In God's Name (39 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 adrenalin. 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 re-decorated. 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 gnards.

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.