Authors: David Yallop
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’clocck 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 dis-information 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.