Part 5 :In God's Name...We Are Left Frightened

In Gods Name
By David Yallop
We Are Left Frightened 

How and why did darkness fall upon the Catholic Church on September 28th, 1978? 

The ‘why’ has already been established. There was a plethora of motives. The ‘how’ also has an alarming number of possibilities. If Albino Luciani was murdered because of any of the reasons already recorded then a number of factors had to apply. 

1 The murder would have to be achieved by stealth. For that status quo of corruption which existed before Luciani’s election to continue, then the act of murder had to be masked. There could be no dramatic shooting of the Pope in the middle of St Peter’s Square; no public attack that would inevitably give rise to a full, searching enquiry as to why this quiet, holy man had been eliminated. The sudden death would have to be achieved in such a manner that public questions and anxiety would be reduced to a minimum. 

2 The most efficient way to kill the Pope was by poison – a poison that when administered would leave no tell-tale external signs. Research indicates that there are over two hundred such drugs which would fulfil the task. The drug digitalis is but one of this number. It has no taste. No smell. It can be added to food, drink or existing proprietary drugs without the unsuspecting victim becoming alerted that he has taken a fatal dose. 

3 Whoever planned to murder the Pope in such a manner would have to have an intimate knowledge of Vatican procedures. They would have to know that no matter what indications remained after the act, there would be no autopsy. Given that they could be confident of that one fact then any one of two hundred drugs could be used. A drug such as digitalis would kill in such a way that upon an external examination of the body the Vatican doctors would conclude that death had been caused by a heart attack. The conspirators would be fully aware that there was nothing within the Apostolic laws directing that an autopsy should be carried out. Further, the conspirators would know that even if suspicions were aroused at the highest levels within the Vatican it would be virtually certain that Vatican officials and examining doctors would content themselves with an elementary examination of the body. If a drug such as digitalis was indeed administered to an unsuspecting Luciani in the late evening then there was the virtual certainty that the Pope would retire to his room for the night. He would go to bed and then to his final sleep. Death would occur between two to six hours after consumption of the fatal dose. The Pope kept beside his bed, on the small table with his battered alarm clock, a bottle of Effortil, a liquid medicine that he had been taking for some years to alleviate low blood pressure. A fatal dose of digitalis, half a teaspoonful, would be undetectable if added to the medicine. 

The only other medicines the Pope was taking were vitamin pills three times a day with his meals and a course of injections for the adrenal cortex, drugs to stimulate the gland that secretes adrenaline. Again these were taken to assist the low blood pressure. Courses of these injections were given twice yearly, in the spring and in the autumn. The proprietary drugs varied. One of them frequently used was Cortiplex. These injections were administered by Sister Vincenza. Luciani was taking a course of them during his Papacy, hence the need for Vincenza in the Papal Apartments. The drugs used for the injections, like the Effortil by the bedside, could have been tampered with easily. No special precautions were made about the storage of these drugs. Access to them would not have presented any problem to a person with murder in mind. Indeed, as will be demonstrated, access to any part of the Papal Apartments presented no problem to anyone determined to end the life of Albino Luciani. 

At 4.30 a.m. on the morning of Friday September 29th, Sister Vincenza carried a flask of coffee to the study as usual. A few moments later she knocked on the Pope’s bedroom door and called out, ‘Good morning, Holy Father’. For once there was no reply. Vincenza waited for a moment then padded away quietly. At 4.45 a.m. she returned. The tray of coffee in the study was untouched. She had worked for Luciani since 1959 in Vittorio Veneto. Not once in nineteen years had he overslept. Anxiously she moved to the bedroom door and listened. There was no sound. She knocked on the door, timidly at first, then with greater force. Still there was silence. There was a light shining from under the door of the bedroom. She knocked again on the bedroom door. Still there was no answer. Opening the door she saw Albino Luciani sitting up in bed. He was wearing his glasses and gripped in his hands were some sheets of paper. His head was turned to the right and the lips were parted showing his teeth. It was not the smiling face that had so impressed the millions but an expression of agony. She felt his pulse. Recently she recounted that moment to me: 

‘It was a miracle that I survived. I have a bad heart. I pushed the bell to summon the secretaries, then I went out to find the other Sisters and to awaken Don Diego.’ 

The Sisters resided on the far side of the Papal Apartments. Father Magee slept upstairs in the attic area. Father Lorenzi was sleeping on a temporary basis near to the Pope’s bedroom while his own room in the attic area previously occupied by Paul’s secretary, Monsignor Macchi, was being redecorated. He was shaken out of his sleep by Sister Vincenza. 

A number of early rising Romans had already noted with quiet satisfaction the light shining from the Pope’s bedroom. It was good to know you were not the only one up at such an early hour. The light had remained unnoticed throughout the night by Vatican security guards. 

A half-dazed Diego Lorenzi gazed at the lifeless body of Albino Luciani. Next to respond was Father Magee. For the second time within two months he looked upon a dead Pope, but in markedly different circumstances. When Paul VI had died on August 6th, many were gathered around the death bed in Castel Gandolfo, the Papal summer residence just outside Rome. Medical bulletins gave a highly detailed account of the last twenty-four hours of Paul’s life and an equally detailed account of the sequence of physical ailments that led to his death at 9.40 p.m. 

Now after a mere 33 days as Pope, Albino Luciani had died alone. Cause of death? Time of death? 

After one of the shortest Conclaves in history, one of the shortest reigns. No Pope had died so quickly after his election for nearly 400 years. To find a briefer Papacy it is necessary to go back to 1605, to the days of the Medici Leo XI who served for 17 days. How had Albino Luciani died? 

Father Magee’s first action was to telephone Secretary of State Villot, residing two floors below. Less than twelve hours earlier Albino Luciani had told Villot of his impending replacement by Benelli. Now, far from being a former Secretary of State, the Pope’s death not only ensured he would remain in office until a successor was elected, he also assumed the role of Camerlengo, virtually acting head of the Church. By 5.00 a.m. Villot was in the Pope’s bedroom and had confirmed for himself that Albino Luciani was dead. 

If Luciani died naturally, the subsequent actions and instructions given by Villot are completely inexplicable. His behaviour only becomes understandable when related to one specific conclusion. Either Cardinal Jean Villot was part of a conspiracy to murder the Pope, or he saw clear evidence in the Papal bedroom indicating the Pope had been murdered, and promptly determined that to protect the Church the evidence must be destroyed. 

Beside the Pope’s bed on a small table was the medicine that Luciani had been taking for low blood pressure. Villot pocketed the medicine and removed the notes on the Papal transfers and appointments from the dead Pope’s hands. They followed the medicine into Villot’s pocket. From his study desk his last Will was removed. Also to vanish from the bedroom were the Pope’s glasses and slippers. None of these items has ever been seen again. Villot then created for the shocked members of the Pope’s household a totally fictitious account of the circumstances leading to the finding of Luciani’s body. He imposed a vow of silence concerning Sister Vincenza’s discovery and instructed the household that news of the death was to be suppressed until he indicated otherwise. Then sitting in the Pope’s study he began to make a series of telephone calls. 

Based on the eye-witness accounts of people I have interviewed, the medicine, the glasses, the slippers and the Pope’s last Will were all in the bedroom and the Papal study before Villot entered the rooms. After his initial visit and examination all the items had vanished. 

News of the death was given to Cardinal Confalonieri, the 86-year-old Dean of the Sacred College. Then to Cardinal Casaroli, head of Vatican diplomacy. Villot instructed the nuns on the switchboard to locate his deputy and the number three in the Church hierarchy, Archbishop Giuseppe Caprio, who was on holiday in Montecatini. Only then did he telephone Doctor Renato Buzzonetti, deputy head of the Vatican’s health service. Next he rang the guard room of the Swiss Guard. Speaking to Sergeant Hans Roggan, Villot told him to come immediately to the Papal Apartments. 

Father Diego Lorenzi, the only man to have accompanied Luciani from Venice, wandered shocked and bewildered through the Apartments. He had lost a man who over the past two years had been a second father. In tears he attempted to understand, to find some meaning. When Villot eventually decided that the world could know, millions would share Lorenzi’s grief and bewilderment. 

Despite Villot’s stricture that the news must not leak out, Diego Lorenzi telephoned Luciani’s doctor, Antonio Da Ros. He had been Luciani’s physician for over twenty years. Lorenzi vividly remembers the doctor’s reaction. ‘He was shocked. Stunned. Unable to believe it. He asked me the cause but I didn’t know. Doctor Da Ros was equally mystified. He said he would drive to Venice immediately and catch a plane to Rome.’ 

Lorenzi’s next phone call was to Albino’s niece Pia, who was probably closer to her uncle than any other member of the family. Diego Lorenzi would appear to have been the only member of the Church to appreciate that even Popes have relatives. Lorenzi naturally felt that the family warranted a personal phone call rather than hearing the news on the radio. 

‘We found him this morning. You need a great faith now.’ Many were going to be in need of a great faith. Many were going to have to suspend belief to swallow what Villot and his colleagues would say within the next few days. 

The news was starting to spread through the Vatican village. In the courtyard near the Vatican Bank Sergeant Roggan met Bishop Paul Marcinkus. It was 6.45 a.m. What the President of the Vatican Bank, who lives in the Villa Stritch on Via della Nocetta in Rome and is not a renowned early riser, was doing in the Vatican so early remains a mystery. The Villa Stritch is a 20-minute drive from the Vatican. Roggan blurted out the news. ‘The Pope is dead.’ Marcinkus just stared at the Sergeant of the Swiss Guard. Roggan moved closer to the head of the Vatican Bank. ‘Papa Luciani. Is Dead. They found him in his bed.’ 

Marcinkus continued to stare at Roggan without any reaction. Eventually the Swiss Guard moved on, leaving Paul Marcinkus staring after him. 

Some days later during the Pope’s funeral, Marcinkus proffered an explanation for his curious behaviour. ‘Sorry, I thought you had gone mad.’ 

Dr Buzzonetti made a brief examination of the body. He advised Villot that the cause of death was acute myocardial infarction, a heart attack. The doctor put the time of death at about 11.00 p.m. on the previous evening. 

To determine the time of death as 11.00 p.m. and the cause as myocardial infarction after such a brief external examination is a medical impossibility. 

Villot had already decided before Buzzonetti’s examination, which took place at approximately 6 a.m., that the body of Albino Luciani should be immediately embalmed. Even before his phone call to Cardinal Confalonieri at 5.15 a.m. Villot had put into motion the initial course of action to ensure a rapid embalmment. The Signoracci brothers Ernesto and Renato had embalmed the last two Popes. Now, a dawn telephone call and a Vatican car that arrived at 5.00 a.m. were the opening acts in what was to prove a long day for the Signoracci brothers. For them to have been contacted so early clearly establishes that the Vatican had spoken to the Institute of Medicine, who employ the brothers, and given instructions between 4.45 a.m. and 5.00 a.m. 

At 7.00 a.m., more than two hours after the death had been discovered by Sister Vincenza, the world at large remained ignorant of the fact that Pope John Paul I was no more. The Vatican village, meanwhile, was totally ignoring Villot’s edict. Cardinal Benelli in Florence heard the news by telephone at 6.30 a.m. Grief-stricken and openly crying, he immediately retired to his room and began to pray. All the hopes dreams, aspirations were shattered. The plans Luciani had made, the changes, the new direction, all had come to nothing. When a Pope dies, all decisions yet to be publicly announced, die with him. Unless his successor decides to carry them through. 

By 7.20 a.m. the bells in the parish church in Albino Luciani’s birthplace, Canale D’Agordo, were tolling. Vatican Radio remained silent on the death. Finally at 7.27 a.m., some two-and-three-quarter hours after the death had been discovered by Sister Vincenza, Cardinal Villot felt sufficiently in control of events: 

This morning, September 29th, 1978, about 5.30, the private Secretary of the Pope, contrary to custom not having found the Holy Father in the chapel of his private apartment, looked for him in his room and found him dead in bed with the light on, like one who was intent on reading. The physician, Dr Renato Buzzonetti, who hastened at once, verified the death, which took place presumably towards eleven o’clock yesterday evening, as ‘Sudden death that could be related to acute myocardial infarction.’ 

Later bulletins stated that the secretary in question was Father Magee who, according to the Vatican, usually said Mass with the Pope at 5.30 a.m., and that the Pope had been reading The Imitation of Christ, the fifteenth-century work usually attributed to Thomas à Kempis. 

Along with the medicine, the Papal notes, the Will, the glasses and the slippers, Sister Vincenza and her discovery of the body at 4.45 a.m. had vanished. Even with two-and-three-quarter hours in which to concoct a story, Villot and those who advised him made a botch of it. While every newspaper and radio and television station in the free world was carrying stories based on the Vatican bulletins, Villot was having difficulties keeping his ship watertight. 

The idea of placing a book that Luciani revered into his dead hands might have seemed inspired thinking to Villot. The problem was that there was not a copy in the Pope’s bedroom. Further there was not a copy in the entire Papal Apartment. Luciani’s copy was still in Venice and when a few days earlier he had wished to quote accurately from the book, Lorenzi was sent to borrow a copy from his Vatican confessor. Don Diego had returned the copy before the Pope’s death. His complaints about an obvious fabrication could not be stilled. The Vatican continued to maintain that particular lie until October 2nd – for four days. Within those first four days the false information given out by the Vatican had become in the minds of the people, the reality, the truth. 

Many were deceived by the disinformation that came out of the Vatican. There was the tale of Father John Magee going to the Pope’s bedroom shortly before 10.00 p.m. on the 28th, for example. This story, emanating directly from the Roman Curia, recounted that Magee had told the Pope of the murder of a student in Rome. ‘Are those young people shooting at each other again? Really, it is terrible.’ These were widely reported around the world as being the Pope’s last words. They provided the bonus of giving a possible explanation for the unexpected death of Luciani. He died of shock hearing such appalling news. The conversation between Magee and Luciani did not occur. It was a Vatican fabrication. 

Another Vatican fabrication was perpetrated with the impression that Luciani was in the habit of saying Mass with Magee at 5.30 a.m. Mass in the Papal Apartments was not until 7.00 a.m. As previously noted Albino Luciani spent the time between 5.30 and 7.00 a.m. in meditation and prayer, usually alone, sometimes joined at about 6.30 a.m. by Magee and Lorenzi. The image of a disturbed, distraught Magee becoming alarmed by Luciani’s non-appearance at 5.30 is Vatican fantasy. 

The shock at such a tragic, unexpected death went around the world. The massive bronze doors to the Basilica were closed, the Vatican flag was flown at half mast – these were external indications – but news of Albino Luciani’s death was so stunning that the disbelief expressed by his personal doctor was echoed by millions. He had delighted the world. How could God’s duly elected candidate pass so quickly from them? 

Cardinal Willebrands of Holland, who had entertained great hopes for Luciani’s Papacy said, ‘It’s a disaster. I cannot put into words how happy we were on that August day when we had chosen John Paul. We had such high hopes. It was such a beautiful feeling, a feeling that something fresh was going to happen to our Church.’ 

Cardinal Baggio, one of the men whom Luciani had determined to move out of Rome was less fulsome. ‘The Lord uses us but does not need us.’ He said this early in the morning after he had seen the dead body. He continued, ‘He was like a parish priest for the Church.’ Asked what would happen now he responded calmly, ‘Now we will make another one.’ 

Baggio, however, was one of the exceptions. Most people displayed deep shock and love. When Cardinal Benelli finally emerged from his room at 9.00 a.m. he was immediately surrounded by reporters. With tears still running down his face he said: ‘The Church has lost the right man for the right moment. We are very distressed. We are left frightened. Man cannot explain such a thing. It is a moment which limits and conditions us.’ 

Back in the Vatican Villot’s plans for an immediate embalming had run into trouble. Cardinals Felici in Padua and Benelli in Florence, who knew very precisely the nature of the changes Luciani had been about to make were particularly disturbed and indicated so in telephone conversations with Villot. Already there were murmurs in Italy that an autopsy should be performed. It was a view that in the circumstances Benelli and Felici were inclined at least to consider. If the body were embalmed then a subsequent autopsy would be useless if the cause of death was poison. 

Officially the Vatican created the impression that the body of Pope John Paul I was embalmed before being put on public display in the Sala Clementina at noon on Friday. In fact the mourners that day gazed upon an unembalmed Luciani in his natural state. Father Diego Lorenzi: 

The body was taken from the private apartment to the Clementina Hall in the Papal Apartment. At that time no embalming had been done. Papa Luciani was dressed by Father Magee, Monsignor Noè and myself. I stayed with the body as did Magee until 11.00 a.m. The Signoracci came at that time and the body was taken to the Sala Clementina. 

The contrast to Pope Paul’s death was startling. Then there had been little public emotion; now there was a flood. On the first day a quarter of a million people filed past the body. The public speculation that this death was not natural grew by the minute. Men and women were heard passing the body and shouting at the inert form. ‘Who has done this to you? Who has murdered you?’ 

Meanwhile the debate about an autopsy was growing among the minority of Cardinals who were gathering in Rome. If Albino Luciani had been an ordinary citizen of Rome there would have been no debate. There would have been an immediate autopsy. Italian law states that no embalming can be undertaken until at least 24 hours after death without dispensation from a magistrate. If an Italian citizen had died in similar circumstances to those of Luciani there would have been an immediate autopsy. The moral would appear to be that Italian citizens who wish to ensure that after their death the correct legal steps are taken, should not become Head of State of the Roman Catholic Church. 

For men with nothing to hide, the actions of Villot and other members of the Roman Curia continued to be incomprehensible. When men conspire to cover up it is inexorably because there is something to cover. 

It was from a Cardinal residing in Rome that I learned of the most extraordinary reason given for the cover up: 

He [Villot] told me that what had occurred was a tragic accident. That the Pope had unwittingly taken an overdose of his medicine. The Camerlengo pointed out that if an autopsy was performed it would obviously show this fatal overdose. No one would believe that His Holiness had taken it accidentally. Some would allege suicide, others murder. It was agreed that there would be no autopsy. 

I have interviewed on two occasions Professor Giovanni Rama, the specialist who was responsible for prescribing the Effortil, Cortiplex and other drugs to alleviate Albino Luciani’s low blood pressure. Luciani was a patient of Doctor Rama’s from 1975. His observations on a possible self-administered, accidental overdose are illuminating. 

An accidental overdose is not credible. He was a very conscientious patient. He was very sensitive to drugs. He needed very little. In fact he was on the minimum dose of Effortil. Normally it is 60 drops a day but 20 or 30 drops per day were enough for him. We were always very prudent in prescribing medicines. 

Further discussion with my informant established that Villot had arrived at his deduction of accidental self-administered overdose in those few moments in the Pope’s bedroom before he pocketed the medicine bottle. Villot was clearly a highly gifted man. The Pope dies alone, having retired to his bedroom a well man who has just made a number of crucial decisions, including one that directly affects Villot’s future. Without any forensic tests, without any internal or external evidence whatsoever the elderly Secretary of State deduces that the rational Albino Luciani has accidentally killed himself. Perhaps in the rarefied atmosphere of the Vatican village such a story has credibility. In the real world outside actual evidence would be essential. 

Some of the key evidence that would have established the truth had already been destroyed by Villot – the medicine and the notes Luciani had made that detailed the vital changes. A measure of Villot’s panic can be gauged from the disappearance of Albino Luciani’s Will. It contained nothing of significance with regard to his death yet it was destroyed along with the other vital pieces of evidence. Why the Pope’s glasses and slippers also vanished remains a mystery. 

Rumours swept through the Vatican village. It was said that the alarm light on a panel in the Papal Apartments had glowed throughout the night and that no one had responded to the call for help. It was said that signs of vomiting had been found in the bedroom, staining various items, and that was why the slippers and glasses were now missing. Vomiting is frequently one of the earliest symptoms of a digitalis overdose. Groups of bishops and priests huddled in various offices and recalled the curious incident of the sudden tragic death of the Russian Orthodox Archbishop of Leningrad, Nikodim. He had been received in a special audience by Albino Luciani on September 5th. Suddenly, without warning, the 49-year-old Russian prelate had slumped forward in his chair. Moments later he was dead. Now the word went around the Vatican that Nikodim had drunk a cup of coffee intended for Albino Luciani. Nikodim was of frail health and had previously suffered a number of heart attacks. In the frightened City State these facts were swept aside. His death was now seen in retrospect as a sign, a warning of the awful events that had now occurred in the Papal Apartments. 

During the course of the day everything else within the Papal Apartments belonging to Albino Luciani was removed, including his letters, notes, books, and the small handful of personal mementoes such as the photograph of his parents with an infant Pia. Villot’s colleagues from the Secretariat of State removed all the confidential papers. Rapidly all material evidence that Albino Luciani had ever lived and worked there was boxed and carried away. By 6.00 p.m. the entire 19 rooms of the Papal Apartments were totally bereft of anything remotely associated with the Papacy of Luciani. It was as if he had never been there, never existed. At 6.00 p.m. the Papal Apartments were sealed by Cardinal Villot. They were to remain unopened until a successor had been elected. 

Unobtrusively the nuns and the two secretaries left. Magee kept as a memento the cassette tapes used by Luciani to improve his English. Lorenzi took with him a jumble of images and memories. Carefully avoiding the waiting reporters, the group took up residence in a house run by the Sisters of Maria Bambina. 

John Magee was destined to be a secretary to a Pope for a third time, a unique and remarkable achievement. Diego Lorenzi, the intense young Italian, was totally devastated by the death of a man he loved. He would return to northern Italy to work at a small school. Vincenza would be sent even further north to an obscure convent. The Vatican machine would ensure that neither was easy to locate with this virtual banishment. 

After the doors of the Clementina Hall closed to the public at 6.00 p.m. on Friday September 29th, surely the most relieved man in the Vatican was Villot. Finally the work of the body technicians could begin. Once the body had been embalmed it would be a difficult task during any subsequent autopsy to discover and establish poison within the body. If the Pope had indeed died because of acute myocardial infarction the embalming fluids would not destroy the naturally damaged blood vessels. 

In what was presumably an ironic coincidence the Rome Association of Pharmacy Owners chose this of all days to issue a press release that a number of medicines essential for the treatment of certain cases of poisoning and heart ailments were not available. Of greater pertinence perhaps was the statement that the Italian reporters had finally managed to extract from Cardinal Villot: ‘When I saw His Holiness yesterday evening, he was in perfectly good health, totally lucid and he had given me full instructions for the next day.’ 

Behind closed doors in the Clementina Hall the lengthy process of embalming continued for three hours. The care and preservation of the body was the responsibility of Professor Cesare Gerin, but the actual embalming work was performed by Professor Marracino and Ernesto and Renato Signoracci. When the two Signoracci brothers had examined the body before it had been moved to the Clementina, they had concluded from the lack of rigor mortis and the temperature of the body that death had taken place not at 11.00 p.m. on the 28th but between 4.00 a.m. and 5.00 a.m. on the 29th. They were given independent confirmation of their conclusion by Monsignor Noè, who advised the brothers that the Pope had died shortly before 5.00 a.m. I have interviewed both brothers at length on three separate occasions. They are adamant that death occurred between 4.00 a.m. and 5.00 a.m. and that the Pope’s body was discovered within one hour of his death. If they are accurate then either the Pope was still alive when Sister Vincenza entered his bedroom or he was barely dead. Only a full autopsy would have resolved these conflicting opinions. 

At the Vatican’s insistence, no blood was drained from the body, neither were any organs removed. Injections of formalin and other preserving chemicals were made into the body through the femoral arterial and vein passages. The entire process took over three hours. The reason the process took so long was because, contrary to normal practice when the blood is drained or cleared with a solution of salt water that is circulated around the body, the Vatican was adamant that no blood should be drawn off. A small quantity of blood would of course have been more than sufficient for a forensic scientist to establish the presence of any poisonous substances. 

The cosmetic treatment given to the body eliminated the expression of anguish upon the face. The hands that had gripped the now missing sheets of paper were clasped around a rosary. Cardinal Villot finally retired to bed shortly before midnight. 

Pope Paul VI, in keeping with Italian law, had not been embalmed until twenty-four hours after his death. Although there had been allegations of medical incompetence after Paul had died, there had not been a single suggestion of foul play. Now with not only the general public but radio and television stations and the press urging an autopsy, the body of Albino Luciani had been embalmed some twelve hours after it had been discovered. 

By Saturday September 30th, one particular question was being asked with increasing urgency. ‘Why no autopsy?’ The news media began to seek an explanation for such a sudden unheralded death. The Curia had been very quick to remind enquiring reporters of an off-the-cuff remark Albino Luciani had made during his last General Audience on Wednesday, September 27th. Turning to a group of sick and handicapped people in the Nervi Hall, Luciani had said, ‘Remember your Pope has been in hospital eight times and had four operations’. 

The Vatican Press Office began to respond to requests for details of Luciani’s health by repeating the late Pope’s phrase. They used it so excessively it began to take on the quality of a telephone answering machine, with a comparable lack of satisfaction to callers. 

The various media recalled that – Luciani had not appeared to be in ill health during his brief Papacy. On the contrary, they observed, he appeared to be the picture of health, full of life and zest. Others, who had known Luciani for considerably longer, began to be contacted for their views. 

When Monsignor Senigaglia, Luciani’s secretary in Venice for over six years, revealed that the late Pope had undergone a full medical check up shortly before leaving Venice for the Conclave and the medical examination had ‘been favourable in all respects’ the demands for an autopsy grew louder. 

When a variety of Italian medical experts began to state categorically the need for an autopsy to ascertain the precise cause of death the panic within the Vatican reached new heights. It was clear that while doctors were prepared to put forward a variety of reasons that could have been contributory factors (the sudden stress of becoming Pope was a particular favourite), none was prepared to accept without an autopsy the Vatican’s assertion that Albino Luciani died of myocardial infarction. 

The Vatican countered by stating that it was against Vatican rules for an autopsy to be performed. This was yet another lie passed out to the world’s Press. Further questioning by Italian journalists established that the Vatican was referring to the Apostolic Constitution announced by Pope Paul VI in 1975. This was the document which laid down the procedures for electing his successor, with its search for bugs in the Conclave area and its instructions on the size of voting cards. Careful reading of the document establishes that Paul had failed to cover the possibility of any controversy over the cause of his death. An autopsy was neither banned nor approved. It was simply not referred to. 

The subject of Paul’s death then became a matter of public debate. It is abundantly clear that Paul’s life could have been prolonged. The medical treatment he had been given during his last days, had in the opinion of many of the world’s experts, left a great deal to be desired. From his Cape Town Hospital, Dr Christian Barnard, when informed that Pope Paul had not been placed in an intensive care unit, said: ‘If this was to happen in South Africa, the doctors responsible would have been denounced to their Medical Association for negligence.’ 

One of the principal doctors in control of Pope Paul’s treatment had been Dr Renato Buzzonetti, the deputy head of the Vatican medical services. Now the same doctor, who in Dr Barnard’s view had acted negligently in August, had performed a medical impossibility in determining the cause of Albino Luciani’s lonely death. Without an autopsy his conclusion was totally without meaning. 

It was against this background that Cardinal Confalonieri presided over the first meeting of the Congregation of Cardinals, the group which watches over and controls Church affairs in the interim after a Pope’s death. This group comprises every cardinal – if they happen to be in Rome. When this initial meeting took place, at 11.00 a.m. on Saturday September 30th, the vast majority of cardinals were still scattered around the world. Of the 127 cardinals only 29 were present, and the majority of these were, naturally, Italian. This minority made a number of decisions. They decided that Albino Luciani’s funeral would take place on the following Wednesday, October 4th. In the meantime the massive public desire personally to visit the Pope’s body was causing havoc to Vatican officials. They had anticipated a similar degree of interest to that shown when Paul died – yet another example of how badly the Curia failed to understand Luciani’s impact. The decision was taken to move the body that evening to St Peter’s Basilica. The two most significant decisions taken that morning, however, were that the next Conclave should take place at the earliest possible date, October 14th, and that there would be no autopsy. 

The doubts and concern of men like Benelli, Felici and Caprio about Luciani’s death were overruled. Acutely aware that the controversy would grow until the public were given something to distract and deflect them, Villot and his colleagues totally reversed the way they had reasoned in August. Then the Conclave had been delayed until nearly the longest permissible time. Now it was to be the shortest. It was a shrewd ploy. Curial cardinals, in particular, reasoned that after the funeral the media would become preoccupied with Luciani’s possible successor. If they could hold out until the funeral took place in a few days’ time, they would be safe. Further, any of the majority of the cardinals yet to arrive, who felt like insisting on an autopsy, would be confronted with decisions already taken. To reverse such decisions in the limited time before the funeral would be a virtual impossibility. ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’, Jesus tells us, an injunction that 29 cardinals chose to ignore on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church on the morning of September 30th, 1978. 

After the meeting had adjourned, Cardinal Confalonieri gave his considered opinion as to why the Pope had suddenly died. 

He couldn’t stand the solitude; all Popes live in a kind of institutional solitude, but perhaps Luciani suffered from it more. He, who had always lived among the people, found himself living with two secretaries whom he did not know and two nuns who did not even raise their eyes in the presence of the Pope. He did not even have the time to make any friends. 

Father Diego Lorenzi had worked closely and intimately with Luciani for over two years. Sister Vincenza had worked with Luciani for nearly twenty years. Far from casting her eyes upon the ground at his approach she was a source of great comfort to Luciani. Indeed the man was cut off; but would a bevy of intimates have been able to prevent a solitary, mysterious death? 

There can be no doubt that the Curial hostility and arrogance displayed during his last thirty-three days had not made for the happiest of experiences, but Albino Luciani had fought clerical hostility and arrogance for nearly a decade in Venice. 

At 6.00 p.m. on Saturday September 30th the embalmed body was moved, uncovered, to the Basilica of St Peter. Much of the world watched on television as the procession, including 24 of the cardinals and 100 bishops and archbishops passed through the First Loggia, the Ducal Hall, the Hall and Stairway of the Kings and through the Bronze Door and out into St Peter’s Square. At that point the singing of the Magnificat was unexpectedly drowned by one of those gestures that is so peculiarly Italian. The massive crowds broke into loud sustained applause, the Latin counterpart of Anglo-Saxon silence. 

Throughout the world informed and uninformed opinion attempted to assess the life and death of Albino Luciani. Much of what was written tells a great deal more about the writers than about the man. The belief that minds could be quickly diverted from the death to the succession, expressed in the morning by the Curia, rapidly began to prove accurate. In England The Times neatly mirrored the transitory nature of life with an editorial entitled, ‘The Year of The Three Popes’. 

Some observers talked perceptively of a great promise unfulfilled, others of a pontificate that had promised to be fun. With regard to an explanation for the sudden death, the Roman Curia disinformation service achieved a remarkable coup. Writer after writer talked about a long record of illness. That someone as experienced as Patrick O’Donovan of the Observer could be deceived into writing the following indicates just how successful the lies were: ‘It is only now generally known that Cardinal Luciani had a long record of all but mortal illness.’ 

Exactly what these mortal illnesses were was not stated. Fighting a deadline it is clear that O’Donovan and the other writers had no time for personal research but relied on Vatican contacts. Some talked of Luciani’s heavy smoking, of the fact that he had only one lung, of his several bouts of tuberculosis. Since his death others have been told by Vatican sources of his four heart attacks, of the fact that he suffered from phlebitis, a painful circulatory disease. Others mention the fact that he suffered from emphysema, a chronic illness of the lungs usually caused by cigarette smoking. There is not a word of truth in any of it. 

The overkill of Vatican lies is self-defeating. Would 111 cardinals gather in Rome in August 1978 and elect a man suffering from all of the above? And then permit him to die alone? Along with the lies about Luciani’s medical history the Vatican disinformation service was busy in other areas. The Curia were pushing the non-attributable, off the record view that Luciani was no good as a Pope anyway. Why mourn what was worthless? I discussed this smear campaign with Cardinal Benelli who remarked: 

It seemed to me that their [the Roman Curia] aim was twofold. To minimize Luciani’s abilities would reduce the sense of loss and consequently reduce the demands for an autopsy. Secondly the Curia were preparing for the next Conclave. They wanted a Curial Pope. 

When Luciani had lunched with his niece Pia one of the subjects discussed had been Press distortion. Now in death Luciani became a victim of just this. The negative comments were mainly inspired by insignificant priests or monsignors who were normally busy writing irrelevant Vatican memos. They found it highly flattering to be asked for their opinion of the late Pope. The fact that none of them was near the corridors of power or had ever been within the Papal Apartment was masked by the all-embracing description, ‘a highly placed Vatican source said today’. What they said was part of the great injustice done to the memory of the dead Pope. It enabled writers, who before the August Conclave had been dismissive of Luciani, to put behind them the uncomfortable fact that Luciani’s election had been a major demonstration of how ill-informed they were. Their thinking appears to have been: well, yes, we discounted him, but you see he should have been discounted. Thus: 

The audiences attracted the immediate sympathy of the public but had disappointed and sometimes worried church officials. The Pope expressed a philosophy of existence that on occasion resembled the Readers Digest: common sense, a little simple at that, which broke the grand theological flights of oratory of Paul VI. Clearly he did not have the culture and the intellectual training of his predecessor. 

Vatican correspondent Robert Sole 

for Le Monde 

We followed first with eagerness, then with a growing sense of the ridiculous, his generous efforts to discover who he was. He smiled, his father was a socialist, he rejected the tiara for a simple stole, he spoke informally at audiences. 

Commonweal 

Newsweek considered that Luciani’s rejection of the philosophy ‘Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem’ was a betrayal of the Latin American cardinals who had played such a valuable part in his election. The periodical considered that in making this observation Luciani had rejected the theology of liberation. Because of Curia censorship they missed the fact that he had added an important qualification: ‘There is some coincidence but we cannot make a perfect equation’, and in doing so missed the point. 

Peter Nichols, the very experienced Times correspondent, but writing on this occasion in the Spectator, compared Luciani with a popular Italian comedian of yesteryear who had but to stand there in sight of the populace to be given an ovation. He failed to explain why Paul VI had not received ovations on each appearance. 

Others criticized the fact that he had re-confirmed all the Curia heads in office. They neglected to point out that this had also been done by the last three Popes before Luciani and that he retained the power and authority to move any of them at any time. 

Much of the world’s news media had, in the days following the Pope’s death, carried stories about the Vatican ritual that surrounds this moment. The newspapers were full of accounts of how Cardinal Villot had approached the inert body and proclaimed three times, ‘Albino, are you dead?’, each question being followed by the symbolic striking on the Pope’s forehead with a small silver hammer. The Press also gave dramatic descriptions of how Villot had then taken the Fisherman’s Papal ring from Luciani’s hand and subsequently smashed it to pieces. 

With the death of Albino Luciani there was, in fact, no head tapping, no calling of names. These ceremonies had been abolished in Paul’s lifetime. With regard to the Papal ring, Luciani’s reign was so brief that the Vatican had not even created the ring. The only ring on Luciani’s hand throughout his entire Papacy was the one given to all bishops who had attended the Second Vatican Council. 

Why this highly inaccurate reportage is worth considering, when one is aware not only of how much Luciani did achieve in such a brief span, but also the very high regard in which such men as Casaroli, Benelli, Lorscheider, Garrone, Felici and many others held Luciani, is the fact that this was an orchestrated campaign. Not one single critical obituary or article carried any of the facts recorded in the previous chapter. One of the many expressions they are fond of quoting within Vatican City states, ‘Nothing is leaked from the Vatican without a very specific purpose’. 

On October 1st, the pressure for an autopsy on Luciani increased. Italy’s most respected newspaper Corriere della Sera carried a front page article with the title, ‘Why say no to an autopsy?’ It was by Carlo Bo, a highly talented writer with considerable knowledge of the Vatican. That the article appeared at all is significant. In Italy, thanks to the Lateran Treaty and subsequent agreements between the Italian State and the Vatican, the Press is seriously muzzled when writing on the Catholic Church. The libel laws are very stringent. Critical comment, let alone an outright attack, can rapidly result in the newspaper concerned being brought to court. 

Carlo Bo cleverly avoided any such risk. In a style rather reminiscent of Mark Antony’s speech to the Roman populace, Bo talked of the suspicions and allegations that had surfaced after the sudden death. He told his readers that he felt confident that the palaces and cellars of the Vatican had been free from such criminal actions for centuries. Because of this very reason he said he simply could not understand why the Vatican had decided not to perform any scientific checks, ‘in humble words why there was no autopsy’. He continued: 

. . . The Church has nothing to fear, therefore nothing to lose. On the contrary it would have much to gain. 

. . . Now to know what the Pope died of is a legitimate historical fact, it is part of our visible history and does not in any way affect the spiritual mystery of his death. The body that we leave behind when we die can be understood with our poor instruments, it is a leftover: the soul is already, or rather it always has been, dependent on other laws which are not human and so remain inscrutable. Let us not make out of a mystery a secret to guard for earthly reasons and let us recognize the smallness of our secrets. Let us not declare sacred what is not. 

While the fifteen doctors who belonged to the Vatican’s health services refused to comment on the desirability of performing autopsies on dead Popes, Edoardo Luciani, newly returned from Australia, failed to help the Vatican’s position when he was asked about his brother’s health: 

The day after the enthronement ceremony, I asked his personal doctor how he had found him, bearing in mind all the pressures he was now subjected to. The doctor reassured me, telling me that my brother was in excellent health and that his heart was in good condition. 

Asked if his brother had ever had any heart trouble, Edoardo replied, ‘As far as I know absolutely none’. It did not fit very well with the Vatican-orchestrated fantasy. 

By Monday October 2nd the controversy surrounding the Pope’s death had become world-wide. In France at Avignon, Cardinal Silvio Oddi found himself the object of many questions. As an Italian cardinal surely he could tell his French questioners the true facts? Oddi advised them that the College of Cardinals ‘will not examine the possibility of an enquiry at all and will not accept any supervision from anyone and it will not even discuss the subject’. Oddi concluded: ‘We know in fact, in all certainty, that the death of John Paul the First was due to the fact that his heart stopped beating from perfectly natural causes.’ Clearly Cardinal Oddi had achieved a major medical breakthrough for the entire world – the ability to diagnose without an autopsy what is only diagnosable with an autopsy. 

Meanwhile the protests of Father Lorenzi and other members of the Papal Apartments about one particular lie had finally borne fruit. The Vatican announced: 

After the necessary enquiries, we are now in a position to state that the Pope, when he was found dead on the morning of September 29th, was holding in his hands certain sheets of paper containing his personal writings such as homilies, speeches, reflections and various notes. 

When the Vatican had previously announced that Luciani had been holding The Imitation of Christ, Father Andrew Greeley records in his book, The Making of The Popes, ‘some reporters openly laughed’. 

These papers, detailing the crucial changes that Albino Luciani was about to make, have undergone some extraordinary metamorphoses over the years: a report on the Church in Argentina; notes for his next Angelus speech; sermons made in Belluno/Vittorio Veneto/Venice; a parish magazine; the speech he was about to deliver to the Jesuits (in fact this was found on his study desk); a report written by Pope Paul. When a Head of State dies in apparently normal circumstances his last actions are of more than academic interest. When a Head of State dies in the circumstances surrounding Albino Luciani’s death, the need to know becomes a vital matter of public interest. The fact that Luciani was holding his personal notes on the various crucial changes he was proposing to make has been confirmed to me from five different sources. Two are direct Vatican sources; the other three are external non-Vatican residents. With the Vatican officially retracting The Imitation of Christ version the Curial machine was beginning to show signs of strain. 

The strain grew even greater when the world’s Press began to comment on a number of disturbing aspects. For a Pope to have no one monitoring his welfare from mid-evening until the following day struck many observers as wrong. The fact that Dr Renato Buzzonetti worked mainly at a Rome hospital and consequently was not able to guarantee absolute availability seemed outrageous. If the observers had known the full scenario of Vatican inefficiency the outrage would have been even greater. The full facts illustrate not only the potential for a premature natural death but the scenario for murder. 

In Spain, as in other countries, the controversy broke into public debate. Professor Rafael Gambra of the University of Madrid was one of a number who complained of the Vatican ‘doing things in the Italian manner or in the Florentine manner as in the Renaissance’. Urging that an autopsy should be performed, Gambra voiced fears that a Pope who was manifestly going to bring a much needed discipline back into the Church might have been murdered. 

In Mexico City the Bishop of Cuernavaca, Sergio Arceo, publicly demanded an autopsy declaring, ‘To Cardinal Miranda and me it seems that it would be useful’. The Bishop ordered a detailed statement to be read out in all churches in his diocese. The Vatican machine moved fast. The detailed statement, like much else in this affair vanished from the face of the earth and by the time the Vatican had finished with Cardinal Miranda he was able to declare upon his subsequent arrival in Rome that he had no doubts whatsoever with regard to the death of the Pope. 

On October 3rd, as people continued to file past the Pope’s body at the rate of 12,000 per hour, the controversy roared on. The Will of Albino Luciani had vanished but by its extraordinary behaviour the Vatican was ensuring a bitter legacy. A Pope with an ability to speak openly, directly and simply was surrounded in death by deviousness and deceit. It was clear that the loss felt by ordinary people was immense. From the Vatican there was scant acknowledgment of that widespread feeling – rather a bitter rearguard action to protect not the memory of Albino Luciani but those to whom the evidence of complicity in his murder clearly pointed. 

Non-Curial priests were now debating in newspapers the merits and demerits of an autopsy. Pundits and Vatican observers were castigating the Vatican for its obduracy. What had become abundantly clear, as Vittorio Zucconi observed in Corriere della Sera, was that, ‘Behind the doubt about the Pope’s death lies a vast dissatisfaction with “official versions”’. 

The organization of traditionalist Catholics known as Civiltà Cristiana indicated just how deeply dissatisfied they were. Secretary Franco Antico revealed that he had sent an official appeal for a full judicial enquiry into the death of Pope John Paul I to the Vatican City State’s chief justice. 

The decision to make the appeal and the reasons for it made headlines around the world. Antico cited a number of the inconsistencies which had emerged to date from the Vatican. What his group wanted was not merely an autopsy but a full judicial enquiry. Antico said: ‘If President Carter had died under such circumstances, you can be sure the American people would have demanded an explanation.’
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Antico told the Press that his organization had initially examined the possibility of a formal allegation that the Pope had been killed by a person or persons unknown. Displaying a wonderful example of the complexity of the Italian mind, he said that they had refrained from such a step because ‘we are not seeking a scandal’. Civiltà Cristiana had also sent their request to Cardinal Confalonieri, Dean of the Sacred College. Some of the issues they raised were the gap between the discovery of the body and public announcement of death, a Pope apparently working in bed without anyone checking on his welfare and the fact that no death certificate had been issued. No Vatican doctor had, via an official death certificate, taken public responsibility with regard to the diagnosis of the cause of Albino Luciani’s death. 

The rebel Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s supporters who had already announced that Luciani had died because God did not want him to be Pope now announced through Lefebvre’s right-hand man, Abbot Ducaud-Bourget, a different theory: ‘It’s difficult to believe that the death was natural considering all the creatures of the devil who inhabit the Vatican.’ 

Having previously been obliged to retract the statement that Papal autopsies were specifically banned, the Vatican was confronted on Tuesday October 3rd with the efforts of some tenacious probing by the Italian Press. Autopsies had been performed on other Popes. For example, Pius VIII had died on November 30th, 1830. The diary of Prince Don Agostini Chigi recorded that the following evening an autopsy was performed on the body. The result of the autopsy is officially unknown because officially the Vatican has never admitted that it took place. In fact apart from some weakness in the lungs all the organs were found to be healthy. It was suspected that the Pope had been poisoned 

On the evening of October 3rd at 7.00 p.m. a curious event occurred. The gates of St Peter’s were closed to the public for the day. The church was deserted except for the four Swiss Guards posted at the corners of the catafalque, the traditional 24-hour protection accorded to the body of a dead Pope. At 7.45 p.m. a group of about 150 pilgrims from Canale d’Agordo, Albino Luciani’s birthplace, accompanied by the Bishop of Belluno, were quietly let into the church through a side entrance. The group had only just arrived in Rome and had been granted special permission by the Vatican to pay their last respects to a man many of them knew personally, after the official closure for the day. Clearly someone in Vatican City with plans of his own in regard to the body of the Pope was not advised. Within a few minutes of their arrival the pilgrims found themselves being bundled out unceremoniously into St Peter’s Square.[yeah they did not want them looking closely at the inside of his left elbow, as the tell tale sign was there for ALL of Creation to see DC] 

Vatican officials had appeared together with a group of doctors. Everyone else was ordered to leave. The four Swiss Guards were also dispensed with. Large crimson screens were placed all around the body preventing any onlooker who chanced to be still within St Peter’s from observing precisely what the doctors were doing. This sudden unannounced medical examination continued until 9.30 p.m. When it was concluded, a number of the pilgrims from Canale d’Agordo who had remained outside asked if they could not finally pay their last respects to the corpse. The request was refused. 

Why with less than 24 hours to the funeral did this examination take place? Many working in the news media were clearly in no doubt. An autopsy had been performed. Did the Vatican finally make a move to allay public anxiety? If it did, then the subsequent Vatican statements concerning this medical examination lead inexorably to the conclusion that the examination confirmed all those fears and anxieties that the Pope had been murdered. 

There was no announcement after the examination and, despite being deluged with questions by the news media, the Vatican Press Office continued to maintain a total silence on what had occurred in St Peter’s until after the Pope was buried. Only then did it give its version. Previously, off the record, it had advised the Italian news agency ANSA that the medical examination was a normal check on the state of preservation of the body and that it was carried out by Professor Gerin and Arnaldo and Ernesto Signoracci among others. ANSA was also told that several more injections of the embalming fluid were made. 

When the Vatican Press Office finally spoke officially, it reduced the ninety-minute examination to twenty minutes. It also stated that everything was found to be in order and that subsequently the pilgrims from Canale d’Agordo were allowed back in. Apart from the errors or deliberate lies inherently contained within the Press statement there are a number of other disquieting facts. Professor Cesare Gerin, contrary to the Vatican informants questioned by ANSA, was not present. Furthermore when I interviewed the Signoracci brothers, they were adamant that they too were not present during this bizarre event. It was clearly a conservation check without the conservationists. 

If, as many believe, an autopsy was indeed performed, even a partial autopsy – for in ninety minutes it could not have been the full standard post mortem – then the results, if negative, would have been announced loudly and clearly. What better way to silence the tongues? Corriere della Sera stated that ‘at the last minute a famous doctor from the Catholic University joined the special team’. Subsequently the ‘famous doctor’ has vanished in the morning mists rising from the Tiber. 

Catholic psychologist Rosario Mocciaro, commenting on the behaviour of the men entrusted with controlling the Roman Catholic Church during this period of the empty throne, described it thus: ‘A sort of mafia-like “omertá” (silence) disguised as Christian charity and protocol’. 

The dialogue of love that Albino Luciani had inspired between himself and the people continued until the bitter end. Ignoring the continuous rain nearly 100,000 people were in St Peter’s Square for the open air Requiem Mass on October 4th. Nearly one million people had filed past the body during the previous four days. The first of the three readings, taken from the Apocalypse of St John, ended with the words, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty.’ 

The body of Albino Luciani, hermetically sealed in three coffins, cypress, lead and ebony, went to its final resting place inside a marble sarcophagus in the crypt of St Peter’s. Even as his mortal remains went into the cold Roman dusk to take their place between John XXIII and Paul VI the discussion continued as to whether before his death Albino Luciani had been given something other than water from the well of life. [Whatever it was, it was administered by 3 men, one in garb, two without. in his left arm, and immediately it left the tell tale bruise that caused great panic among the three DC]

A great many people remained disturbed about the sudden death, among them Albino Luciani’s own doctor, Guiseppe Da Ros. 

With the Pope buried within three coffins, it was clearly going to be virtually impossible to persuade the Vatican to change its mind. The formal request by Civiltà Cristiana to the Vatican Tribunal rested with a single judge, Giuseppe Spinelli. Even if the man had earnestly desired that there should be an autopsy and a full investigation it is difficult to see how he would have overcome the power of the Vatican City and the men who ran it – men who claim as an historical ‘fact’ that they and their predecessors have nearly two thousand years of practice at controlling the Roman Catholic Church. 

It was all very well for the Jesuits to compare Luciani’s death to a flower in a field that closes at night, or for the Franciscans to talk of death being like a thief in the night. Non-aesthetes continued to seek a more practical explanation. Sceptics could be found on both sides of the Tiber. Among those who were most disturbed within the Vatican was the group who knew the truth about the discovery of the Pope’s body by Sister Vincenza. Concern mounted as the official lies increased. Eventually, with the Pope buried, several of them talked. Initially they spoke to the news agency ANSA and recently to me. Indeed it was several members of this group who convinced me that I should investigate the death of Albino Luciani. 

On October 5th, shortly after lunch-time, they began to give ANSA the factual details of Sister Vincenza’s discovery. Their information even correctly identified that the notes Luciani was holding in death, concerned ‘certain nominations in the Roman Curia and in the Italian episcopate’. The group also revealed that the Pope had discussed the problem of Baggio’s refusal to accept the Patriarchship of Venice. When the story exploded on the public the Vatican response was very reminiscent of Monsignor Henry Riedmatten’s when confronted with questions about the Luciani document on birth control. That document, it will be recalled, was dismissed by Riedmatten as ‘a fantasy’. Now confronted by literally hundreds of reporters demanding a Vatican comment on the latest leaks, the director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Panciroli, issued a one-line laconic denial. ‘These are reports devoid of all foundations.’ 

Among those unimpressed by this denial were a number of the cardinals still arriving in Rome for the next Conclave. At the meeting of the congregation of cardinals which took place on October 9th their unease surfaced. Cardinal Villot in particular found himself under attack. As Camerlengo he had taken the decisions and authorized the statements which clearly indicated that the death of Luciani had been followed by a cover-up. Many of the non-Italian Princes of the Church demanded to know exactly what was being covered up. They wanted to know why the cause of death had not been precisely ascertained and why it had merely been presumed. They wanted to know why there was not greater clarification about the time of death. Why a doctor had not taken official responsibility in putting his name to a death certificate that could be made public. 

They were unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain these facts. The next Conclave was fast approaching, thanks to the decision made by a minority the day after the discovery of the Pope’s body. The minds of the cardinals began to concentrate on the lobbying and the intrigues surrounding the problem of who should succeed Albino Luciani: an indication that the men of the Roman Curia, with an inherited experience of nearly two thousand years, have indeed learned a great deal from their predecessors. 

On October 12th, less than forty-eight hours before the next Conclave, the Vatican made its final public statement concerning the furore over the death of Albino Luciani. It was issued by Vatican press secretary Father Romeo Panciroli: 

At the end of the ‘Novemdiales’, when we enter a new phase of the Sede Vacante, the director of the Press Office of the Holy See expresses words of firm disapproval for those who in recent days have indulged in the spreading of strange rumours, unchecked, often false and which sometimes have reached the level of grave insinuations, all the more grave for the repercussions they may have had in those countries where people are not accustomed to excessively casual forms of expression. In these moments of mourning and sorrow for the Church one expected greater control and greater respect. [what a lying sack of shit DC]

He repeated that ‘what happened has been faithfully reported in the communiqué of Friday morning, September 29th, which maintains its full validity and which reflected the death certificate signed by Professor Mario Fontana and Dr Renato Buzzonetti so faithfully as to render its publication unnecessary’. 

He also noted with satisfaction, ‘the rectitude of many professionals who in such a difficult moment for the Church, showed loyal participation in the events and informed public opinion with considered and objective reports’. 

Wishing to avoid ‘grave insinuations’ I will make instead a categorical statement. I am completely convinced that Pope John Paul I, Albino Luciani, was murdered. [And the author is 100% correct DC]

To this date no death certificate has ever been made public and despite repeated requests the Vatican refused to make one available to me. Undoubtedly it would state that the cause of death was myocardial infarction. The continued refusal to make the death certificate available means that no doctor is prepared to accept publicly the legal responsibility for diagnosing Albino Luciani’s death. The fact that the diagnosis was based on an external examination which is unacceptable medically may have something to do with that Vatican refusal. 

The fact that a full autopsy or post mortem was not performed despite international unease and concern is powerful evidence that the Pope was murdered. If Luciani’s death was natural then why not have an autopsy and allay that concern? 

It is clear that, officially at least, the Vatican does not know when Luciani died or what killed him. ‘Presumably towards eleven o’clock’ and ‘sudden death that could be related to’ are statements that clearly demonstrate a high degree of ignorance, of presumptions and assumptions. The body of a beggar found in the gutters of Rome would be accorded a greater degree of professional care and attention. The scandal is all the greater when one is aware that these examining doctors had never medically cared for the living Albino Luciani. When I spoke to Dr Renato Buzzonetti in Rome I asked what medicines the Pope had been taking in the weeks before his death. He replied, ‘I don’t know what medicines he was taking. I was not his doctor. The first time I saw him on a doctor/patient relationship he was dead.’ [nothing unusual about that, cough cough DC]

Dr Seamus Banim is a heart specialist with over twenty years’ professional experience. He is the Senior Consultant at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London and the Nuffield Hospital. During my interview with him he said: 

For a doctor, any doctor, to diagnose myocardial infarction as the cause of death is wrong. I would not be satisfied. If he had known the patient before, had treated him for a period of time, had cared for him during a previous heart attack, had observed the living man after what was to prove to be a fatal heart attack, then the diagnosis might just be permissible. But if he had not known the patient before he is not entitled to make that diagnosis. He is taking a very grave risk and he certainly would not be entitled to take such a risk and make such a diagnosis in this country. Such a diagnosis can only be given after an autopsy. 

We have, therefore, an unacceptable conclusion concerning the cause of death and an equally unacceptable conclusion about the time of death. 

The Vatican told the world that it happened, ‘Presumably towards eleven o’clock on the evening of September 28th’. Dr Derek Barrowcliff, a former Home Office pathologist with over fifty years’ experience, advised me:

Unless there were a graded series of temperature readings in the rectum it is a very very brave man who will say that death occurred at such and such a time. A very brave man indeed. 

Rigor mortis tends to be detectable after five or six hours depending on a number of factors including the heat of the room. A hot room brings it on quicker – a cold room slower. It may take 12 hours to develop, then remain firmly fixed for 12 hours, then start to weaken during a further 12 hours. This is very very approximate. If rigor mortis is present, it is reasonable to assume that death occurred some six hours or more before. Certainly a liver temperature reading [which was not taken] would have helped. If one is examining a body very very carefully in a medicolegal sense, then one does detect slight degrees of rigor. It comes on very gently. Hence if the body were stiff at 6 a.m. it would be reasonable to say death occurred at 11.00 p.m. the previous evening. But it could equally have been 9 p.m. the previous evening. 

So, two facts have been indisputably established: 
1 We do not know what caused the death of Albino Luciani. 
2 We do not know with any degree of certainty what time he died. When Pope Paul VI died in August 1978 he was surrounded by doctors, secretaries and priests. Consider the detail contained in the official bulletin that was published and signed by doctors Mario Fontana and Renato Buzzonetti. 

During the course of the past week, the Holy Father Paul VI suffered a serious accentuation of the painful symptoms referable to the arthritic illness with which he has been affected for many years. On the afternoon of Saturday 5th of August he suffered from fever due to the sudden resurgence of an acute cystitis. Having taken the opinion of Professor Fabio Prosperi, chief urologist of the United Hospitals of Rome, the appropriate curative measures were begun. During the night of 5–6 August and all through Sunday 6th of August the Holy Father was suffering from high fever. About 18.15 of Sunday 6th of August sudden, serious and progressive heightening of arterial pressure was observed. Now there followed rapidly the typical symptoms of insufficiency of the left ventricle with the clinical picture of acute pulmonary edema. 

Despite all the precise attentions which were at once applied, His Holiness Paul VI died at 21.40 hours. [So why the difference in Vatican response in deaths less than two months apart? DC]

At the time of death, the doctors in attendance indicated the following general clinical picture: cardiopathic arteriosclerotic polyarthritis, chronic pyelonephritis and acute cystitis. Immediate cause of death: hypertensive crisis, insufficiency of the left ventricle, acute pulmonary oedema. Less than two months later, Paul’s successor dies ‘like a flower in a field that closes at night’ with not a single member of the medical profession in sight. 

In contrast to the plethora of lies that poured from Vatican City about the medical history of Luciani it is worth stating the facts. 

In his infancy he had shown signs of a tubercular illness, the symptoms being enlarged neck glands. At the age of eleven his tonsils were removed; at the age of fifteen his adenoids. Both these operations were performed in the general hospital in Padua. In 1945 and again in 1947 he was admitted to a sanatorium with suspected tuberculosis. Tests on both occasions produced negative results and the pulmonary illnesses were diagnosed as bronchitis. He made a complete recovery and every subsequent chest X-ray was negative. In 1964 he was operated on in April for gallstones and a blocked colon and in August for haemorrhoids. Professor Amedeo Alexandre, who performed both operations at the Pordenone hospital, checked his medical records of the period before advising me that Albino Luciani was suffering from no other ailments and that all of his pre-and post-operative medical tests confirmed that Luciani was in perfect health. These tests included X-rays and a number of ECGs, a test specifically designed to record heart abnormalities. The Professor stated that his patient’s recovery from both of these minor operations was total and complete. ‘I reexamined him in the summer after the second operation. Then too he was in excellent health.’ 

An illustration of how healthy Albino Luciani was can be found in the daily routine his then colleague Monsignor Taffarel described to me. It is virtually identical to his routine in Venice and subsequently in the Vatican. He awoke at 4.30 to 4.45 a.m. and retired for the night some sixteen hours later between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. Monsignor Taffarel advised me that Luciani, apart from his many other functions, made pastoral visits to every one of his 180 parishes and was two-thirds of the way through a second round of pastoral visits when he was promoted to go to Venice. He suffered a blood clot in the central vein of the retina of the left eye in December 1975. No operation was required and his specialist Professor Rama advised me: 

The treatment was only general and was based on haemokinetic medicine, anti-coagulants and mild medicines to dilate the blood vessels and, above all, a few days rest in hospital. The result was almost immediate, with a complete recovery of vision and general recovery. He was never what one would call a ‘physical colossus’ but he was fundamentally healthy and the tests carried out on several occasions never revealed heart troubles. 

Professor Rama noted that Luciani had low blood pressure which under normal conditions oscillated around 120/80. Low blood pressure was considered by the twenty-three members of the medical profession whom I consulted, to be ‘The best possible diagnosis for life expectancy.’ 

During his time in Venice Luciani occasionally had swelling in the ankles. His doctors thought this attributable to the low blood pressure and the need for more exercise. In July 1978 he spent ten days at the Stella Maris Institute on the Lido to counteract a possible re-occurrence of gallstones. He was put on a bland diet and took extensive walks in the morning and the evening to alleviate the slight swelling in the ankles. A medical check-up after this stay concluded that he was in excellent health. The check-up included an ECG. 

The above is the sum total of Albino Luciani’s medical history during his entire life. It is based on interviews with the doctors who cared for him, relations, friends and colleagues. It should be closely compared with the farrago of lies concerning his health that poured out of Vatican City. The overriding question that surely springs immediately to mind is, why all the lies? The more one probes into Luciani’s life the greater grows the belief that this man was murdered. For nearly six years the Vatican lies concerning the late Pope have run unchecked and unchallenged. The Roman Curia would have the world believe that Albino Luciani was a simple, near idiot; a gravely ill man whose election was an aberration and whose natural death was a merciful release for the Church. In such a manner they hoped to mask murder. The past 400 years have not been: we are back with the Borgias. 

While the news media of the world carried details of the Vatican fantasy about Luciani’s health, there were many who, if they had been asked, would have provided a different picture: 

I knew him from 1936 onwards. Apart from the two periods of confinement for suspected tuberculosis he was perfectly healthy. He made a complete recovery after the second confinement. Certainly up to 1958 when he became Bishop of Vittorio Veneto there were no major illnesses. (Monsignor Da Rif, to author.) 

His health while in Vittorio Veneto was excellent. He had the two operations in 1964 for gallstones and haemorrhoids and made a complete recovery. His work-load remained exactly the same. I have heard about the low blood pressure and the swollen legs. Neither occurred while he was here [Vittorio Veneto] and subsequently after he had gone to Venice I saw him many times. He was always in excellent health. Between 1958 and 1970 apart from those two operations his health was perfect. (Monsignor Taffarel, to author.) 

In the eight years he was in Venice I only once saw Cardinal Luciani in bed because he was unwell, that was for simple influenza. For the rest, the Patriarch of Venice was very healthy and he did not suffer from any illness. (Monsignor Giuseppe Bosa, Apostolic Administrator of Venice.) 

He had absolutely no cardiopathic characteristics, besides, his low blood pressure should, at least in theory, have made him safe from acute cardio-vascular attacks. The only time I needed to give him treatment was for the influenza attack. (Dr Carlo Frizzerio, Venice physician.) 

Albino Luciani did not have a bad heart. Someone with a bad heart does not, as the Patriarch did every year with me from 1972 to 1977, climb mountains. We would go to Pietralba, near Bolzano, and we would climb the Corno Bianco, from 1,500 metres to 2,400 metres, at a good speed . . . There was never a sign of cardiac insufficiency. On the contrary, at my insistence in 1974 an electrocardiogram was carried out, which recorded nothing irregular. Immediately before leaving for the Conclave in August 1978 and after his visit to the Stella Maris Clinic he had a full medical check-up. The results were favourable in all respects. As for the theory of stress or exhaustion, it’s a nonsense. His working day in the Vatican was no longer than here in Venice and in the Vatican he had many more assistants, a great deal more help and goodness knows how many more advisers. Mountain men do not die of heart attacks. (Monsignor Mario Senigaglia, Secretary to Albino Luciani 1970–6, to author.) 

Doctor Da Ros said to me: ‘Do you have a secret medicine? Albino Luciani is in perfect health and he is so much more relaxed. What magic drugs do you have?’ (Father Diego Lorenzi, Secretary to Albino Luciani 1976 to his death, to author.) 

All of the above plus over a further twenty people, who knew Albino Luciani from childhood onwards, confirmed that he had never smoked, he drank alcohol rarely and ate sparingly. This life style plus his low blood pressure could not be improved upon if one wished to avoid coronary disease. 

Apart from the members of the medical profession already referred to who had been concerned with specific ailments, there was his regular physician Dr Giuseppe Da Ros. His relationship with Albino Luciani reveals that the Pope’s health was constantly and regularly monitored for over the last twenty years of his life. 

Dr Da Ros was also a friend and in Vittorio Veneto visited Luciani every week. In Venice he came once a fortnight at 6.30 a.m. and stayed for a minimum of ninety minutes. They would breakfast together but the visits were professional as well as social. 

The visits continued after Luciani’s election to the Papacy. Da Ros gave Luciani three full medical examinations during his 33-day Papacy. The last was on Saturday, September 23rd, immediately before Luciani left the Vatican for his first public engagement in Rome, meeting Mayor Argan and officially accepting the Church of St John Lateran – a public ordeal that would surely have highlighted any physical ailment from which Luciani might have been suffering. Dr Da Ros found his patient in such good health that he advised Luciani that, instead of seeing him in two weeks as planned, he would not come for three weeks. When Father Lorenzi asked the doctor about the Pope’s health on that Saturday, Dr Da Ros declared, ‘Non sta bene, ma benone’ – ‘He’s not well but very well’. 

Da Ros consulted Dr Buzzonetti of the Vatican the same day and they discussed Luciani’s medical history. Obviously the Pope would eventually need a regular general practitioner based in Rome, but the doctors agreed that there was no immediate urgency. Da Ros would continue for the time being to travel down from Vittorio Veneto on a regular basis. That the doctor who had cared for him for over twenty years and the Vatican medical staff were content with an arrangement whereby the Pope’s physician resided nearly 600 kilometres from his patient is perhaps the most illuminating evidence possible. That such an arrangement was satisfactory to all leads to only two conclusions. Either that Dr Da Ros and the Vatican medical staff were guilty of the most appalling negligence and that none of them is fit to practise medicine, or Albino Luciani was a perfectly healthy man without any illness whatsoever at the time of his death. In view of the care and attention Dr Da Ros provided, not to mention the very real affection he felt for his patient, clearly the latter conclusion must be drawn. Da Ros, you will recall, was ‘shocked, stunned and mystified’ when told of the death. 

Dr Da Ros stated that he found the Pope in such good health that in future he would come every third Saturday rather than every second because the Pope was so well. On the last evening he was perfectly fit. During his Papacy this business of leg swelling did not occur. He took daily exercise either in the Vatican Gardens or in the big hall. (Father John Magee, Secretary to Pope John Paul I from late August 1978 until his death, to the author.) 

Largely because of his personal friendship with Dr Da Ros, few men could claim to have received greater medical attention than Luciani – weekly, then fortnightly visits for over twenty years. Medical attention of a remarkable degree was followed by a sudden unexpected death, followed by a false diagnosis and the failure to publish a death certificate.

How then do we explain the inexplicable? A popular theory at the time of the Pope’s death was that it was caused by stress. It is not a theory given any credence by the many doctors I have interviewed. Many were scathing about what they termed ‘the stress business’, an industry where fortunes are made by playing on popular fears. Too much sexual intercourse causes stress. Too little sexual intercourse causes stress. Playing space invader machines causes stress. Watching sports events causes stress. Too much exercise causes stress. Too little exercise causes stress. 

I see an awful lot of people with stress symptoms but they don’t have coronary disease. They are a pain in the neck. They are all working long hours, overworked, six, seven days a week, totally involved in their work, they lose perspective. My impression is that, after a while, they build up this tremendous negative balance, if they don’t relax. They see a neurologist about headaches, a specialist about stomach disorders such as ulcers, they come to me with chest pains. It is never heart disease they are actually suffering from. Here in St Bartholomew’s we have a very busy coronary unit. It’s not the whizz kids from the City we have as patients, it’s the porters and the messengers. If the myth of stress had any validity we would not see the change in mortality that we are seeing. What we are seeing are the upper classes reducing their coronary attacks and the lower classes increasing theirs. Your risk factors if you are social class five are much higher than if you are social class one or two. The vast amount of people with stress symptoms are not turning up coronary problems, they are turning up funny chest pains, they are turning up funny breathlessness, they are turning up feeling funny. It’s never the heart. They merely need a great deal of reassurance. You dare not tell them what the real heart symptoms are or otherwise they will be back with them. (Dr Seamus Banim, to author.) 

Research indicates that stress can sometimes lead to heart disease and indeed to a fatal heart attack, but the heart disease caused by stress does not occur overnight. Symptoms manifest themselves for months or even years. No such symptoms were ever noted by any of the doctors who cared for Albino Luciani throughout his entire life. 

The Vatican lied when it stated that an autopsy on the Pope was forbidden under Vatican rules. 

The Vatican lied when it stated an autopsy on a Pope had never been performed. 

The trickle of lies became a flood. 

The Pope’s Will. The Pope’s health. The time of his embalming. The exact nature of the medical examinations on the body before the funeral. It lied on each and every one of these aspects. [And the only folks who lie like that have something very dark to hide DC]

Consider the Will of Albino Luciani. No Will has ever been produced or made public. Luciani’s family have been told that no Will exists. And yet: 

It certainly exists. I don’t know the length or even less what it says. I remember that the Pope spoke about it at table about a fortnight before he died. Edoardo, his brother, spoke with great enthusiasm about Paul VI’s Will. ‘My Will is of another tone and less weighty,’ he said. Then indicating a small gap between his index finger and thumb, Papa Luciani said ‘Mine is like this’. (Father Diego Lorenzi, to author.) 

When Cardinal of Venice he drew up a three-line Will that left everything to his seminary in Venice and appointed his auxiliary bishop as executor. When the auxiliary bishop died, Luciani crossed out the bishop’s name and put in mine and showed me the Will. (Father Mario Senigaglia, to author.) 

When he died his Will was never found although I am sure he made one. Some money that he had in account in Venice was sent to my family because he had in theory died intestate. We sent it back to the Venice diocese knowing that was his intention. Part went to his successor and part to nominated charities. I know there was a Will. When he went from Belluno to Vittorio Veneto he destroyed his Will and made a new one, similarly when he went to Venice he destroyed that Will and made a new one. Equally when he became Pope, Father Carlo, one of his secretaries in Venice, was asked to bring that Will down. Don Carlo took it to the Vatican. Either there should be a Will dating from the thirty-three days or the Venice Will. He was always very meticulous about this. I do not know why they were unable to find it. (Pia Luciani, to author.) 

As has already been established, worldly goods held no interest for Luciani but a Papal Will invariably includes more than instructions on material assets. There is always a spiritual message – comments and reflections on the state of the Church. Was the Will of Albino Luciani destroyed because it accurately reflected the Pope’s feelings and views on what he had discovered in those 33 days? Luciani, an accomplished writer, one of the most literary Popes in modern times, failed to leave a final written observation? Were there no last reflections from the revolutionary Pope?[He was murdered because he planned to undo the most corrupt institution on the planet, his attitude  toward the Church was the same as the Lord Jesus Christ toward the Jewish Temple he ransacked DC]

It may be considered shocking that so much false information emanates directly from the Vatican, a place considered by millions to be the spiritual home of Christianity. Is it any less shocking that men who have dedicated their lives to Jesus Christ should destroy so much vital evidence? Is it any less shocking that the Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot, should impose a vow of silence on members of the Papal Household? Is it any less shocking that Villot, acting in his capacity as virtual caretaker Pope, should take medicine, reading glasses, slippers from the Papal bedroom? That he should remove and destroy the papers clutched in the dead Pope’s hands – papers which detailed the important changes Albino Luciani was about to make and which he had discussed with Cardinal Villot a short time before the Pope’s totally unexpected death? Was Villot a party in a conspiracy to murder the Pope? Certainly his subsequent actions were those of a man determined to cover up the truth of that death. Doubtless he took the Will as he sat at Luciani’s desk in his study and made his series of early morning phone calls. Having removed the papers from Luciani’s hands Cardinal Villot was clearly determined that no trace of those changes that had so concerned him on the last evening of the Pope’s life should remain. God alone knows what else was stolen from the Papal Apartments. We know beyond all doubt that the items already mentioned vanished.[Understand something, Christianity was never intended to be a religion. It was then, and still is, in truth a way of life. It was hijacked by a Pagan religion in Rome that became the Catholic Church. At no time in it's disgusting history has the Catholic Church had anything to do with Christianity. D.C] 

Father Magee and the Sisters and I searched everywhere in the apartment for these things. We could not find them. We searched during the morning of the 29th of September. (Father Diego Lorenzi, to author.) 

We know beyond any doubt that these items were in the apartment before Villot was summoned. Indeed the glasses were upon Albino Luciani’s face. When Villot left the items had vanished. 

The Vatican lied when it stated that the initial discovery of the dead body was made by Father Magee at ‘about 5.30 a.m. on the morning of September 29th’. Sister Vincenza recounted directly to me the moment when she discovered the dead Pope. Previously she had used virtually the same words to Monsignor Mario Senigaglia, to Luciani’s niece Pia and his sister Nina. ‘It was a miracle that I survived. I have a bad heart. I pushed the bell to summon the secretaries, then I went out to find the other Sisters and to awaken Don Diego.’ She also told me that as she stood for a moment looking transfixed at the body of the dead Pope, the alarm clock began to ring. Instinctively she reached out and turned it off. 

There is a curious external fact that confirms the veracity of Sister Vincenza’s statements. Conan Doyle had his fictional creation Sherlock Holmes observe on one occasion that there was an odd and significant fact about a dog. It did not bark. In the Papal Apartments there was beside the Pope’s bed an alarm clock that did not ring. I have questioned both Papal secretaries and other members of the Papal Apartments very closely about this. All of them are adamant. On the morning that Albino Luciani was found dead the alarm clock he had set every day for many years did not ring. It was set for 4.45 a.m. His body was not officially found until after 5.30 a.m. Diego Lorenzi, who slept so closely to the Pope’s bedroom that he could hear the Pope moving about, heard no alarm. 

When Pope Paul VI died in August 1978 a full twenty-four hours elapsed before his body was embalmed, in accordance with Italian law. When Albino Luciani died in September 1978 Italian law was thrown out of the window, and Vatican, let’s make it up as we go along, law applied. 

The body of Albino Luciani was embalmed within 14 hours of his death. Why the haste? Evidence suggests that Villot desired an even quicker embalming; evidence that indicates the embalmers were summoned before the body was ‘officially’ found. If Magee found the body at ‘shortly after 5.30 a.m.’ why were the Vatican morticians, the Signoracci, summoned 45 minutes earlier? Prudence carried to unusual lengths. 

On September 29th, the Italian news agency ANSA, a highly reputable organization on a par with the Press Association or Reuters, carried on their wire service one of the many news items they ran that day on the Pope’s death. In part it reads: 

The two Signoracci brothers, Ernesto and Arnaldo (the others are Cesare and Renato) were awoken this morning at dawn and at five were collected from their homes by a Vatican car which took them to the mortuary of the little state where they began the operation. 

I have traced and interviewed the journalist responsible for that news item, Mario de Francesco. He confirmed the accuracy of his story which was based on an interview with the Signoracci, conducted the same day. I have interviewed the Signoracci brothers on a number of occasions. With regard to the time that they were first contacted they are now, some five years later, uncertain. They confirmed that it was early on the morning of September 29th. If Francesco’s story is accurate then a Mafia-like situation is established. Morticians ordered before a body is found. 

Embalmers were summoned before the cause of death had been even guessed at. Why would the Vatican wish to destroy the most valuable evidence before the official cause of death had been determined? 

Was there a secret autopsy on the eve of the Pope’s funeral? The evidence clearly established a long and detailed examination. What was the purpose? A routine embalming check would have taken only minutes. What were the examining doctors doing behind screens, in a locked church for nearly one and a half hours? 

It must be recorded that Albino Luciani’s personal doctor flew from Venice to Rome on September 29th and agreed with the Vatican doctors that the cause of death was myocardial infarction. It must equally be recorded that as he observed a body that had been dead for 15 hours and contented himself with an external examination, his medical opinion was worthless on this occasion. 

If there was one man in Italy who was in a position to confirm that Albino Luciani did in fact die of a myocardial infarction that man was Professor Giovanni Rama, the eye specialist who had been treating Luciani since 1975 for a blood clot that had occurred to the left eye. He holds the view that this vascular complaint may have led ultimately to Luciani’s death but he freely admitted to me that as a medical opinion it was worthless without an autopsy. If Cardinal Villot and his senior Vatican colleagues really did believe that Albino Luciani had died naturally of a myocardial infarction, Professor Rama, with over three years’ experience of treating Luciani, was the man to call to the Vatican. He advised me that he had no contact whatsoever from the Vatican after Albino Luciani’s death and remarked: ‘I was very surprised that they did not ask me to come and examine the Pope’s body.’ 

Easily the most significant observation from a member of the medical profession was the comment attributed to Professor Mario Fontana. Apparently he gave his opinion privately shortly after the Pope’s death but it did not become public knowledge until after his own death in 1980. 

‘If I had to certify, under the same circumstances, the death of an ordinary, unimportant citizen, I would quite simply have refused to allow him to be buried.’ 

Professor Mario Fontana was the head of the Vatican Medical Service. 

How and why did darkness fall upon the Roman Catholic Church on September 28th, 1978? 

To establish that a murder has taken place it is not essential to establish a motive. But it helps, as any experienced police officer will confirm. Without a motive you are in trouble. With regard to the death of Albino Luciani there are a frightening number of motives. I have clearly identified a number of them within this book. I have also identified the men with those motives. 

The fact that three of those men, Villot, Cody and Marcinkus, are priests does not rule them out as suspects. Men of the cloth should in theory be above suspicion. They should be. Sadly many have demonstrated since the birth of Christianity the ability to commit appalling crimes. 

Villot, Cody, Marcinkus, Calvi, Sindona, Gelli: each had a powerful motive. Might Cardinal Villot have murdered to protect his position as Secretary of State, to protect other men who were about to be moved, and most of all to avoid the furore that undoubtedly would have ensued when Albino Luciani took a different stance publicly on the issue of birth control? 

Might Cardinal Cody, aided by some of his many friends within the Vatican, attempting to cling corruptly to office in Chicago, have silenced a Pope who was about to remove him? 

Might Bishop Marcinkus, sitting at the head of a demonstrably corrupt bank, have acted to ensure he remained President of the IOR? 

It is possible that one of these three men is guilty. Certainly Villot’s actions after the Pope’s death were criminal: destruction of evidence; a false story; the imposition of silence. It is conduct that leaves much to be desired. 

Why was Bishop Paul Marcinkus wandering in the Vatican at such an early hour? A normal police investigation would demand many answers from these three men, but over five years later such vital interrogations are impossible. Villot and Cody are dead and Marcinkus is hiding inside the Vatican from the Italian police. 

The most pertinent evidence in defence of these three men is not their own inevitable protestations of innocence. It is the very fact that they were men of the cloth; men of the Roman Catholic Church. Two thousand years has taught such men to take the long view. The history of the Vatican is the history of countless Popes eager to make reforms and yet hemmed in and neutralized by the system. If the Church in general and Vatican City in particular so wishes it can and does dramatically influence and affect Papal decisions. It has already been recorded how a minority of men imposed their will upon Paul VI on the issue of birth control. It has also been recorded how Baggio flatly refused to replace Luciani in Venice. 

As for the changes Luciani was about to make, many within the Vatican would have welcomed them, but even those most deeply opposed were more likely to react in a manner less dramatic than murder. This does not rule out Villot, Cody and Marcinkus. Rather it places them at the bottom of the list of suspects and moves Calvi, Sindona and Gelli to the top. Did any of these men have the capacity for the deed? The short answer is yes. 

Whoever murdered Albino Luciani was clearly gambling that the next Conclave and the next Pope would not reactivate Luciani’s instructions. All six men stood to gain if the ‘right’ man was elected. Would any kill merely to buy a month’s grace? If the ‘right’ man was elected, that month would extend into the future. Two of these men, Villot and Cody, were in the perfect position to influence the next Conclave. Marcinkus was not without influence. Neither were Calvi, Sindona and Gelli. 

It was at the villa of Umberto Ortolani that the final plans were made by a group of cardinals that resulted in the election of Pope Paul VI. Gelli, as the ruler of P2, had access to each and every part of Vatican City, just as he also had access to the inner sanctum of Italian Government, the banks and the judiciary. 

On a practical basis how could the murder of Albino Luciani have been achieved? Surely Vatican security could not be penetrated? The truth is that Vatican security at the time of Luciani’s death could be penetrated with consummate ease – with the same ease that a man called Michael Fagin calmly entered Buckingham Palace in the middle of the night and, after wandering about, sat in Her Majesty’s bedroom and asked the Queen of England for a cigarette. 

Vatican security in 1978 could be penetrated as easily as the security surrounding President Reagan was penetrated when John Hinckley wounded the President and members of his staff. Or as easily as it was on Wednesday May 13th, 1982, when Mehmet Ali Agca fired three bullets into Pope John Paul II. 

John XXIII had abolished the practice of the Swiss Guard maintaining an all-night vigil outside his apartment. Nevertheless Albino Luciani really did deserve better protection than he was accorded. Vatican City, a little larger than St James’s Park in London, with six entrances, presented no serious problem to anyone intent on penetration. 

The Conclave that had elected Luciani was in theory one of the most stringently guarded places on earth. The reader may recall the extraordinary lengths that Pope Paul VI had gone to to ensure that no one could get in or out during the sessions that chose the new Pope. After his election, Luciani kept the Conclave in session on Saturday, August 26th. Yet one simple unassuming priest, Father Diego Lorenzi, has graphically recounted to me how, anxious to join Luciani, he had wandered unchallenged into the very heart of the Conclave. Only when he was within sight of the 110 cardinals and his newly elected Pope did someone ask him who he was and what he was doing. By then he could have blown the entire building to the next world, if he had so chosen. 

At the time of the August Conclave, many writers commented on the total lack of security. To quote just two: There was too, on this occasion, the unceasing if unspoken threat of terrorism. In my view, security around the Vatican has not been impressive over the past week, and the rambling place which opens on to the streets in many places, poses perhaps insuperable problems. All the more reason for getting the Conclave over quickly. 

Paul Johnson, Sunday Telegraph 

August 27th, 1978 

As far as I can see, the security cops are mostly interested in talking to pretty girls in sidewalk cafés. I hope the Red Brigades don’t have anything in mind for the evening (the day of Paul VI’s funeral). They could arrive and knock out many of the world’s leaders in one fell swoop. 

Father Andrew Greeley, 

The Making of the Popes 

Then less than two months later at the funeral of Albino Luciani, ‘The security precautions are enormous’. (Father Andrew Greeley, The Making of The Popes). 

It was curious that after the death the security which had been nonexistent during Albino Luciani’s lifetime should suddenly appear. ‘There were no security guards in the area of the Papal Apartments when I was there with Albino Luciani,’ Father Diego Lorenzi advised me. 

I interviewed Sergeant Hans Roggan of the Swiss Guard. He was the officer in charge on the night Luciani died. He recounted how earlier in the evening he had been out in Rome for a meal with his mother. They saw the light on in the Papal bedroom when they returned at 10.30 p.m. Roggan’s mother retired for the night and he went on duty. He told me: 

For some reason that was a terrible night for me. That night I was the officer in charge of the Palace. I simply could not get to sleep. Eventually I got up and went to the office and worked on a couple of ledgers. Normally I sleep well. 

This is the officer in charge of Palace security on the night of Luciani’s sudden death, tossing and turning in his bed as he tries to sleep. To add that no one saw fit to query and check the fact that the Pope’s bedroom light continued to shine throughout the night seems almost superfluous. Much criticism was made at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy about the appalling security, or lack of it, in Dallas. By comparison with what passed for security around Luciani, the President was extremely well protected. 

Further research has established that at the time of Luciani’s Papacy, there was a Swiss Guard at the top of the stairs on the Third Loggia. His function was merely ceremonial, as few people ever entered the Papal Apartments by this route. Access to the Apartments was usually by the lift – for which many had the key. The lift entrance was not guarded. Any man dressed as a priest could enter and leave the Papal Apartments unchallenged.

Further instances of the chaotic security within the Vatican City abound. Recently, since the death of Albino Luciani, a staircase near the Papal Apartments has been re-discovered. It was not hidden, not masked by later building work. Quite simply no one knew of its existence. Or did they? Did someone perhaps know of it in September 1978? 

Swiss Guards officially asleep on duty. Swiss Guards who guard an entrance no one uses. A staircase that no one knew about. Even an amateur assassin would not have experienced any great difficulty and whoever killed Albino Luciani was no amateur. To assist any would-be murderer L’Osservatore della Domenica published a detailed plan, complete with photograph, of the Papal Apartments. Date of publication, September 3rd, 1978. 

If Mehmet Ali Agca had carried out even elementary homework, Pope John Paul II would now be dead; murdered as his predecessor was. The more I probed the more apparent it became that anyone bent upon murdering Albino Luciani had a relatively simple task. To obtain access to the Papal Apartments in September 1978 and to tamper with either the medicines or food or drink of the Pope with any of two hundred lethal drugs would have been a simple task. 

The virtual certainty that there would not be an official autopsy merely makes the deed that much easier. There was not even a doctor on 24-hour duty. The Vatican health service did not have at that time the standard equipment of an ordinary modern hospital. There was no emergency medical structure. And in the centre of this shambles was an honest man, who by the various courses of action he had embarked upon, had given at least six men very powerful motives for murder. 

Despite the appalling attack on Luciani’s successor, little has changed with regard to security within the Vatican. During my research I walked in the gardens of the Augustinian residence where Luciani had walked before the August Conclave. It was a Sunday in September 1982. Across St Peter’s Square His Holiness came out on to the balcony to deliver the mid-day Angelus. From where I stood he was in a direct firing line of less than 2,000 yards, the top half of his body entirely unprotected. If Agca or one of his kind had been standing there, the Pope would have been dead and the assassin back in the heart of Rome within minutes. I had walked into the gardens unchallenged. 

A few days after this I walked unchallenged through the Vatican’s Saint Anna Gate. Carrying a case large enough to contain bombs, I went unchecked to the Vatican Bank. The following week in the company of two researchers, all three of us carrying cases and bags, we walked unsearched through the very heart of the Vatican on our way to see Cardinal Ciappi. These events took place only seventeen months after Pope John Paul II had been nearly murdered in St Peter’s Square. 

Is it possible that in a country with one of the lowest death rates for coronary heart disease in Europe, a perfectly fit man, whose one unusual physical characteristic, that of low blood pressure, which mitigates against a death from heart disease, did in fact die of a myocardial infarction? Is it possible that the non-smoking, moderately eating, abstemious Luciani, who was doing everything that heart specialists would have had him do, was merely unfortunate? Unfortunate that despite taking every conceivable health precaution, he died? Unfortunate that despite constant medical check-ups including numerous ECGs, not a single trace in 65 years indicated any heart weakness? Unfortunate that his death was so sudden, so immediate that he did not even have time to press the alarm bell a few inches from his hand? In the words of Professors Rulli and Masini, who were two of the experts I consulted in Rome: ‘It is very very unlikely that death is so quick that the individual does not take any action. Very very rare.’ 

Indeed the evidence is all against Luciani’s death being a natural one. The evidence very strongly suggests murder. For myself I have no doubt. I am totally convinced that Albino Luciani was murdered and that at least one of the six suspects I have already identified holds the key. 

At 65 years of age, Albino Luciani was considered by the Conclave that elected him to be exactly the right age for the Papacy. Paul VI had been 66 when elected and had ruled for fifteen years. John XXIII had been 77 when elected as a stop-gap Pope, yet he ruled for five years. The Conclave had felt that Luciani would rule for a minimum of ten years. Conclaves are expensive affairs. The death of Paul VI and the election of his successor cost 5 million dollars. The Church is not disposed towards frequent Conclaves or short Papacies. As a result of Luciani’ s sudden and unexpected death there were two Conclaves in less than two months. 

It is not of course my contention that the plot to murder Albino Luciani was conceived on September 28th, 1978. The final act was obviously carried out on that day but the decision had been taken earlier. How much earlier is a moot point. 

It could have been within days of Luciani’s election when the new Pope initiated his investigations into Vatican Incorporated. It could have been within the first two weeks of September when the fact that Luciani was investigating Freemasonry within the Vatican became known to some members of the Vatican village. It could have been mid September when the attitudes of the new Pope on birth control and his plans to implement a liberal position on the issue were causing deep concern within the Vatican. It could have been the third week of September when the fact that Marcinkus and others at the Vatican Bank were about to be removed became a certainty. It may have been a few days before his death that the plan was put into motion, days during which Albino Luciani arrived at other far reaching and crucial decisions. Whenever the plan originated, for the suspects already identified its final act came not a moment too soon. If they had allowed even a few more days to elapse they would have been too late. 

Doubtless it will be observed by some that much of the evidence already adduced is of a circumstantial nature. When one is dealing with murder the evidence is very frequently entirely circumstantial. Men and women who plan murder are not given to announcing their intentions on the front page of The Times or Le Monde or the Washington Post. It is relatively rare for independent observers to be present and in a position to offer incontrovertible evidence. Circumstantial evidence on its own has been deemed sufficient to send many a man and woman to the gallows, the electric chair, the firing squad and the gas chamber. One fact is of overriding importance when considering the murder of Albino Luciani. If it was to succeed in its aim, then the murder had to be committed by stealth in such a manner that there was a reasonable chance of the death appearing to be a natural one. For nearly six years the perpetrators of the murder of Albino Luciani have succeeded in what must rank as one of the crimes of the century. 

To identify correctly who was responsible for the murder of Albino Luciani one should consider what occurred at the second Conclave and what has happened subsequently. An examination of certain events should establish which of the six men was at the heart of the conspiracy to murder God’s candidate.

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By Benefit of Murder – Business as Usual

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