously in a single phrase: ‘I will not relinquish power in Chicago.’ 

Baggio departed, temporarily defeated. A defiant Cody who refused to accept a co-adjutor was in total breach of Canon Law but for it to become public knowledge that the cardinal of one of the most powerful dioceses in the world was openly defying the Pope was, for Pope Paul, unthinkable. The Pope would tolerate Cody to the end of his days rather than face the alternative. For Paul, the days of toleration were few. Within one week of receiving Baggio’s reports the Pope was dead. 

By mid-September, Albino Luciani had studied the Cody file in depth. He met Cardinal Baggio and discussed it. He talked of the implications of the Cody affair with Villot, Benelli, Felici and Casaroli. On September 23rd he had another long meeting with Cardinal Baggio. At the end of it he advised Baggio that he would tell him of his decision within the next few days. 

In Chicago, for the first time in his long turbulent history Cardinal Cody began to feel vulnerable. After the Conclave he had privately been dismissive of this quiet Italian who had followed Paul. ‘It’s going to be more of the same’, Cody had declared to one of his close Curial friends. More of the same was what Cody wanted; it would enable him to go on ruling the roost in Chicago. Now the news from Rome indicated that he had seriously underrated Luciani. As September 1978 drew to an end John Cody became convinced that Luciani would act where Paul had not. Cody’s friends in Rome advised him that whatever course of action this new Pope decided upon, one thing was certain, he would see it through. They cited many examples from Luciani’s life to indicate an unusual inner strength. 

On Luciani’s desk in his study was one of the few personal possessions he treasured. A photograph. Originally it had been contained within a battered old frame. During his time in Venice a grateful parishioner had had the photograph remounted in a new silver frame with semi-precious jewels. The photograph showed his parents against a background of the snow-covered Dolomites. In his mother’s arms was the baby Pia, now a married woman with her own children. During September 1978 his secretaries observed the Pope on a number of occasions lost in thought as he studied the photograph. It was a reminder of happier times, when such men as Cody, Marcinkus, Calvi and the others did not disturb his tranquillity. There had been time for silence and small things then. Now it seemed to Luciani that there was never enough time for such important facets of his life. He was cut off from Canale and even from his family. There were the occasional telephone conversations, with Edoardo, with Pia, but the impromptu visits were now gone for ever. The Vatican machine saw to that. Even Diego Lorenzi attempted to turn Pia away when she telephoned. She had wanted to bring him some little presents, reminders of the north. ‘Leave them at the gate,’ Lorenzi said, ‘The Pope is too busy to see you.’ Luciani overheard this conversation and took the telephone. 

‘Come and see me. I haven’t got time but come all the same.’ 

They lunched together. Uncle Albino was in excellent health and good spirits. As the meal progressed he commented on his new role: ‘Had I known I was going to become Pope one day, I would have studied more.’ Then in a superb understatement he remarked, ‘It’s very hard being Pope.’ 

Pia saw just how hard the job could be – made harder by the obduracy of the ever-watchful Curia. Luciani wished to treat Rome as his new parish, to wander through the streets as he had in Venice and his other dioceses. For a Head of State to behave in such a manner presented problems. The Curia flatly declared the idea not only unthinkable, but unworkable. The city would be thrown into constant chaos if the Holy Father went on walkabouts. Luciani abandoned the idea but only for a modified version. He told the Vatican officials that he wished to visit every hospital, church and refuge centre in Rome and gradually work his way round what he regarded as his parish. For a man bent on being a pastoral Pope the reality on his own doorstep presented a powerful challenge. 

Rome has a Catholic population of two-and-a-half million. It should have been producing at least seventy new priests per year. When Luciani became Pope it was producing six. The religious life of Rome was being maintained by enormous importations of clergy from outside. Many parts of the city were, in reality, pagan, with Church attendances of less than 3 per cent of the population. Here, in the heart of the Faith, cynicism abounded. 

The city that was now home to Luciani was also home to the Communist Mayor Carlo Argan – a Communist Mayor in a city whose major industry, religion, is rivalled only by the crime rate. One of the new titles Luciani had acquired was Bishop of Rome, a city that had been without a bishop, in the sense that Milan, Venice, Florence and Naples had a bishop, for over a century. It showed. 

As Pia lunched with the Pope, Don Diego was involved in a loud, lengthy argument with a Curial official who refused even to consider the Papal wish to visit various parts of Rome. Luciani interrupted his conversation with Pia. 

‘Don Diego. Tell him it must be done. Tell him the Pope wishes it.’ 

Lorenzi conveyed the Papal instruction, only to be met with a refusal. He turned to the Pope. ‘They say it can’t be done, Holy Father, because it’s never been done before.’ 

Pia sat, fascinated, as the game of Vatican tennis continued. Eventually Luciani apologized to his niece for the interruption and told his secretary he would instruct Villot. Smiling at Pia, he observed: ‘If the Roman Curia permits, your Uncle hopes to visit the Lebanon before Christmas.’ 

He talked at length about that troubled country and his desire to intercede before the powder keg exploded. After lunch, as she was leaving, he insisted on giving her a medal presented to him by the mother of the President of Mexico. A few days later on September 15th he entertained his brother Edoardo to dinner. These two family meetings were destined to be the last Albino Luciani would have. 

As the Papacy of Albino Luciani progressed, the gulf between the Pope and the professional Vatican watchers increased, in direct proportion to the ever closer bonds and relationship between the new Pope and the general public. The bewilderment of the professionals was understandable. 

Confronted with a non-Curial Cardinal, who apparently lacked an international reputation, the experts had concluded that they were observing the first of a new breed of Pope, a man deliberately selected to ensure that there would be a reduction of power, a less significant role for the Papacy. There can be little doubt that Luciani himself saw his role in these reduced terms. The essential problem in this vision of a less significant Papacy was the man himself. The very essence of Albino Luciani, his personality, intellect and extraordinary gifts, meant that the general public promptly gave the new Pope a position of greater importance, held what he had to say as being of deeper significance. The public reaction to Luciani clearly demonstrated a deep need for an enlarged Papal role, exactly the reverse of that intended by many cardinals. The more Luciani was self-dismissive, the more exalted he became for the faithful. 

Many who had known Luciani only in his days in Venice were profoundly surprised by what they considered to be the change in the man. In Vittorio Veneto, Belluno and Canale there was no surprise. This was the real Luciani. The simplicity, the sense of humour, the stress on catechism these were integral elements within the man. 

On September 26th, Luciani could look back with satisfaction on his first month in the new job. It had been a month full of powerful impact. His investigations into corrupt and dishonest practices had thrown the perpetrators into deep fear. His impatience with Curial pomposity had caused outrage. Again and again he had abandoned officially written speeches, publicly complaining: ‘This is too Curial in style.’ Or, ‘This is far too unctuous.’ 

His verbatim words were rarely recorded by Vatican Radio or L’Osservatore Romano, but the public heard them and so did the other news media. Borrowing a phrase from St Gregory, the Pope observed that, in electing him, ‘The Emperor has wanted a monkey to become a lion’. Lips tightened within the Vatican as mouths parted in smiles among the public. Here was a ‘monkey’ who during the course of his first month spoke to them in Latin, Italian, French, English, German and Spanish. As Winston Churchill might have remarked, ‘some monkey’. 

On September 7th, during a private audience with Vittore Branca at 8.00 a.m., an hour that caused Curial eyebrows to shoot even higher, his friend Branca expressed concern about the weight of the Papacy. Luciani responded: 

Yes, certainly I am too small for great things. I can only repeat the truth and the call of the Gospel as I did in my little church at home. Basically all men need this, and I am the keeper of souls above all. Between the parish priest at Canale and me there is a difference only in the number of faithful but the task is the same, to remember Christ and his word.[Truer words have never been spoken DC] 

Later the same day he met all the priests of Rome and, talking to them of the need for meditation, his words had a deeply poignant significance when one considers how little time and space a new Pope has for meditation. 

I was touched at Milan Station to see a porter sleeping blissfully with his head on a bag of coal and his back against a pillar. Trains were whistling as they left and their wheels were screeching as they arrived. Loudspeakers constantly interrupted. People came and went noisily. But he, sleeping on, seemed to say, ‘Do what you must but I need some peace’. We priests must do the same. Around us there is continual movement. People talking, newspapers, radio and TV. With the discipline and moderation of priests we must say, ‘Beyond certain limits you do not exist for me. I am a priest of the Lord. I must have a little silence for my soul. I distance myself from you to be with my God for a while.’ 

The Vatican recorded his speeches in the General Audiences when on successive Wednesdays he spoke on Faith, Hope and Charity. Luciani’s pleas that these virtues be shown towards, for example, drug addicts went unrecorded by the Curia who controlled the Vatican media. 

When on September 20th he uttered the memorable phrase that it is wrong to believe ‘Ubi Lenin ibi Jerusalem’ (where Lenin is, there is Jerusalem), the Curia announced that the Pope was rejecting ‘liberation theology’. He was not. Further, Vatican Radio and L’Osservatore Romano neglected to record Luciani’s important qualification, that between the Church and religious salvation, and the world and human salvation, ‘There is some coincidence but we cannot make a perfect equation.’ 

By Saturday September 23rd, Luciani’s investigation into Vatican Incorporated was well advanced. Villot, Benelli and others had provided the Pope with reports which Luciani had reflected upon. That day he left the Vatican for the first time, to take possession of his cathedral as Bishop of Rome. He shook hands with Major Argan and they exchanged speeches. After the Mass that followed, with the majority of the Curia present, the Pope touched several times on the inner problems with which he was grappling. Referring to the poor, that section of society closest to Luciani’s heart, he remarked: 

These, the Roman deacon Lawrence said, are the true treasures of the Church. They must be helped, however, by those who can, to have more and to be more, without becoming humiliated and offended by ostentatious riches, by money squandered on futile things and not invested, in so far as is possible, in enterprises of advantage to all. 

Later in the same speech he turned and, looking directly at the gentlemen of the Vatican Bank gathered together, he began to talk of the difficulties of guiding and governing.

Although already for twenty years I have been Bishop of Vittorio Veneto and at Venice, I admit that I have not yet learned the job well. At Rome I shall put myself in the school of St Gregory the Great who writes ‘[the pastor] should, with compassion, be close to each one who is subject to him: forgetful of his rank he should consider himself on a level with the good subjects, but he should not fear to exercise the rights of his authority against the wicked . . .’ 

Without a knowledge of events within the Vatican, the members of the public merely nodded wisely. The Curia knew precisely to what the Pope was alluding. This was in Vatican style an elegant, oblique pronouncement of coming events. 

Changes were in the air and within the Vatican village there was frenetic speculation. Bishop Marcinkus and at least two of his closest associates. Mennini and De Strobel, were going. That was known to be a fact. What exercised Curial minds were the rumours of other replacements. 

When on Sunday, September 25th a private visitor to the Papal Apartments was identified by one sharp-eyed monsignor as Lino Marconato, excitement within the village reached new heights. Marconato was a director of the Banco San Marco. Did his presence in the Papal Apartments indicate that a successor to Banco Ambrosiano had been found already? 

In fact the meeting dealt with far less exotic banking matters. Banco San Marco had been made the official bank of the diocese in Venice by Luciani after he had angrily closed all accounts at Banca Cattolica del Veneto. Now Luciani needed to clear up his personal accounts at San Marco, knowing he would never return to live in the city. Marconato found his soon-to-be former client in the best of health. They chatted happily about Venice as Luciani gave instructions that the money in his Patriarch’s account should be passed on to his successor. 

The preoccupation with the forthcoming changes was intense. In many cities. By many people. 

Another with a direct vested interest in what Luciani might be about to do was Michele Sindona. Sindona’s four-year battle to avoid extradition from the USA to Italy was moving to a climax in September 1978. Earlier that year, during May, a Federal judge had ruled that the Sicilian, who had transformed himself into a citizen of Switzerland, should be returned to Milan to face the highly expensive music he had previously orchestrated. In his absence he had been sentenced to three-and-a half years, but Sindona was fully aware that that particular sentence would seem lenient when the Italian courts had finished with him. Despite Federal investigation, he still remained free of any charges in the United States. The Franklin Bank collapse had been followed by a number of men being arrested on various charges but in September 1978 The Shark remained untouched. His major problem at that time was in Italy. 

Sindona’s million-dollar battery of lawyers had persuaded the courts to withhold activating the extradition until the United States prosecutors had proved that there was well-founded evidence against Sindona with regard to the variety of charges he faced in Milan. 

From May onwards, the prosecutors had been working hard to obtain that evidence. Sindona, helped by the Mafia and his P2 colleagues, had been working equally hard to make that evidence vanish. As September 1978 drew to a close he still had a number of outstanding ‘problems’. 

The first was the evidence given at the extradition proceedings by a witness named Nicola Biase. Biase was a former employee of Sindona and his evidence was deemed to be dangerous. Sindona set about making it ‘safe’. After discussing the problem with the Mafia Gambino family a small contract was put out. It was to be nothing particularly sinister. Biase, his wife, family and lawyer were to have their lives threatened. If they succumbed to the threats and Biase withdrew his evidence, the matter would rest there. If Biase refused to co-operate with the Mafia, then the Gambino family and Sindona planned to ‘review’ the situation. The review did not augur well for the continued good health of Biase. The contract for less than 1,000 dollars would be amended to a more appropriate one. The contract was given to Luigi Ronsisvalle and Bruce McDowall. Ronsisvalle is by profession a hired killer. 

Another contract was also discussed with Ronsisvalle. The Mafia advised him that Michele Sindona required the death of Assistant United States District Attorney, John Kenney. 

Nothing so clearly illustrates the mentality of Michele Sindona as the contract that was put out on John Kenney. The attorney was the chief prosecutor in the extradition hearings, the man leading the US Government’s attack on Sindona’s continued presence within the United States. Sindona reasoned that if Kenney were eliminated the problem would disappear. It would act as a warning to the Government that he, Michele Sindona, was objecting to the heat. The investigation should cease. There should be no more irritating court appearances, no more absurd attempts to get him sent back to Italy. The thought processes at work here are 100 per cent Sicilian Mafia. It is a philosophy that works again and again in Italy. It is an essential part of the Italian Solution. The authorities can be cowed, and are. Investigators replacing a murdered colleague will move very slowly. Sindona reasoned that what was effective in Palermo would work in New York. 

Luigi Ronsisvalle, although a professional murderer, baulked at accepting the contract. The fee of 100,000 dollars looked good but Ronsisvalle, with a deeper appreciation of the American way of life than Sindona, did not envisage having much opportunity to spend it. If Kenney were murdered there would be waves, big ones. Ronsisvalle began to seek someone, on behalf of the Gambino family, who fancied his chances of survival after killing a district attorney. 

Sindona and his associates then turned to the next problem, Carlo Bordoni, former business associate and close friend of Sindona. Bordoni was already facing a number of charges concerning the collapse of the Franklin Bank and Sindona was aware that he could give lethal testimony against The Shark as part of a deal to reduce his own punishment. It was decided that the treatment that was about to be given to Nicola Biase and his family and attorney should be extended to Carlo Bordoni. 

The remaining problems for Sindona lay in Italy, particularly within the Vatican. If Marcinkus fell, then Calvi would go. If Calvi went, then Sindona would be pulled down with him. The four-year fight to avoid extradition would be over. Might a man who considered he could solve his problems in the USA with the murder of a United States attorney feel that the major threat facing him in Italy could be eliminated by the death of a Pope?

Sindona, Calvi, Marcinkus and Cody: by September 28th, 1978 each of these men stood to lose much if Albino Luciani were to decide on specific courses of action. Others who stood to be directly affected were Licio Gelli and Umberto Ortolani: for these P2 leaders to lose Calvi would be for the masonic lodge to lose its paymaster general. By September 28th, another name was added to the growing list of people who were about to be seriously affected by the proposed action of Luciani. The new name was that of Cardinal Jean Villot, the Pope’s Secretary of State. 

The same morning, after a light breakfast of coffee, croissant and rolls, Luciani was at his desk before 8 a.m. There was much to be done. 

The first problem he tackled was L’Osservatore Romano. In the previous month, he had been given cause to complain about the paper on numerous occasions. After the battle had been won about the regal use of ‘we’ and ‘our’, which the paper had initially insisted on substituting for the Pope’s use of the humbler first person, each day’s edition had produced further irritations for the Pope. The paper had adhered rigidly to the Curial-written speeches and ignored his own personal comments. It even complained when Italian journalists had accurately reported what the Pope had said rather than what L’Osservatore Romano deemed he should have said. Now there were fresh problems of a far more serious nature. 

A number of Curial cardinals had discovered to their horror that shortly before the Conclave Albino Luciani had been asked for his opinion on the birth of Louise Brown, known as ‘the first test tube baby’, an English girl recently born with the aid of artificial fertilization. Luciani had been interviewed on the subject three days before the death of Pope Paul VI but his views were not generally known until the article carried in Prospettive nel Mondo after his election. The hardliners on birth control read with growing dismay the views of the man who was now Pope. 

Luciani had begun cautiously, making it clear that what he was expressing were his own personal views, because he, like everyone else, ‘waited to hear what the authentic teaching of the Church would be when the experts had been consulted’. His surprise election had produced a situation in which the authentic teaching of the Church on this as on any other subject was now totally within Luciani’s province. 

In the interview Luciani expressed qualified enthusiasm about the birth. He was concerned about the possibility of ‘baby factories’, a prophetic concern in view of current events in California where women are queueing to be impregnated with the sperm of Nobel prize winners. 

On a more personal note to the parents of Louise Brown, Luciani said: 

Following the example of God, who desires and loves human life, I too send my best wishes to the baby. As for her parents, I have no right to condemn them; subjectively, if they acted with good intentions and in good faith, they may even have great merit before God for what they have decided and asked the doctors to do. 

He then drew attention to a previous pronouncement by Pius XII which might put the act of artificial fertilization in conflict with the Church. Then, considering the view that every individual has the right to choose for him or herself, he expressed an opinion that lay at the heart of his attitude towards many moral problems. ‘As for the individual conscience, I agree, it must always be followed, whether it commands or forbids; the individual though must seek always to develop a well formed conscience.’ 

The element within the Vatican who believe that the only well-formed conscience is one formed exclusively by them began to mutter. Discreet meetings began to take place. It was clear to those who attended these meetings that Luciani had to be stopped. They talked airily of ‘the betrayal of Paul’, which to certain refined Roman minds is an elegant way of saying, ‘I disagree’. 

When news of the cautious dialogue between the Secretariat of State’s office and the US State Department began to leak to this group they determined on action. The subsequent information that a delegation of officials concerned with birth control had been granted an audience with the Pope gave added urgency to those within the Vatican who considered Humanae Vitae should remain the last word on this subject. 

On September 27th there appeared on the front page of L’Osservatore Romano a long article entitled ‘Humanae Vitae and Catholic morality’. It was written by Cardinal Luigi Ciappi, OP, theologian to the Papal household. Cardinal Ciappi had been personal theologian to Paul VI and Pius XII. Coming from such an authority, the article would appear to carry the personal imprimatur of the new Pope. It had previously been published in Laterano to ‘celebrate’ the tenth anniversary of Humanae Vitae. Its re-publication was a deliberate attempt to forestall any change on the issue of birth control that Albino Luciani might wish to make. The article is a long eulogy extolling the virtues of Humanae Vitae. There are copious quotations from Paul VI, but from Luciani not a single word affirming he shared either Paul’s or Ciappi’s views. The reason for that is simple. Ciappi had not discussed the article with Luciani. Indeed as of September 27th, 1978, Cardinal Ciappi was still awaiting a private audience with the new Pope. The first Luciani knew of the article and the views it contained was when he read it in the paper on September 27th. With rising anger he turned to page two to continue reading the article; it was, as previously noted, very long. On page two he was confronted with yet another of the Curia’s efforts to undermine his position. Running over three entire columns was another article entitled ‘The Risk of Manipulation in the Creation of Life’. This was a blunt, dogmatic condemnation of the birth of test tube baby Louise Brown and of all artificial fertilization. 

Again there had been no reference to Luciani. The Curia knew full well that, for all L’Osservatore Romano claims to be only semiofficial, such an article would be clearly seen by the world as being the views of the new Pope. The battle was well and truly joined. 

On September 28th, therefore, shortly after 8.00 a.m., the Pope telephoned his Secretary of State, Villot. He demanded a full explanation of how the two articles had appeared; then he phoned Cardinal Felici in Padua where he was about to attend a spiritual retreat. 

He had taken to using Felici more and more as a sounding board for his ideas. Aware that their views differed on a large range of subjects, Luciani was equally aware that Felici would respond with total honesty. The Pope also knew that, as Dean of the Sacred College, few knew their way through the machinations of the Curia better than Felici. 

Luciani expressed his anger at the two articles. ‘You recall some days ago advising me that the Curia wished me to restrain my natural exuberance?’ 

‘It was merely a suggestion, Holiness.’ 

‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to return the compliment on my behalf. Tell that little newspaper to restrain its views on such issues. Editors are like Popes. Neither is indispensable.’ 

After arranging to meet Felici upon his return from Padua, Luciani moved on to the next problem, the Dutch Church. Five of the seven Dutch bishops were planning to take moderate positions on the issues of abortion, homosexuality and the employment of married priests. The five included Cardinal Willebrands, the man who had offered words of comfort to Luciani during the Conclave. The five were opposed by two extremely conservative bishops, Gijsens of Roermond and Simonis of Rotterdam. A meeting in The Netherlands in November 1978 promised to be the battle arena that would expose the deep divisions to the Dutch public. There was a further problem, which was covered in the detailed report that had been submitted to the late Pope, Paul VI. 

The Jesuits were in pursuit of the world famous theologian and Dominican Professor, Edward Schillebeeckx. As with his Swiss contemporary, Hans Kung, the conservatives wished to silence what seemed to them to be the radical ideas of Schillebeeckx. The feared Index of banned and prohibited books had been abolished by Paul VI. His death had left unresolved the problem of how the Roman Catholic Church would control its forward thinkers. In the past Luciani had borrowed a phrase from Kung to condemn ‘sniper theologians’ but men such as Kung and Schillebeeckx were not sniping; they articulated a deep desire to return the Church to its origins, something of which Albino Luciani wholeheartedly approved. At a few minutes to ten, Luciani placed the report to one side and immersed himself in happier aspects of his job. A series of audiences. 

First to be received was a group which included the man whom Luciani had promoted to the Presidency of Cor Unum, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin. The Pope beamed at the strong, youthful figure of Gantin, who for him represented the Church’s future. During their conversation, Luciani remarked: ‘It is only Jesus Christ whom we must present to the world. Apart from this we would have no reason, no purpose, we would never be listened to.’ 

Another who was granted an audience that morning was Henri de Riedmatten. When the news had flown around Rome shortly after the Conclave that Luciani had written to Pope Paul before Humanae Vitae, urging him not to reaffirm the ban on artificial contraception, it had been Riedmatten who called such a report ‘a total fantasy’. His discussion with the Pope on September 28th concerned his work as secretary of Cor Unum but Luciani gave Riedmatten a clear warning against any further ‘denials’. 

‘I understand that my report on birth control passed you by?’ 

Riedmatten mumbled something about possible confusion. 

‘One should take care, Father Riedmatten, not to speak publicly until all confusion has cleared. Should you need a copy of my report I’m sure it can be found for you.’ 

Riedmatten thanked the Pope profusely. Thereafter he maintained a wise silence while Luciani discussed the problems of Lebanon with Cardinal Gantin. He advised Gantin that the previous day he had discussed his projected visit to the Lebanon with Patriarch Hakim whose Greek Melkite-rite dioceses covered not only the invaded Lebanon but the invading Syria. 

Also received in audience that morning was a group of bishops from the Philippines who were making their ad limina visit. Confronted with men who had to contend with the day-to-day reality of President Marcos, Luciani talked to them on a subject very close to his heart: evangelization. Aware of the difficulties facing these men if he spoke out directly about Marcos, the Pope chose instead to make his points through urging the importance of evangelization. He reminded them of Pope Paul’s trip to the Philippines. 

At a moment when he chose to speak about the poor, about justice and peace, about human rights, about economic and social liberation, at a moment when he also effectively committed the Church to the alleviation of misery, he did not and could not remain silent about the ‘higher good’, the fullness of life in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

The message was clearly understood, not only by the bishops, but subsequently also by the Marcos family. 

After the morning audiences Luciani had a meeting with Cardinal Baggio. He had arrived at a number of decisions and was now about to impart two of them to Baggio. 

The first was the problem of Cardinal John Cody of Chicago. After weighing every consideration Luciani had decided that Cody must be removed. It was to be done in a classic Vatican manner, he hoped without undue publicity. He told Baggio that Cody was to be given the opportunity to resign because of ill health. There should be little adverse Press comment about this because Cody’s health was indeed far from good. If Cody declined to resign, rather than suffer the uproar of publicly removing him against his will a coadjutor was to be appointed. Another bishop would be brought in to take over all effective power and to run the diocese. Luciani felt sure that faced with the alternative, Cody would choose to go with dignity. If he insisted upon staying then so be it. He would be relieved of all responsibility. Luciani was crystal clear on all of this. There was to be no asking, no request. A coadjutor would be appointed. 

Baggio was delighted; finally the situation had been resolved. He was less than pleased with the next decision at which Luciani had arrived. Venice was without a Patriarch. Baggio was offered the job. 

Many men would have felt honoured at such an offer. Baggio was not; he was angry. He saw his future in the short term as dominating the Puebla conference in Mexico. He believed that the Church’s future lay in the Third World. In the long term he saw his place in Rome, at the heart of the action. In Venice he would be out of sight and, more important, out of mind when it came to formulating future plans. The manner of his refusal to accept Venice astonished Luciani. Obedience to the Pope and to the Papacy had been instilled into Luciani from his earliest days in the seminary at Feltre and the obedience that Luciani had acquired had been of an unquestioning nature. Through the years as his career had progressed he had begun to question, most notably over the issues of Vatican Incorporated and Humanae Vitae, but it would have been unthinkable for Luciani publicly to lead a call to arms even on issues as important as these. This was the man who at Paul’s request had written article after article that supported the Papal line, whom when writing such an article on divorce, gave it to his secretary Father Mario Senegaglia with the wry comment, ‘This will bring me many headaches I am sure, when it is published, but the Pope has requested it.’ To refuse a direct request from the Pope in the arrogant way Baggio was now doing was beyond belief. The two men were functioning with two quite different sets of values. Luciani was considering what was best for the Roman Catholic Church. Baggio was considering what was best for Baggio. 

There were several reasons why the Pope had concluded that Baggio should move from Rome to Venice. Not least of these was one particular name on the list of Masons which Luciani had received – Baggio, Masonic name Seba, Lodge number 85/2640. Enrolled on August 14th, 1957. 

Luciani had made further enquiries after his conversation with Cardinal Felici. A remark of Felici’s had nagged away at him. ‘Some on the list are Masons. Others are not.’ Luciani’s problem was to resolve the genuine from the false. The enquiries had helped by producing some clarifications. 

The meeting between Baggio and Luciani has been described to me as ‘a very violent argument with the violence and anger entirely deriving from His Eminence. The Holy Father remained calm.’ 

Calm or otherwise, Luciani had an unresolved problem at lunch time. Venice was still without a leader and Baggio was insisting his place was in Rome. A thoughtful Luciani began his soup. 

The Indian summer that Rome had been enjoying throughout the month gave way to cooler weather on that Thursday. After a short siesta Luciani decided to confine his exercise for the day to indoor walking. He began to stroll alone through the corridors. At 3.30 p.m. the Pope returned to his study and made a number of telephone calls. He talked to Cardinal Felici in Padua and Cardinal Benelli in Florence. He discussed the events of the morning, including the Baggio confrontation, and then they moved on to talk of his next appointment, which was to see Villot. The various decisions Luciani had arrived at were about to be given to the Secretary of State. 

Luciani and Villot sat sipping their camomile tea. In an attempt to get closer to his Secretary of State, the Pope had from time to time during their numerous meetings spoken to Villot in his native French. It was a gesture the Cardinal from St Amande-Tallende appreciated. He had been deeply impressed at how quickly Luciani had settled into the Papacy. The word had gone out from the Secretariat of State’s office to a number of Luciani’s friends and former colleagues. Monsignor Da Rif, still working at Vittorio Veneto, was one of many to be given a progress report. 

From Cardinal Villot down they all admired Papa Luciani’s way of working. His ability to get to the root of problems, to make decisions quickly and firmly. They were very struck with his ability to carry out his tasks. It was clear that he was a man who took decisions and stuck to them. He did not give way to pressure. In my own personal experience this ability to stick to his own line was a very remarkable feature of Albino Luciani.

During the late afternoon of September 28th Jean Villot was given an extended demonstration of this ability that had so impressed him during the previous month. The first problem to be discussed was the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, the Vatican Bank. Luciani was by now in possession of a great deal of highly detailed information. Villot himself had already submitted a preliminary report. Luciani had also obtained further information from Villot’s deputy Archbishop Giuseppe Caprio, and from Benelli and Felici. 

For Bishop Paul Marcinkus, who had initiated the plan and played such an active helping role for Calvi in the takeover of the Banca Cattolica, that chicken and a great many others were now going to come home to roost. Villot advised the Pope that inevitably word had leaked on the investigation into the Bank. The Italian Press were becoming very curious and one major story had just been published. 

Newsweek magazine clearly had some excellent Vatican sources. It had learned that before the Conclave a considerable number of cardinals had requested a full report on the Vatican Bank from Villot. It had also, through its ‘knowledgeable source’, picked up the fact that there were moves afoot to oust Marcinkus. The magazine quoted its Curial source: ‘There’s some movement to get him out of there. He’ll probably be made an auxiliary bishop.’ 

Luciani smiled. ‘Does Newsweek tell me with whom I am replacing Marcinkus?’ 

Villot shook his head. 

As their conversation progressed, Luciani made it clear that he had no intention of leaving Marcinkus in Vatican City, let alone the Vatican Bank. Having personally assessed the man during a 45-minute interview earlier in the month Luciani had concluded that Marcinkus might be more gainfully employed as an auxiliary bishop in Chicago. He had not indicated his thinking to Marcinkus but the cool politeness he had shown to the man from Cicero had not passed unnoticed. 

Returning to his bank offices after the interview, Marcinkus later confided to a friend, ‘I may not be around here much longer.’ 

To Calvi via the telephone and to his colleagues in the bank he observed: ‘You would do well to remember that this Pope has different ideas from the last one. There are going to be changes around here. Big changes.’ 

Marcinkus was right. Luciani advised Villot that Marcinkus was to be removed immediately. Not in a week’s or a month’s time. The following day. He was to take leave of absence. A suitable post in Chicago would be found for him once the problem of Cardinal Cody had been resolved. 

Villot was told that Marcinkus was to be replaced by Monsignor Giovanni Angelo Abbo, secretary of the Prefecture of Economic Affairs of the Holy See. As a key figure in the financial tribunal of the Vatican, Monsignor Abbo would demonstrably be bringing to his new job a great deal of financial expertise. 

The inspiration of Pope John’s first 100 days had certainly galvanized Albino Luciani. The claws of the lion which his intimates had waited to see revealed, were on full display to Villot on the evening of September 28th. Luciani, a man so unassuming and gentle, had, before his Papacy, seemed much smaller than his 5 ft 9 ins. To many observers over the years he had seemed to melt into the wallpaper. His manner was so quiet and calm that after a large gathering many were unaware that he had been present. Villot was left in no doubt of his presence on this evening. Luciani told him: 

There are other changes within the Istituto per le Opere di Religione that I wish to be implemented immediately. Mennini, De Strobel and Monsignor De Bonis are to be removed. At once. De Bonis is to be replaced by Monsignor Antonetti. The other two vacancies I will discuss with Monsignor Abbo. I wish all of our links with the Banco Ambrosiano Group to be cut and the cut must happen in the very near future. It will be impossible, in my view, to effect this step with the present people holding the reins. 

Father Magee remarked to me, in terms of a general observation, ‘He knew what he wanted. He was very clear indeed about what he wanted. The manner in which he went about his aims was very delicate.’ 

The ‘delicacy’ lay in his explanation to Villot. Both men knew that Marcinkus, Mennini, De Strobel and De Bonis were all men with inextricable links not only with Calvi but also with Sindona. What was not said could not be misquoted at a later date. 

Cardinal Villot noted these changes without much comment. He had been aware of a great deal over the years. Many within the Vatican considered him ineffectual but for Villot it had often been a case of deliberately looking the other way. In the Vatican village it was called survival technique. 

Luciani moved to the problem of Chicago and his discussion with Baggio concerning the ultimatum that was to be given to Cardinal John Cody. Villot voiced approval. Like Baggio he regarded Cody as a running sore in the American Church. That the problem was finally to be solved gave the Secretary of State deep gratification. Luciani stated that he wished soundings to be taken via the Papal Nuncio in Washington about a possible successor to Cody, and observed, ‘There has been a betrayal of trust in Chicago. We must ensure that whoever replaces His Eminence has the ability to win the hearts and minds of all within the diocese.’ 

Luciani discussed Baggio’s refusal to accept the See of Venice and his continued determination that Baggio should go where he was told to go. ‘Venice is not a tranquil bed of roses. It needs a man of Baggio’s strength. I wish you to talk with him. Tell him that we all have to make some sacrifice at this time. Perhaps you should remind him that I had no desire for this job.’ The argument would have limited value for Baggio who himself had earnestly desired to be Paul’s successor but Villot diplomatically neglected to make this point. 

Luciani then advised Villot of the other changes he planned to make. Cardinal Pericle Felici was to become Vicar of Rome, replacing Cardinal Ugo Poletti, who would replace Benelli as Archbishop of Florence. Benelli was to become Secretary of State. He would take over Villot’s job. 

Villot considered the proposed changes that included his own ‘resignation’. He was old and tired. Further, he was also seriously ill. An illness not helped by the two packs of cigarettes he smoked daily. Villot had made it plain in late August that he sought early retirement. Now it had come somewhat sooner than he had bargained for. There would be a period of handover of course but to all intents and purposes his power was now ceasing. The fact that Luciani proposed to replace him with Benelli must have been particularly vexing to Villot. Benelli had been his number two in the past and it had not been the happiest of relationships. 

Villot studied the notes he had made of the proposed changes. Albino Luciani, placing his own handwritten notes to one side, poured out more tea for both of them. Villot said, ‘I thought you were considering Casaroli as my replacement?’ 

‘I did, for a considerable time. I think much of his work is brilliant but I share Giovanni Benelli’s reservations about some of the policy initiatives that have been made in the recent past towards Eastern Europe.’ 

Luciani waited for some sign or word of encouragement. The silence grew longer. Never during their entire relationship had Villot dropped his formality; always there was the mask, always there was the coldness. Luciani had tried directly and also via Felici and Benelli to inject some warmth into his dealings with Villot, but the cold professional aloofness that was his hallmark remained. Eventually it was Luciani who broke the silence, ‘Well, Eminence?’ 

‘You are the Pope. You are free to decide.’ ‘Yes, yes, but what do you think?’ 

Villot shrugged. ‘These decisions will please some and distress others. There are cardinals within the Roman Curia who worked hard to get you elected who will feel betrayed. They will consider these changes, these appointments contrary to the late Holy Father’s wishes.’ 

Luciani smiled. ‘Was the late Holy Father planning to make appointments in perpetuity? As for the cardinals who claim to have worked hard to make me Pope – understand this – I have said it many times, but clearly it needs saying yet again. I did not seek to become Pope. I did not want to be Pope. You cannot name one single cardinal to whom I proposed anything. Not one whom I persuaded in any form to vote for me. It was not my wish. It was not my doing. There are men here within Vatican City who have forgotten their purpose. They have reduced this to just another market place. That is why I am making these changes.’ 

‘It will be said that you betrayed Paul.’ 

‘It will also be said that I have betrayed John. Betrayed Pius. Each will find his own guiding light according to his needs. My concern is that I do not betray Our Lord Jesus Christ.’ 

The discussion continued for nearly two hours. At 7.30 p.m. Villot departed. He went back to his own offices near by and, sitting at a desk, studied the list of changes. Then, reaching into a drawer, he pulled out another list – perhaps it was just coincidence. Every one of the clerical personnel whom Luciani was moving was on the list of alleged Masons. The list which the disenchanted P2 member Pecorelli had published. Marcinkus. Villot. Poletti. Baggio. De Bonis. While each of the clerical replacements so far nominated by Luciani was notably absent from the list of Masons. Benelli. Felici. Abbo. Antonetti. 

Cardinal Villot put the list to one side and studied another note on his desk. It was the final confirmation that the proposed meeting between the USA Committee on population control and Albino Luciani would take place on October 24th. A Government group which was seeking to change the Roman Catholic Church’s position on the contraceptive pill would in a few weeks meet a Pope who desired to make just such a change. Villot rose from his desk leaving the various papers carelessly in view. The lion had indeed revealed his claws. 

Immediately after his meeting with Villot had finished at 7.30 p.m., Albino Luciani asked Father Diego Lorenzi to contact Cardinal Colombo in Milan. A few moments later Lorenzi advised him that Colombo was not available until about 8.45 p.m. While Lorenzi returned to his desk, the Pope was joined by Father Magee. Together they recited the final part of the daily Breviary in English. At ten minutes to eight Luciani sat down to dinner with Magee and Lorenzi. Totally unruffled by the long session with Villot he chatted amiably while Sisters Vincenza and Assunta served a dinner of clear soup, veal, fresh beans and salad. Luciani sipped a little from a glass of water while Lorenzi and Magee drank red wine. 

At one end of the table, Father Lorenzi was struck by the thought that Luciani’s Papacy must have already passed the shortest on record. He was about to voice the thought when the Pope began to fuss with his new watch. It was a present from Paul’s secretary Monsignor Macchi after Felici had advised the Pope that some of the Curia considered his previous watch inadequate. A bad image apparently. In such a manner did the Curia seek to reduce the Pope to a second-hand-car salesman who took care that his trousers were always neatly pressed. The last time Luciani had seen his brother Edoardo he had offered him the old watch with the words, ‘Apparently the Pope is not allowed to wear an old battered watch that needs to be constantly wound. Will you be offended if I give it to you?’ 

Eventually Luciani passed the new watch to Magee to reset when the television news began. It was one minute to eight. 

Shortly after a pleasant, uneventful supper, the Pope went back to his study to consider the notes he had used during his discussions with Villot. At 8.45 p.m. Lorenzi connected him with Cardinal Colombo in Milan. The Cardinal declined to be interviewed but other sources indicate that they discussed the changes Luciani intended to make. Clearly there was no dissension. Cardinal Colombo has gone as far as recalling, ‘He spoke to me for a long time in a completely normal tone from which no physical illness could be inferred. He was full of serenity and hope. His final greeting was “pray”.’ 

Lorenzi noted that the phone call finished at about 9.15 p.m. Luciani then glanced over the speech he planned to make to the Company of Jesuits on Saturday the 30th. Earlier he had telephoned the Superior General of the Jesuits, Father Pedro Arrupe, and warned him that he would have one or two things to say about discipline. He underlined a part of the speech that was not without pertinence to the changes he had just made. 

You may well know and justly concern yourselves with the great economic and social problems which trouble humanity today and are so closely connected with the Christian life. But in finding a solution to these problems may you always distinguish the tasks of religious priests from those of the laymen. Priests must animate and inspire the laity to fulfil their duties, but they must not take their place, neglecting their own specific task of evangelization. 

Putting the speech to one side on his desk he picked up the notes on the dramatic changes he had earlier discussed with Villot. He walked to the door of his study and opening it saw Father Magee and Father Lorenzi. Bidding them both goodnight he said, ‘Buona notte. A domani. Se Dio vuole.’ (Good night. Until tomorrow. If God wishes.’) 

It was a few minutes before 9.30 p.m. Albino Luciani closed his study door. He had spoken his last words. His dead body would be discovered the following morning. The precise circumstances surrounding the discovery make it abundantly clear that the Vatican perpetrated a cover up. It began with a lie, then continued with a tissue of lies. It lied about little things. It lied about big things. All of the lies had but one purpose: to suppress the fact that Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I, was murdered at some time between 9.30 p.m. on September 28th and 4.30 a.m. on September 29th, 1978. 

Albino Luciani was the first Pope to die alone for over one hundred years, but then it has been a great deal longer since a Pope was murdered. 

Cody. Marcinkus. Villot. Calvi. Gelli. Sindona. At least one of these men had decided on a course of action that was implemented during the late evening of the 28th or the early morning of the 29th. That course of action was derived from the conclusion that the Italian Solution must be applied. The Pope must die.

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We Are Left Frightened

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