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BY VANCE FERRELL

Pilgrims Books

p

The Murderof

Pope JohnPaul I

PB–907The Murder of Pope John Paul Iby Vance FerrellPublished by Pilgrims BooksBeersheba Springs, TN 37305 USAPrinted in the United States of AmericaCover and Text Copyright © 1999by Pilgrims Books

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In Florence, when Cardinal Benelli came outof his room at 9 a.m., he was surrounded byreporters. Tears flooding from his eyes, he said,“The Church has lost the right man for the rightmoment. We are very distressed. We are leftfrightened.”

When Pope Paul VI died, little emotion hadbeen expressed. But when John Paul I died, theentire city was up in arms. Men and womenwept openly everywhere. When his body wasshown, people passing it were heard to shout,“Who has done this to you? Who has murderedyou?”

Within two days, the public and the presswere loudly demanding an autopsy. But theVatican was determined that no autopsy beperformed, for that might have revealed some-thing new about the cause of death.

3

1 - Birth and Youth 5

2 - Priest and Bishop 8

3 - Luciani Discovers Vatican Bank13

4 - The Conclave 21

5 - A New Pope 26

6 - The Vatican Financiers 29

7 - Investments by the Holy Day 32

8 - The Thirty-three Days Begin 41

9 - The Last Day 51

10 - How Did it Happen? 56

11 - The Aftermath 61

Appendix:

Chronology of the Popes 64

Contents

The Murder of Pope John Paul I4

After a careful reading of the lives and work of bothpopes, it would appear that the difference between JohnXXIII and John Paul I was that John made his October28, 1958, announcement to convene Vatican II withouttelling anyone ahead of time; John Paul I made the mis-take of confiding the night before in his closest adviser(Cardinal Jean Villot, Vatican Secretary of State), regard-ing what he intended to begin doing the next day; andthen he handed him a list of appointments, resignations,transfers, as well as plans to begin an investigation intothe Vatican Bank and the practices of its president, PaulMarcinkus. That was the evening of September 28, 1978.Although suspecting such far-reaching plans, it waswithout prior warning that Villot had been told of them.

John Paul I retired for the night, and Villot sat in hisoffice, with the papers before him, mulling over theconversation. He looked at the telephone on his desk.Early the next morning Albino Luciani, who had becomePope John Paul I, a man in almost perfect health, wasfound dead in bed, only 33 days after his election aspope. Very early that same morning he was embalmed,thus ensuring that an autopsy would not reveal thechemicals in his blood.

By special request, we have been asked to tell thecomplete story of Pope John Paul I. The history informer ages of the Roman Catholic Church fills manypages of the book, Great Controversy. In the presentstudy, we will primarily focus on 10 years of its recenthistory (1968-1978).

Here is that story:

Preface

5Birth and Youth

Giovanni Luciani was a young widower with twodaughters. After remarrying, on October 17, 1912, hissecond wife, Bortola, gave birth to a son, whom theynamed Albino. Poverty was a way of life for this family,and young Albino tasted it to the full. Much of the timehis father was away elsewhere in France or on the Italianpeninsula, working various jobs to support the family.The small, ill-heated shack was barely large enough forthe family; and, at a young age, Albino was sent out inwooden clogs, with extra nails banged into the soles tohelp them last longer, to cut grass on the mountainsides.The grass would then be sold for a pittance, and themoney used to buy a little more food.

As Albino entered his teen years, at the school heattended he spent as much time reading as he could. Aquiet, modest demeanor marked his entire life, andmany around him did not realize he had a brilliantmind. He had a near-photographic memory; and,throughout his youth and adulthood, he poured throughas many books as he could find on a wide variety ofissues,—but especially bearing on social and economicproblems. Unbeknown to all, Albino was training himselffor an important work later in life.

As a faithful Roman Catholic, young Albino, with thefull encouragement of his mother and the local parishpriest, decided to enter the priesthood. His father, adedicated socialist, upon learning of it gave his consent

- 1 -Birth and Youth

The Murder of Pope John Paul I6also.

In 1923, at the age of 11, young Albino went to aseminary at Feltre. There he first learned of the remark-able network of control that leaders in the church exer-cised over their own workers. Not content merely to sendJesuit agents into other denominations, Vatican head-quarters was closely monitoring the lives of its ownpriests, workers, and officials. This Catholic KGB-likeoperation got its start with Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus ofErrors of 1864, in which Pius IX (1846-1878) denouncedmodern ideas and began the publication of a frequentlyupdated book, the Syllabus, listing publications whichthe faithful were forbidden to read. Vatican I, in 1870when Pope Pius IX forced that council to declare himselfinfallible and condemn democracy and religious liberty,only added to the controversy. (His positions are stillheld by many; as evidence of it, certain admiring Catho-lic leaders today are trying to get Pius IX canonized as a“saint.”)

Leo XIII (1878-1903) was followed by Pius X (1903-1914). With his blessing and financial support, an Italianprelate, Umberto Benigni, instituted an entire system ofinformers among Catholic workers. The Inquisition wasnot dead! Those found reading or discussing the wrongwritings were eliminated from the church. Yet, as inearlier centuries, this latest Inquisition was also deftlyused to destroy church rivals who were quite faithful tothe cause.

For his part, Benigni did his task well. Thousands ofCatholic workers were driven out of the church. His spyring was not disbanded until 1921, at which time hewent to Mussolini and offered his services. Recognizingthis as a terrific opportunity, Benito Mussolini hired himon the spot.

Albino Luciani entered Feltre Seminary two yearsafter Benigni’s project had been closed down, but theeffects of the mental suppression thereby imposed were

7still evident throughout the church. But Luciani contin-ued to read and think. Each summer, Albino wouldreturn home and help his family as they worked in thefields planting and bringing in the harvest.

Birth and Youth

“The candidate was Albino Luciani, the sixty-six-year-old patriarch of Venice, born the sonof a socialist migrant worker on the Street ofthe Half Moon in the village of Forno di Canale;a priest at twenty-three, a bishop at forty-six, acardinal at sixty; an outspoken opponent ofCommunism (although always on good termswith local Communist bosses), a humanist ofsome distinction, a conservative theologian,conversant with but not overly enthusiasticabout ecumenists and their dreams.”—MalachiMartin, The Keys of this Blood, p. 610.


Graduating from Feltre, Luciani went on to the still-larger seminary at Belluno. On July 7, 1935, he wasordained to the priesthood and sent to the small town ofForno di Canale, near his childhood home. Albino wasdelighted, and so were his parents. His father was nowworking not far away near Venice.

In 1937, he was appointed vice-rector of his oldseminary in Belluno; and, in 1941, he decided to obtaina doctorate in theology, which he obtained at theGregoriana (the Gregorian University in Rome), thePapal Gregorian University, the oldest Jesuit school inthe world.

And then came World War II, and Luciani was busylearning German, finishing up his doctorate for theGregoriana, as he heard confession from Hitler’s troopsand hid Italian partisans from their enemies. After de-fending his thesis in 1946, it was published in April1950; and Albino became a doctor of theology, havingreceived his degree “with highest honors” (magna cumlaude).

In 1947, Luciani was appointed pro-vicar-general ofthe diocese of Belluno. Amid all his duties, he continuedto read books, think, observe the problems in the churchand the world, and ponder solutions.

Albino was an unusual cleric. He was a simple manwith a happy, warm smile, who cared about people andtheir problems. Frankly, every evidence indicates that,

- 2 -Priest and Bishop

9like many others before his time, he was a Christian whojust had never discovered the deeper truths of Protes-tantism. According to the light he had, Albino was agenuinely good man.

In 1958, Pius XII died and Angelo Roncalli becamePope John XXIII. Like Luciani, Roncalli had been aspiritual leader of another Italian city; and he was well-acquainted with Luciani for a special reason: Their viewswere very much alike. When told that a bishop wasneeded for Vitterio Veneto and the name of Luciani wasmentioned, John smiled and exclaimed, “I know him; Iknow him! He will do me fine!”

Albino was ordained bishop by Pope John in St.Peter’s Basilica on December 27, 1958. He was 46 yearsold. The 400 priests, now under his authority, quicklyfound him to be an extraordinary man. Anyone couldcome and discuss problems; and, in order to solve them,he would frequently let the priests hold a meeting andmake a majority decision which he would ratify, eventhough he sometimes did not agree with it.

He refused a splendidly furnished apartment in town,but chose to live in humbler quarters. Instead of thegarments of a bishop, Luciani dressed in the clothes of apriest and spent part of his time going about town visit-ing hospitals, prisons, and finding poor people thatneeded help.

Less than three weeks after Luciani became a bishop,Pope John announced to the world that he was going toconvene a worldwide council. It would be held in Romeand would be called Vatican II. As a bishop, it wasLuciani’s duty to attend every meeting. At Vatican II,Albino learned the remarkable new doctrine of “religiousliberty.” Prior to this time, canon law specified that reli-gious liberty meant the right to believe Catholicism, andnothing else. But, at Vatican II, non-catholics were toldthey could believe some other things instead!

At the Council, which began on October 11, 1962,

Priest and Bishop

The Murder of Pope John Paul I102,381 bishops from around the world gathered as Johnopened the Second Vatican Council. During its threesessions (which finally ended on December 8, 1965),Luciani had the opportunity to personally meet and talkwith bishops from various parts of the world. Thesecontacts were later to prove invaluable. Kindred mindsfrom Europe and other continents were discovered.

John XXIII literally gave his life for his belovedproject. He refused to have an operation which mighthave prolonged his life. Instead, he said he must remainin attendance with the First Session of Vatican II, lesthard-line conservatives destroy it. He died after comple-tion of that session; but his successor, Paul VI, deter-mined to continue it on.

An incident occurred in August 1962, a few monthsbefore the start of the Second Session of Vatican II,which reveals the integrity of Albino. He learned that twopriests in his diocese had become involved in a propertytransaction which involved a loss to the diocese of morethan 2 million lire. Normally, church leaders handledsuch problems in a very simple manner; they refused topay and innocent people suffered as a result. (That,apparently, was the Roman Catholic equivalent of filingbankruptcy: Just don’t pay your bills.) But Luciani calledall his priests together and told them that the diocesewould sell ecclesiastical treasure and one of its build-ings—and pay every lira that was owed. Throughout Italy,there were those in the church who ridiculed the naïvetéof such honest scruples.

Albino Luciani carefully read through the liberalizingVatican II documents, and immediately implementedthem. In Luciani’s thinking, he was personally free tothink as he pleased; but, when the pope made a state-ment, Luciani would fully back it. He had been taughtthat the pope and the councils must unquestionably beobeyed when either speaks. We have a different view ofthe matter, but we must remember that Albino had a

11different background. When not bound about by churchedicts, Luciani was known to make very fair, good deci-sions. Because of his obedience to the pope, he contin-ued to rise in the church.

After Vatican II ended, Paul VI had to face the birth-control crisis. A commission was appointed to study thematter. Of the 68 members of the commission from allover the world, only four favored the traditional Catholicview (Pius XII, 1951) of “no birth control other than therhythm method.” It was well-known that the vast major-ity of Catholic priests, church members, and medicaldoctors opposed Pius’ view and instead favored birthcontrol. The 68 favored this liberal view also. After theymade their decision on April 23, 1966, they submittedtheir report, went home, and awaited the forthcomingannouncement by the pope ratifying their decision favor-ing birth control. But a small clique in the Vatican deter-mined to maintain the old position. Without going intothe details, they arranged matters carefully and then putimmense pressure on the pope to accede to their de-mands.

Paul VI finally caved in on July 25, 1968, when hepublished his decretal, Humanae Vitae. The Catholicworld was astounded, and so was Luciani. He had per-sonally sent a well-written paper on the subject to thepope; but, as soon as Paul VI’s decision was announced,Luciani backed it anyway. Paul liked that; and, when thepatriarch of Venice died in September 1969, Luciani wasoffered the job. Surprisingly, he turned it down. He wasquite content to minister to the needy in Vittorio Veneto.The pope wavered until December 15, 1969, and thentold Luciani he had to take the job anyway.

Albino Luciani was now a leading Roman Catholicofficial. But, except for official meetings demanding thedress of a bishop, he continued to dress like the com-mon priests. This was not some self-imposed humility,but his simple, economical way of doing things. In fact,

Priest and Bishop

The Murder of Pope John Paul I12he would not even purchase a new robe very often, butwould get others to sew on those he had.

Paul VI told his undersecretary of state, GiovanniBenelli, to make friends with Luciani and learn what hewas like. Benelli did so, and a close friendship followed.

On February 8, 1970, Albino Luciani entered Veniceas its new patriarch. But Venice hardly knew what tomake of him. He refused the customary entrance grandprocession, lived simply, and spent his time helpingpriests and people, and visiting the sick. The populacelearned that—at any time—they could come unan-nounced to his office and find help. Soon he was be-sieged, and many folk were helped.

In 1971, Paul VI asked him to attend the World Synodof Bishops. While there, he suggested that all thewealthier local churches in the world should pay onepercent of their income to help the poorer churches.Many bishops were shocked at the thought, and the ideacame to nothing.

“Sindona continued to operate with the aid of the Vatican.Like when, for instance, the head of the IOR [the Vatican’sInstitute for Religious Works], Bishop Marcinkus, suggested tohim that he should buy the Vatican’s interest in La CentraleFinanziaria Generale and resell it to the Banco Ambrosiano ofMilan, the focus of an impending scandal of the eighties.

“Or when Marcinkus convinced the pope to compel thePatriarch of Venice to sell his controlling interest in the BancaCattolica del Veneto, a local Venitian bank, to Sindona whothen resold it to the Banco Ambrosiano, where the Vaticanhad already substantial shares to partially control it.

“These, and similar operations, impressed not only theHead of Economic Affiairs for the Vatican, but also the popehimself. The latter was so satisfied with Sindona, that in one ofhis rare moments of enthusiasm he called Sindona his ‘veryown financial little fox.’ ”—Avro Manhattan, The Vatican Bil-lions, pp. 218-219.

13

Matters became more ominous in mid-1972. Therewas a bank in Venice called “the priest’s bank.” Churchworkers could there obtain low-interest loans; and,because the priests had confidence in it, many of thepeople put their money in that bank also. Over the yearsit had helped the priests and was making a profit. Manyworkers as well as the public had shares in its stock thatthey could sell when they became older.

But suddenly Luciani was besieged by priests andpeople who had lost their investments—and often mostof their life savings—through a bank swindle operationwhich involved selling their bank to an outside party, atimmense loss on their part.

What had happened? Luciani began investigating andlearned this: Since 1946, the Vatican Bank held a major-ity share (51 percent) in this bank in Venice (the BancaCattolica del Veneto). This bank, which had been doingwell financially, had only recently been secretly sold byPaul Marcinkus, president of the Vatican Bank, toRoberto Calvi, of the Banco Ambrosiano, in Milan.

(The official name of this financial structure is theIstituto per Opere di Religione [The Institute for Reli-gious Works], or the IOR. But, in order to simplify thispresentation, we will refer to it by its more common

- 3 -Luciani Discovers

Vatican BAnk

Luciani Discovers Vatican Bank

The Murder of Pope John Paul I14name: the Vatican Bank.)

But this operation involved still more. Marcinkus notonly secretly sold the bank without informing any of theVenetian shareholders, but the profit was almost entirelydivided between his Vatican Bank and a couple othermen (Calvi and Sindona; more on them later).

Luciani kept probing and learned far more. It wasclear that, somehow, Marcinkus had gained an almost-hypnotic control over Paul VI. Whatever Marcinkuswanted to do he went ahead and did, unhindered by thepope or Vatican officials. What was happening down inRome? Were high-level kickbacks being distributedthroughout Vatican officialdom?

It was to his close friend, Cardinal Benelli, thatLuciani went for his best information. Benelli was secondonly to Cardinal Villot in the Vatican Secretariat of State,and openly opposed to Marcinkus. (In 1977, Benelli wasto be maneuvered out of the Vatican, by his enemies, andmade cardinal of Florence.)

Paul Marcinkus, Roberto Calvi, and Michele Sindonaseemed to be at the heart of the problem. Regarding thatbank in Venice, the three of them had worked out anarrangement whereby Marcinkus quietly sold the bank toCalvi at a deliberately low price of 27 billion lire (US$46.5 million), and later profits from its resale were splitby Sindona, Calvi, and Marcinkus on behalf of theVatican Bank.

Benelli also told Luciani of Pacchetti (a companywhich was purchased by Sindona, then rigged so itsstock on the Milan exchange was criminally inflated andthen sold to Calvi) who then dumped the stock, makingimmense profits which were shared with Sindona andMarcinkus. That and other illegal business transactionswere successfully carried out only because Marcinkushad let them use his Vatican Bank facilities to mask thetransactions. Italian banking officials could not easilycheck into Vatican Bank transactions, since a special

15deal, worked out between Mussolini and the pope in1929 (the Treaty of the Lateran), made the Vatican aseparate nation.

Benelli counseled Luciani to have patience, sinceworkers such as themselves did not have the authority tostop these criminal activities—and Pope Pius VI refusedto do so. It was Benelli’s hope that eventually Italianbanking officials would catch and convict Marcinkus andhis associates.

The fact that Albino did not start an insurrection inVenice over the matter pleased the pope; and, in March1973, Paul VI made him a cardinal.

Two months later, in May, representatives of the FBIand U.S. Department of Justice went to Rome.

It all started back in New York City when a routineinvestigation uncovered something very unusual. A net-work of Mafia dons in the United States had produced apackage of $14.5 million in counterfeit American bonds.These had been sent to Rome in July 1971. The evidencewas clear enough that this package went to the VaticanBank. Someone in the Vatican had ordered millions infake bonds to be sent to them!

Because this was an international operation, both theFBI and Justice Department became involved in whatbegan as an investigation by New York City police.

Checking it out carefully, several more facts wereuncovered: (1) The $14.5 million shipment was only thedown payment on what would eventually total $950million in counterfeit bonds! (2) The shipment wasordered by Bishop Paul Marcinkus, head of the VaticanBank.

At that point in the investigation, Mario Foligni wasarrested and he confessed and told the investigators evenmore. He revealed this: (1) Earlier in Rome, he hadavoided arrest because of his Vatican connections. In oneinstance, the police opened his safe and found a signedblessing from Pope Paul VI, addressed to Foligni. Upon


The Murder of Pope John Paul I16reading it, the Italian police apologized and immediatelydeparted. (2) Foligni was the go-between that got LeopoldLedl, an Austrian, in contact with Marcinkus. Workingwith the Mafia, Ledl arranged with Marcinkus for the$950 million bond purchase. (3) The plan was for theVatican Bank to work through intermediaries to sell theworthless bonds, with the profits being divided: $485million going to the Mafia, a “commission” of $150 mil-lion going to the Vatican, and the profits from the bondalso going to the Vatican. These sale profits would beextensive, since the bonds had a face value of nearly $1billion! (4) The American Mafia could not believe that theVatican was willing to work with them on criminal finan-cial operations, until Ledl showed them signed lettersfrom the Vatican with Sacra Congregaziione DeiReligiosi on the letterhead. It was when some of thosedocuments got into New York City police hands thatWashington, D.C. was called in on the case. (5) Leadersin the Mafia were thrilled. Because the Vatican was anindependent nation inside another, it could pull off jobsthat no one else could do! All paper trails would stop atthe gates of the Vatican. No government, no police in theworld had the power to penetrate those gates—withoutdeclaring war on the Vatican! (6) In order to be sure thatthe procedure would work all right, Marcinkus arrangedfor two trial bond sales to be carried out; the first, inJuly 1971, for $1.5 million to the Handelsbank in Zur-ich and the second, in September, for $2.5 million at theBanco di Roma. Both sales went well.

Everything was going exactly as planned! The sup-posed U.S. bonds had been successfully processed byEuropean banks! Now it was time for the immense $950million swindle operation to be carried out.

But at this juncture a problem developed. Both theZurich and Rome banks had sent samples of the bondsto the Banker’s Association in New York City for routineexamination. The falsity of the bonds was quickly recog-

17nized.

That brings us back to our story. On April 25, 1973,William Lynch, chief of the Organized Crime and Rack-eteering Section of the U.S. Department of Justice (andhimself a dedicated Roman Catholic); William Aronwald,Assistant Strike Force Chief of the Southern District ofNew York; and two FBI agents (Biamonte and Tammaro)arrived in the Vatican and asked to speak with CardinalBenelli in the offices of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Benelli referred them to two of his aides, with whomthey discussed the entire problem, showing them theletterhead and some of the bonds. The next day theyspoke briefly with Marcinkus himself. But, beyond that,they accomplished nothing. The Vatican was an age-oldstone wall and, because it was a totally separate foreignnation, there was no way they could penetrate beyond theconversation level.

Theirs had been a delicate assignment, and theyapproached it with care. They had hoped for some re-sponse, indicating the matter would immediately be dealtwith. But they received only “we’ll pass the news along,”on the first day, and only unconcerned denials on thesecond.

They did, however, learn from Marcinkus himself, ashe sat before them puffing on a large cigar, that he hadsole and complete control of the Vatican Bank, directedall its activities, and was answerable only to the popehimself as to how he handled all financial matters. Hegave them that information, only as an introduction tohis defense that he “had enemies” in the Vatican whowanted to get him out, and they had probably set thisthing up to get him in trouble. New York and Washingtonauthorities had too many facts to buy that. By this time,Ledl had also been arrested and he had confirmed every-thing that Foligni said. In addition, there were thoseVatican documents and related data.

Foligni had also told the investigators that Marcinkus


The Murder of Pope John Paul I18needed the fake bonds so he and Sindona could pur-chase Bastogi, a giant Italian chemical, mining, andproperty corporation, based in Milan where Sindona hadhis offices.

In addition, the American investigators learned thatMarcinkus personally held massive amounts of money inprivate numbered accounts in the Bahamas, to which hemade deposits when he went on frequent vacation trips.Since 1971 he had been on the board of directors ofBanco Ambrosiano Overseas in Nassau (Bahamas),invited there by Sindona and Calvi. Because they coulduse Marcinkus’ name and Vatican Bank cover, both menhad made so much money on business deals that, ingratitude, they gave Marcinkus and the Vatican Bank 2.5percent of the Nassau bank stock. This was later raisedto 8 percent. Marcinkus was personally worth millions.

Back in Venice, Luciani continued to work with thepeople, trying to help them. On one occasion, a group ofyoung priests banded together in order to cause troubleover a Vatican-edicted doctrine. Luciani solved it bydischarging the two priests in the heart of it. The entiregroup immediately fell apart. This was one of Luciani’smethods: Eliminate a troublesome group by getting rid ofthe key men in it. He was later to try to use that samemethod in the Vatican—but, unfortunately, he was to tellsomeone about 18 hours too soon.

In 1974, Michele Sindona’s financial empire crashed;and with it several banks failed in Italy, Switzerland,Germany, and the United States. Large numbers ofpeople lost their life savings because of Sindona. TheItalian press reported that the Vatican Bank itself lostover $100 million. Having fled Europe, the Italian au-thorities sentenced him in absentia to prison; yet, at thattime and thereafter, Sindona continued on as a key figurein Vatican Bank transactions.

From the best that we can tell, earlier in his life whenhe was Archbishop Montini in Milan, Paul VI had met

19Michele Sindona, who had done something for him—giftsof money or something similar—which, through threat ofblackmail, had brought him under Sindona’s control.When he became pope, Sindona came into the Vatican asfinancial adviser; and Marcinkus, Paul’s personal aide,was placed in charge of the Vatican Bank. The rest ishistory.

Among knowledgeable Vatican observers, PaulMarcinkus was known as the “Gorilla,” and MicheleSindona the “shark.” Both got their start in the Vaticanin 1968, the same year that Paul VI decreed HumanaeVitae, the encyclical which turned most of the worldchurch against him.

Back in Venice, Luciani was trying to raise money fora school for handicapped youth that he had supportedfor several years. All Venice was shocked when he an-nounced that he was going to sell the treasures in theVenetian Cardinal’s office and put the money into thehandicapped school. This included diamonds, the bejew-eled cross and gold chain of Pius XII which Pope Johngave Luciani when he made him a bishop. He also in-tended to sell a chest cross and gold chain and ringbelonging to Pope John, which Paul VI had given him.

With his thoughts on what was happening inside theVatican, Luciani concluded that particular letter of an-nouncement with this quotation from Sandhu Singh:

“One day I was sitting on the banks of a river. I tookfrom the sand a round stone and I broke it. Inside, it wasperfectly dry. That stone had been lying in the water for avery long time but the water had not penetrated it. ThenI thought that the same thing happened to men in Eu-rope. For centuries they have been surrounded by Chris-tianity but Christianity has not penetrated, does not livewithin them.”

Luciani knew what so many other people in theCatholic Church did not know; he was biding his time . .waiting.



“Being a candidate in a papal election is per-haps the most unusual thing that can happen to aleader . . The fundamental rule is to stay out of thespotlight. Everything has to be said in velvety, allu-sive language, molded by centuries of diplomacy.People feel each other out in an arcane pas dedeux where they never mention the issues. Hya-cinth Thiandoum, the cardinal of Dakar, has de-scribed the meeting he had in a Roman Conventwith the Patriarch of Venice, Albino Luciani, just oneday before the opening of the August conclave.

“ ‘My Patriarch,’ Thiandoum said when supperwas over and the nuns were bringing in the coffee.

“ I am the patriarch of Venice,’ Luciani replied.“ ‘We’re waiting for you,’ the African cardinal

insisted.“ ‘That’s none of my business,’ the future pope

concluded.”—Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, HisHoliness: John Paul II and the Hidden History ofOur Time, pp. 157-158.

21

At 9:40 a.m. on Sunday, August 6, 1978, Pope Paul VIdied.

Hard-lined traditionalists in the Vatican had, duringPaul’s reign, done everything they could to stonewall hisefforts to carry out the liberalization decreed in theVatican II documents. Upon his death, they were deter-mined to get a hard-liner into office as the next pope.This minority in the Roman Curia, in one early meetingwith only 32 cardinals present, managed to get a maxi-mum time delay approved. It was agreed that the 111cardinals from around the world would not go into con-clave to elect the next pope until August 25, a delay of 21days—one day short of the maximum possible. Duringthat time, they hoped to win as many cardinals as pos-sible over to their side. But they found this much harderto do than they had at first expected.

During that interval, the press around the worldspeculated on who would probably be the next pope. Butthe guesses did not include Albino Luciani. The demandin Italy was for an “Italian pope,” but the cardinals out-side of Europe were more interested in finding someonewho was both kindly and more liberal,—and they did notexpect to find him in Italy. Before leaving Venice for theconclave, Luciani had decided he would vote for CardinalLorsheider, Archbishop of Fortaleza, Brazil, whom hehad spoken to at length several times in earlier years.Lorsheider was brilliant and deeply cared for the poor in

- 4 -The Conclave

The Conclave

The Murder of Pope John Paul I22the church. Unknown to Luciani, Lorsheider was deter-mined to gather votes to put Luciani into the papalthrone.

During those 21 days, a number of cardinals used themost interesting devices to attract attention to them-selves as the ones deserving the grand election. For hispart, Luciani had a different concern. His old car haddeveloped engine trouble; and he told the priest, whowas his personal secretary, to be sure and get it fixed asquickly as possible. As soon as the conclave was over, hewanted to get back to Venice right away, for there wasmuch to be done there.

On August 25, he wrote his niece, Pia, “Fortunately, Iam out of danger.” Thankful he would not have to be thenext pope, the next day Luciani went to the PaulineChapel in the Vatican. While there, the assembled 111cardinals held a mass and then followed the SistineChapel choir as it sang a hymn to the Holy Spirit. Walk-ing through the Sala Ducale, they entered the SistineChapel. All the choir members, media, and other non-cardinals were then asked to leave. The immense doorsslowly swung shut and the conclave began.

There just happened to be a heat wave in town, whichwas not surprising; for it was mid-August in Rome.Unfortunately the room the 111 men were in was sealed,and they roasted. Having learned much during his pon-tificate about Vatican subterfuge and deception severalyears before, Pope Paul VI had decreed three rules aboutforthcoming conclaves: (1) The room the cardinals wouldbe in must be totally sealed. (2) Men must be stationedoutside guarding the grounds lest someone, somehow,hear what was going on inside or send messages in orout. (3) No cardinal over 80 could be in the conclave tovote for the next pope.

During preliminary meetings before the conclavebegan, an angry attack on the over-80 rule was led byseveral older conservatives—all of which were hard-

23liners, but the cardinals voted to let stand Paul’s rules.Another problem was how the balloting paper would befolded during the conclave. Over one hour of discussionand debate was given over to whether the piece of papershould be folded once or twice. They finally voted that itneed be folded only once.

One hundred and eleven men, most of whom wereeither politicking for this man or that man, or trying todecide whose bandwagon to get on. It was more thanamusing; it was vicious as well. Exalting the name of oneman while verbally cutting down his possible rivals. Onand on it went.

As for Luciani from Venice, when mentioned at all,the conservatives said he didn’t amount to anything. Justa cardinal who had never traveled anywhere, knew noforeign languages, and didn’t know very much. In realityAlbino Luciani was fluent in German, French, Portu-guese, and English. He had many friends among cardi-nals around the world, and had traveled overseas. Hewas a close friend of Phillip Potter, secretary of the WorldCouncil of Churches, and also with Hans Kung, thenotorious Catholic liberal theologian who spent his timetelling the Vatican what was wrong with the Church.(Fortunately for him, few knew about his Kung friend-ship.)

The conclave had begun. It was Saturday morning,August 26, 1978, and time for the first ballot.

It is of interest that Wojtyla of Poland (later to becomePope John Paul II) received a few votes on the first ballot.But what was astounding—especially to Luciani—wasthat he himself had received the second highest numberof votes—and on the first ballot! (Siri 25, Luciani 23,Pignedoli 18, Lorscheider 12, Baggio 9, etc.).

Benelli, Suenens, Marty, and others had quietly net-worked cardinals from all over the world to vote forLuciani. And yet, up to the counting of the first ballot,Luciani knew nothing of it. Even Wojtyla, of Cracow, was

The Conclave

The Murder of Pope John Paul I24in the Luciani voting caucus.

The second ballot was Siri 35, Luciani 30, Pignedoli15, Lorscheider 12, with the rest mixed here and there.

The voting cards from the first two ballots were thenburned. The smoke went up the chimney; but, since ithad not been cleaned for years, the smoke went backdown into the sealed room—and the choking men had tothrow open the doors and rush out into the temporarycanteen while outside doors were opened to clear the airinside the Sistine Chapel. Paul VI would have been un-happy; his rule was being violated.

It was now time for lunch, and Luciani only picked athis food. He was worried. But he was also thinking.During the two-hour lunch break, the cardinals werebusy holding caucuses, buttonholing fellow cardinals andwinning them over. The foreigners wanted an overseaspope, but knew they could not get one; it was not likelythey would vote in Lorscheider. All the possibilities wereconsidered, and it was clear that Luciani was the bestsolution.

In contrast, the rightists saw they could not get Sirielected, so they decided that Luciani would be best be-cause they could probably control him after he becamepope. He seemed like such a simple, modest soul. Butthere were those who objected. They said that Lucianiwas more like Pope John than anyone else! Those menwere right.

Luciani himself went to his room and prayed. Histhoughts now were what he should do if he were elected.All he had ever wanted was to be a parish priest, and hewas on the verge of becoming the most powerful man inthe Roman Catholic Church.

It works that way sometimes. The electors fear themen who want the job and search for the man moreconcerned for upholding principles than holding on toany job.

At 4 p.m., the cardinals went back to the Sistine

25Chapel. The smoke was gone, and the beautiful paintingsby Michelangelo did not look too smudged. It was timefor the third ballot:

Luciani 68, Siri 15, Pignedoli 10. The remaining 18votes were scattered. That was it. Albino Luciani waswithin 7 votes of the papacy.

Tension arose as the fourth ballot was taken:Luciani 99, Siri 11, Lorscheider 1 (Luciani’s vote). It

was 6:05 p.m. Immense applause filled the room. Achapel door opened and Cardinal Jean Villot, VaticanSecretary of State, entered. Walking over to Luciani, hespoke in a tone to be heard throughout the room: “Doyou accept your canonical election as supreme pontiff?”

The Conclave

“He chose his own papal name, John Paul, in honorof John XXIII, who made him bishop, and Paul VI, whomade him cardinal . . The “Smiling Pope,” as he wascalled, offended nobody but was nobody’s man, appar-ently. The perfect compromise [between contendingpapal factions].”—Malachi Martin, The Keys of this Blood,p. 610.

“The almost instant election of Pope John Paul I onAugust 26 seemed a genuine miracle, though it hadbackstage asistance from the powerful curial CardinalsSebastiano Baggio and Pericle Felici. In barely four bal-lots a compromise had been worked out between themost reform-minded cardinals, who wanted a ‘pasto-ral’ pope unfettered by the curial power structure, andmore tradition-inclined cardinals, who demanded ab-solute guarantees of orthodoxy. Albino Luciani, the pa-triarch of Venice, had been the ideal man for such atrade-off.”—Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness:John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time, p. 155.


Luciani did accept. When asked what his new namewould be, he smiled and said, “John Paul the First.”

From this point onward, everything that the new popedid seemed to be different. Never before in papal historyhad a pope chosen two names, and never had one calledhimself “the first.” He apparently wished to combine thebest traits of both Pope John XXIII and Paul VI, andperhaps those of the Biblical John and Paul as well.

Now the burning of the ballots must take place and achemical was added which would turn the smoke white,indicating to the waiting crowd in the square of St.Peter’s Church nearby that a new pope had been chosen.By now the chimney had been cleaned, but the chemicaldid not work right. White smoke came out, which quicklyturned dark, and then a dull gray. Everyone outside waspuzzled. At 7:18 p.m., the new pope appeared on thebalcony. The loudspeakers sounded everywhere: “I bringyou news of great joy! We have a Pope!”

Most of the people did not recognize him, but theysaw that kindly smile and were deeply impressed by it.

It was Saturday, August 26, 1978.The next morning, August 27, marked the first day of

his reign. The new pope gathered the cardinals togetherfor a thanksgiving mass. Villot, the Secretary of State,and one of the old guard at the Vatican had thoughtfullybrought a prepared speech for the new puppet pope tointone. But, as he would do throughout his papacy,

- 5 -A New Pope

27Luciani waved it aside and gave his own. With no notes,he said that he would stand by the teachings of VaticanII, that he wanted to share power with the bishops, revisethe two codes of canon law, and pursue union with otherdenominations. —All that in one speech, and only thefirst day of his pontificate! A shudder went through theold guard.

At noon the new pope went out on the balcony of thebasilica, as he had done the day before. Below him were200,000 people in St. Peter’s square. He spoke to themas a smiling, warm friend.

That evening he had supper with Cardinal Jean Villotand asked him to continue, at least for a while, as secre-tary of state. He had also decided to keep all the oldVatican officials in office for a time. That decision regard-ing Villot and his Vatican henchmen was to become thebiggest mistake of Albino Luciani’s life.

That same evening, he instructed Villot to immedi-ately begin an investigation into the Vatican Bank andthe entire financial operations of the Vatican. That was tobe another mistake; frankly, an even bigger one! Lucianishould have waited until the old guard were out and newmen—his men—were in power in the Vatican.

Thus ended his first day.On the fifth day of his reign (August 31), Italy’s lead-

ing economic journal, Il Mondo, published an open letterto the new pope, which discussed the scandals about theVatican Bank, so well-known in Rome, and askedwhether he was going to do anything about it.

One can hardly grasp the immensity of the problemthat Luciani faced. He was willing to take on—frankly,single-handedly to begin with—the corruption within theVatican. That corruption was massive, many-headed, andthoroughly entrenched.

But most dangerous of all was the financial corrup-tion. To simplify matters, we will here only overview thefinancial wheeling and dealing. Only the briefest of out-

A New Pope

The Murder of Pope John Paul I28lines can be given. To say much more would require asmall book of detailed analyses. Entire books have beenwritten on this subject, and we would refer you to themfor more information. Avro Manhatten’s books are excel-lent, also David Yallop’s landmark, In God’s Name.(Bantam Books, 1984).

In order to properly evaluate the great danger inwhich Luciani was placing his life by his determinationto investigate fully and clean up Vatican finances, weshould be aware of at least a bare minimum of facts. Inthe next chapter, we will consider these.

“It seems likely that, apart from the transfer offunds to aid Solidarity and other Vatican venturessuch as those in El Salvador and Nicaragua, alsoemerging [in the Italian Government financial in-vestigations] will be the Vatican Bank’s close deal-ings with the Mafia, centering around the colorfulformer drugs racketeer, Michele Sindona, closefriend of Pope Paul VI, and with the P2 MasonicLodge Grand Master Lucio Gelli. The P2 Lodge con-nection is deeply embarrassing to the RomanChurch. The influential P2, regarded by mainstreamFreemasonry as something of a renegade, wasexpelled from Italian Masonry three years beforethe scandal broke. How was it then that the Vaticanwas so deeply involved with it?”—Michael de Sem-lyen, All Roads Lead to Rome? p. 72.

29

When Mussolini and the pope signed the LateranTreaty in 1929, giving 108.7 acres of land to the papacyas a separate nation (Vatican City), Mussolini also gavethe pope 750 million lire and millions in Italian Statebonds. At that time worth $81 million, it would today beworth closer to $500 million.

Mussolini did all this to ensure full cooperation bythe Vatican with his fascist programs. Four years later, in1933, the Vatican concluded a second major treaty, thisone with Hitler. As a result, money flowed to the Vaticanthrough the German “church tax” (Kirchensteuer, whichthe German government continues to pay today). Thatsecond treaty assured quiet Catholic support to Hitler’sNazi Party activities. Both rulers solemnly assured PopePius XI that, by the extension of their borders, theywould bring all Europe under Catholic control. It is ofinterest that no pope ever excommunicated either of theChurch’s two sons, Hitler and Mussolini. (Even Hitler’sinvasion of Catholic Poland was never condemned.)

The Vatican put this inflow of money into a widevariety of investments, which produced large profits. Partof the profit came from the fact that the Church carednot what the investments might be: stocks in munition

- 6 -The VaticanFinanciers

The Vatican Financiers

The Murder of Pope John Paul I30factories or birth-control devices; Protestant, Muslim, oratheist business firms. All that mattered was profit.Millions in gold bars were purchased from the U.S. at$35 an ounce and then re-sold overseas for enormousprofits.

But, to avoid paying taxes on those profits, it wasinvested by the Vatican through new, tax-exempt “ecclesi-astical corporations.” In 1942, the Mussolini’s Italiangovernment confirmed that such a tax-exempt statuswould apply to Vatican stock dividends. The Vatican hadbecome the biggest tax shelter in Italy! Properties andcorporations all over the world invested in it.

But, after Mussolini’s time, the Italian governmentgradually tried to begin taxing Vatican profits. Disputesabout this continued on for years with, at one point(June 1964), the Vatican threatening to dump all itsstock shares all at once onto the Italian market—whichwould bankrupt the nation! This separate governmentwas using the investment and banking system of all Italyto rake in huge profits which were carried into theVatican State. Yet it wanted to pay the Italian governmentnothing in taxes. This finally brought the Vatican tosomething of a crisis in 1969, when it was clear that theVatican had lost the battle to avoid paying Italian taxesfor what it was doing in Italy.

It was seen that money and holdings needed to bemoved out of Italy, even though such a massive exodus offunds might ruin the country. The Vatican cared not forthe welfare of the citizens of its parent nation; it was themoney it was after.

There is an organization which, the Bible says, seeksto change the laws of God. History reveals that it caresnot for the laws of men either.

Someone was needed in the Vatican to oversee theseand other problems, and Paul Marcinkus was selected asthe man to lead out in doing it. A Chicago boy,Marcinkus was to become the most powerful American

31in the Vatican. Six-foot-three, with great physicalstrength, the young priest had been sent to Rome byCardinal Stritch, since Marcinkus was fluent in threelanguages: English, Spanish, and Italian. Stritch thoughthe could be of help to the Vatican. The short, thin littlePope Paul VI was impressed with him, and Marcinkusbecame his personal translator and bodyguard.

The Vatican Financiers

“The involvement of leading members of the Ro-man Curia in secret societies, including P2 and theother Masonic Lodges, was revealed to Pope JohnPaul I, by the Italian newsagency L-OsservatorePolitico, shortly before his untimely and mysteriousdeath in September 1978.”—Michael de Semlyen,All Roads Lead to Rome? p. 73.

“According to the Sunday Observer, it [the BancoAmbrosiano fraud trial] will throw light on how a stag-gering 800 million lire vanished leading to the worstbank crash in post-war Europe: ‘How deeply wasthe Holy See and its Polish Pope [John Paul II] in-volved, and why State investigators now believe thatnearly 100 million lire was smuggled into Warsawto help the Solidarity struggle and this is certain tobe raised at the trial.’ ”—Michael de Semlyen, AllRoads Lead to Rome? p. 72.


Casting about for someone to manage their giganticbank, the cigar-chewing Marcinkus was placed in chargeof the Vatican Bank by Paul VI In 1967, even though heprotestingly admitted, “I know absolutely nothing aboutbanking!” Fortunately, the pope gave him friends to teachhim.

Throughout his life, Giovanni Montini was the type torely heavily on his friends to solve his problems. If youremember that sentence, you can understand Paul VI.Before becoming Pope Paul VI, Montini had been arch-bishop of Milan. While in Milan he made a number ofnew friends; and, when he was elected pope, he took asizeable group of them to Rome, there to become finan-cial advisers and workers in the Vatican Bank and lead-ers in the Curia. (The quietly expressed nickname theywere to acquire among knowledgeable Romans was “theMilan Mafia.” As we shall soon learn, the term had a lotof substance to it.)

One was a priest, Pasquale Macchi. Macchi thereafterworked in the Vatican Banks and, although his namedoes not surface very often, he was one of the men super-vising the large number of illegal business transactionsthat later occurred.

Another man was Michele Sindona. Born in Sicily,Sindona had three special qualities: (1) An excellant

- 7 -Investments by

the Holy Day

33ability to work with, and shuffle around, numbers andmoney. (2) Close friends in the Mafia (the real Mafia!Sindona was Sicilian as they were; this made for closeworking relationships). (3) A remarkable capacity forinventing new types of financial crime.

In 1959, Sindona gave Montini some money to helpon a church project. (The money is now known to havecome from a Mafia fund.) From that time onward,Montini leaned on him as a key financial assistant. WhenMontini became Pope Paul VI, he continued to look toSindona as the man who could suggest solutions to thosein charge of the Vatican Bank.

A third man was Roberto Calvi. He had been intro-duced to Marcinkus by Sindona in 1971. These two menbecame the primary tutors of the man who had admittedhis ignorance of banking procedures.

Three others were Massimo Spada, administrativesecretary to the Vatican Bank; Luigi Mennini, secretary-inspector of the Vatican Bank; and Carlo Bordani.

These were the uomini di fiducia (men of trust) se-lected by Paul VI, to advise and manage the affairs of theVatican Bank.

One other man who would soon after enter the pic-ture was Licio Gelli. Introduced through CardinalBertoli, Gelli became good friends with Marcinkus andhad a number of audiences with Paul VI. Gelli was amaster of blackmail; and, through a secret society whichhe organized, called P2, he gained control over 2,500 topbusiness, political, and church leaders in Italy alone andthousands more throughout Europe and South America.He used his contacts to aid him in a number of unsavoryobjectives.

As soon as Marcinkus was placed in charge of theVatican Bank, the pope, conferring with the now CardinalSergio Guerri, decided to unload from the Italian portfo-lio a major asset: the Vatican’s share in the giant SocietaGeneral Immobiliare, which was the largest concrete and

Investments by the Holy Day

The Murder of Pope John Paul I34construction firm in Italy. But that was only to be a start;much more activity was needed.

They sent for Sindona; it was felt that only he couldsolve their financial puzzles and give wise counsel as tohow best the Vatican Bank should invest its monies. SoMichele Sindona, already head of a Mafia-infested net-work of criminal business operations in Italy and Swit-zerland, kindly offered to solve their problems.

Here is a quick, quick glance at some of what fol-lowed. To say too much would be to write a book, to saytoo little would be confusing to understand. The problemin the following presentation will be to say just enough togive you an indication of all that was far deeper: a crimi-nal financial operation that spread its tentacles world-wide! And all of it was possible only because Marcinkusand his associates would permit the Vatican Bank to beused as a cover. Any financial deal worked through theVatican Bank instantly became safe, since Vatican Statewas an independent nation and no investigators any-where could penetrate financial crime in another nationwithout that nation’s governmental permission.

Yes, it is true that investigators might be sent to prowlaround through another country in the hope of ferretingout facts,—but how do you do it when the nation is only108.7 acres in size, guarded by gates and walls on allsides, and the smallest independent state in the world!

Using his connections with the Vatican Bank to im-press businessmen and financiers, Sindona borrowedmoney and bought banks. Why banks? It is an intriguingfact that the easiest way to rob a bank is to buy it. Thatis the great truth that the crooks in America in the 1980slearned in the 1960s and 1970s from the Vatican.

Then, after buying it, use the bank for a variety ofcriminal activities. Associates of the Vatican Bank didthis so flagrantly—and successfully—in nearly a dozennations from the late 1960s onward, that Americansfinally caught on to the same techniques. The S&L (Sav-

35ings and Loans) and bank scandals of the 1980s fol-lowed. The Vatican techniques had been learned well.

Working through Spada and Marcinkus at the VaticanBank, Sindona was soon sitting on the boards of 21banks and companies. His initial co-sponsors and co-owners included the Gambino and Inzerillo families inthe Mafia. The CIA file on Sindona was later to revealthat, through his Gambino connections, Sindona wasinvolved with four other Mafia families: Colombo,Bonanno, Lucchese, and Genovese. But, without VaticanBank cover for his operations he could not have had thesuccess he had. The Vatican Bank needed him because ofhis genius with numbers; the Mafia needed him becauseof Paul VI’s dependent relationship to him.

In February 1965, Sindona started an internationalbrokerage house, Moneyrex. The records were rewrittenso that most of the profits were not reported for taxpurposes. In Sindona’s banks, massive theft occurred.The staff transferred money from the depositors, withouttheir knowledge, into the Vatican Bank. None of thiscould have been done without Vatican awareness of whatwas taking place. More than mere knowledge, we havehere active cooperation! The Vatican Bank took out 15percent commission on the money passing through, andthen transferred the money back to Sindona’s account athis Finabank in Geneva.

Gigantic stock market speculations were carried on;the profits went to Sindona through Vatican Bank andthe losses to the depositors of Liberfinco, anotherSindona Swiss bank.

In those instances in which the sickening processseemed too much for Sindona’s assistants, blackmailwas applied and they would be threatened with exposureand arrest if they tried to get out. The few who did nothenceforth give their hearty cooperation were rubbedout.

Sindona was a genius at solving problems. His solu-


The Murder of Pope John Paul I36tions involved complex financial manipulations whichare difficult to grasp, yet were generally successful,always criminal, and usually involved Vatican Bank coverat some point in the transactions.

Vatican Bank became a wonderful wringer washer.Documents, purchases, sales, invoices, contracts, anddeeds could be sent into Vatican State, and then comeback out freshly laundered. Washed, ironed, and folded,they were ready for Sindona and Mafia use again.

Sindona operated a network for the illegal flight ofcurrency from his Italian banks, through the VaticanBank to Swiss banks they jointly owned.

From 1968 onward, the Vatican Bank’s partners,Sindona and Calvi, so controlled the Milan Stock Ex-change that they regularly drove the stock prices up anddown at will, so they could collect through the buyingand selling of shares.

It was through Sindona, Calvi, Spada, and Marcinkusworking together that the Banca Cattolica del Veneto(the “priest’s bank” in Venice, mentioned earlier) wassold to Calvi for $46.5 million. At the same time, theMilan stock market was conveniently moved around sothe sale price of that bank would be unrealistic. So muchprofit was made on that particular deal that Sindonapaid Calvi and Marcinkus an illegal kickback of $6.5million, which they shared 50-50. Yet, through Sindona’smagic ways with numbers, it all looked like a sales lossso the Venetian stockholders would be on the losing end.

Another Sindona/Vatican Bank criminal techniquewas double invoicing. Goods exported out of Italy wouldbe invoiced at costs far below what they really were. Acopy of this bogus invoice would be given to the Bank ofItaly, which would pass it on to Italian Department ofRevenue, which would then charge Sindona/Vatican Banka very low export tax. Profits from this were large, al-though not as immense as the bank raids and stock andbond swindles.

37Imported items were given false invoices showing

much higher costs than the actual figure. Payment of theinflated amount would be made to the foreign companywhich sent the excess amount to a bank in Switzerland,owned by Sindona/Vatican Bank. In this way, extramoney could be gotten out of Italy.

On all these illegal transactions, large kickback “com-missions” were regularly paid to the Vatican Bank. Why?Because the transactions were illegal! If they had beenlegal, Sindona would not have needed to carry them outthrough the Vatican Bank. Ironically, if the man had beenhonest he could have become a millionaire honestly! Butinstead, he enjoyed the excitement of crime.

May the same be said for the men leading out in theVatican Bank?

Another Sindona/Vatican Bank technique was briberycarried on by Sindona. He called bribes “investments,”and leading political officials throughout Italy werebribed to look the other way. Sindona boasted that he“financed” the ruling Italian party, the Christian Demo-crats. At the same time, money was given to keep on thegood side of the Italian Communist Party, in case itmight someday win a national election!

We earlier mentioned the $1 billion counterfeit securi-ties deal, worked out by Marcinkus and Sindona, whichthe U.S. government investigated and ended in April1973; so we will again discuss them here.

Illegal dealings on the New York and American StockExchanges were carried on, as well as operations inseveral of the major European exchanges. Sindona’steam would carry it out, with kickbacks to the VaticanBank, through whom it was covered.

In the U.S., Sindona bought the Franklin NationalBank, the 20th largest bank in the nation. He immedi-ately applied his numbers wizardry to its deposits.Franklin National was to become the first U.S. banksince the 1930s depression to collapse (which it did on


The Murder of Pope John Paul I38October 8, 1974). It was the biggest bank failure in U.S.history up to that time. Before it went down, over $2billion in federal funds from the National Reserve wasdumped into it, in a last-ditch effort to save it.

From October 1974 to January 1975, four Sindona-controlled or linked banks in Switzerland or Germanyfailed.

Calvi, introduced to Marcinkus by Sindona in 1971,joined the select group of Vatican Bank uomini di fiducia(men of trust). Also using the Vatican Bank as a cover,Calvi formed a shell company in Luxembourg, calledCompendium, and then conned over 250 banks world-wide into lending money to it. Over $450 million was toflow through it.

Soon Calvi owned two important banks used to laun-der money obtained illegally: a bank in Lugano, Switzer-land (Banca del Gottardo), and Banco AmbrosianoOverseas, in Nassau, Bahamas. From the beginning, PaulMarcinkus sat on its board of directors. Marcinkusregularly flew there for vacations and deposited largeamounts of money into private-numbered accounts inthat bank. This Nassau bank became very important andbecame the final resting place for billions of dollars,illegally acquired for the personal savings of certain men.

Throughout all this time, Calvi’s Banco Ambrosianoin Milan, Italy, and the Vatican Bank had interlockingdirectorates. Many of the biggest operations were jointlyconducted, to provide Vatican cover for criminal activi-ties.

Using the Vatican Bank to cover for him, Calvi wouldbuy stock shares, resell them to themselves at differentprices, and sell them again on the open market. Im-mense profits were realized which could not be tracedbeyond the outer walls of Vatican City. Italian bank in-spectors could not penetrate those walls.

In 1975 it appeared that Calvi’s bank, in Milan, mightsoon go under. But creditor-confidence was quickly

39restored by the fact that a certain finance house(Teclefin) showed such confidence in Calvi’s BancoAmbrosiano (Bank of St. Ambrose), that for four years(1975-1978) it repeatedly bought shares in that bank—$50 million worth, or 15 percent of the bank. Surely, ifone upstanding finance house should have that muchconfidence in it, then everyone else ought to be able toalso. Teclefin apparently knew something they didn’t.

In reality, Teclefin was owned by two Liechtensteincompanies, which were owned by the Vatican Bank. Whatwas really happening was that Calvi was making a showof confidence by giving money to himself! This VaticanBank-assisted deceit helped restore creditor confidencefor a time, but ultimately the investors lost all they hadwhen the bank collapsed. If they had only known it,those Catholic investors had the Vatican Bank to thankfor their miseries.

But, by 1978, Calvi was having a difficult time tryingto save that Milan bank while satisfying the VaticanBank, his Mafia associates, and Gelli’s P2 accounts.

In January 1975, authorities in the U.S. Departmentof Justice wanted to extradite Sindona to America tostand trial for fraudulent activities. A routine inquiry foradditional information was sent to Milan, which provideda 200-page report on Sindona. It was sent on to theMinistry of Justice, in Rome, which refused to send it tothe United States. Although having one of the largesttranslation departments in Italy, they said they did nothave time or enough staff to translate it into English!Gelli’s P2 blackmail connections were paying off.

Sindona and Calvi were supporting them all, VaticanBank was providing cover, the Mafia gave the seedmoney, and Gelli blackmailed the officials.

But not all the officials were dishonest. In April 1978,officers from the Bank of Italy began an investigationinto Calvi’s fraudulent Banco Ambrosiano activities. Thiscaused its bank shares to drop in value. A solution was


The Murder of Pope John Paul I40needed quickly, or Vatican Bank involvement in Calvi’sdishonest practices would be exposed. Sindona, in NewYork, was also deeply involved. Only Marcinkus couldsave them now. He conveniently gave them a letter toplace in the bank’s files, dated several years earlier,which indicated that a South American company wasresponsible.

Relieved, Calvi went to South America on a vacation.Later, on January 29, 1979, Emilio Allessandrini, aMilan magistrate was murdered soon after he opened anew investigation into Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano.

Earlier, in 1974, a Lugano bank (Banca del Gottardo)with majority shares owned by the Vatican Bank, showedindications of mismanagement and misuse of investorfunds. Bank officials conveniently blamed the DeputyManager, Mario Tronconi. Shortly afterward he wasfound “suicided.”

In order to protect the Vatican Bank, more murderswould follow in later years.

“The Milan verdict has brought blunt accusations of com-plicity in Calvi’s murder leveled at Marcinkus by Calvi’swidow, who claims that her husband had told her shortlybefore his death: ‘The priests want me dead.’ Marcinkusresigned as head of the Vatican Bank, but remained underthe pope’s [John Paul II’s] protection and enjoyed Vaticanimmunity. Attempts by the Italian authorities to put him ontrial with the others accused of fraud were brushed asideby the Vatican; the Pope simply refused to hand him over.”—Michael de Semlyen, All Roads Lead to Rome? p. 72.

41

It was now Sunday, August 27, 1978, the first day ofhis papacy, Albino Luciani set to work. He instructedCardinal Villot, Vatican Secretary of State, to begin animmediate investigation of every financial operation ofthe Vatican. Nothing was to be excluded.

In addition, he was hinting at major reforms on anumber of other issues—both doctrines and practices—in the Roman Catholic Church.

There was no doubt that he was the only person inthe world able to do it. The problem was that there wasonly one thing his enemies could do to stop him.

When Pope John Paul I decided to reform the Vaticanfinances, it should be understood that it had two banks,not one. We have discussed the Vatican Bank. The otherone was APSA (the Administration of the Patrimony ofthe Holy See) and its president, Cardinal Villot.

Funds flowed into this second bank from “Peter’sPence” (money from around the world to ostensibly helpthe impoverished pope and the Vatican staff) and otherdonations from the faithful.

This second bank had two departments: the Ordinaryand Extraordinary Sections. The Ordinary Sectionmanaged the real estate of the papacy and its donationincome. Did you know that the Roman Catholic Church

- 8 -The Thirty-three

days begin

The Thirty-Three Days Begin

The Murder of Pope John Paul I42is the biggest real estate owner in the world?

The Extraordinary Section poured money into stockmarket speculations, and regularly made and lost mil-lions. Specializing in the currency market, it workedclosely with Credit Suisse and the Societe de BanqueSuisse. Irregularities found during the forthcomingmandated investigation of this second bank would bedirectly chargeable to Cardinal Villot.

The Vatican Bank itself (officially called the Istitutoper le Opere di Religione [the Institute for ReligiousWorks] or IOR) had over 11,000 separate accounts. Butfor what purposes was that money used? Not much of itwent for “religious works.” Here are the facts: Only aboutone out of eleven of those accounts actually were used forthe church. The rest formed one gigantic slush fund for avariety of individuals! Out of 11,000 accounts, 1,047belonged to religious orders and institutes, 312 to par-ishes, and 290 to dioceses. All the rest—totaling 9,351—belonged to Catholic officials, privileged people such aspolitical figures and men who, for one reason or theother, were considered important. This includedSindona, Calvi, Gelli, and similar personalities. Mem-bers of the inner Mafia may well have been representedin those accounts. One also wonders whether the incom-ing money was equally divided among all the accounts.

We have seen where the corrupt money came from,and now we have discovered where it was going to.

But now, the 33 days had begun! We must get on withour story:

On August 28, 1978 (Day Two), this new pope an-nounced to the world that he would not be coronated! Herefused to have the papal crown placed on his head! Infact, the papal chair used to bring a new pope to theplace of coronation would not be used either! Thisstrange new pope refused to become the king of theCatholics! No ostrich feathers; no six-hour ceremony;what did it all mean? Vatican City was in turmoil. Four

43long hours officials of the Curia pled with him to changehis mind, but he was too strong-minded—too prin-cipled—to change.

Too many poor people were outside the gates suffer-ing, for Albino Luciani to have a gold crown put on hishead. Instead, he simply walked up to the place where hewas officially made Pope John Paul I.

He who will walk on his own two feet, refuse theapplause, and stand for principle because it is right willthe more likely continue to stand for it thereafter. Butsuch noble characteristics will make him hated by thosetoo fearful of men to live the same way.

When men permit others to applaud them, they arebecoming captive to their applauders; for they are accus-toming themselves to give those people that which willcontinue to receive more of that adulation. When menclimb onto the sedia gestatoria, or palanquin, andpermit others to carry them about on their shoulders,they become indebted to do that which will keep themborne about by men.

On that occasion, in a statement made to diplomatsfrom all over the world who had been delegated to repre-sent their nations at the Vatican, the new pope spoke asif his church was a humble organization and would notbe interfering in the affairs of nations, but would berespectfully subservient to other governments!

“We have no temporal goods to exchange, no eco-nomic interests to discuss. Our possibilities for interven-tion are specific and limited and of a special character.They do not interfere with purely temporal, technical,and political affairs, which are matters for your govern-ments.

“In this way, our diplomatic missions to your highestcivil authorities, far from being a survival of the past, area witness to our deep-seated respect for lawful temporalpower, and to our lively interest in the humane causesthat the temporal power is intended to advance.”


The Murder of Pope John Paul I44(1) He had told the diplomatic corps that the Vatican

renounced all claims to temporal power.(2) The Roman Curia had about 3,000 people work-

ing in it. It wielded great power, but the new pope statedthat the power of the papacy should be shared by thepope with the bishops throughout the world, and that theCuria should only carry out their combined decisions.

For both decisions he was hated by the hard-liners.Earlier in his career, Albino Luciani had written

statements which did not agree with official Romanteaching. The Curia quietly sent men to the GregorianUniversity where he earlier studied and to Venice,Vittorio Veneto, and Bulluno where he worked; and theyremoved all notes and papers he had produced whichwere out-of-line with official teachings. They probablyhoped to control his future statements in the Vatican,and they wanted to eliminate anything contrary to thatwritten elsewhere.

Each Wednesday, the new pope gave a speech, whichwas recorded. In addition, he spoke with various groupson special occasions. Luciani’s speeches during his reignfollowed this pattern: The Vatican would carefully writeeach one, then hand him a copy the day before it was tobe given. He would ignore the copy and give a spontane-ous speech, generally without notes. The copy written bythe Vatican would then be published in the Vatican news-paper, L’Osservatore Romano (The Roman Observer), asthe speech which he had delivered. The L’OsservatoreRomano was guilty of publishing “lying reports.” Theobjective was to carefully censor everything Luciani saidand did, so the world would only receive the staid, for-mal Vatican position. His speeches received similartreatment over Vatican Radio.

They wanted him to be a prisoner of the VaticanCuria, the condition that Pope Paul VI had rapidly degen-erated into. But, although modest in his bearing andsimple in his habits, Luciani had a keen intellect, an

45unusual grasp of church and world affairs, and a power-ful will.

He also brought no entourage with him into theVatican, as Paul VI did when he came from Milan, accom-panied by Mafia agents and other hangers-on. Lucianicame alone, and the task he faced was not an easy one.In his work he would have to withstand nearly the wholeCuria until he could get the old guard moved out andfresh, new helpers moved in. But would the Curia bewilling to patiently wait till they were kicked out?

Who can have the wisdom to have solved Luciani’sproblems? They were legion. Yet the present writer willdare to suggest one solution: Luciani should have dis-cussed his plans with no one until he had placed his ownpicked confidants in power. Not until then should hehave started his reform-minded comments and investiga-tions.

In clear-cut statements made to friends, AlbinoLuciani stated his conviction that he must emulate the“first hundred days” of the reign of John XXIII. Sweepingreforms must be instituted, and they must all beginrapidly within little more than three months’ time.John’s announcement to call Vatican II into session wasmade only 89 days after his election.

A major problem faced by the entrenched was thevariety of doctrinal changes that the new pope clearlyintended to make. One was birth control. Paul VI haddecided against it in his Humanae Vitae. To RomanCatholics this has been a topic of crucial importance.Luciani clearly stated his intention to reverse Paul VI’sposition on the subject.

On Tuesday, September 19 (Luciani’s 24th day), hedetailed his reasons why this change must be made, in a45-minute conversation with Villot.

He had already accepted an invitation to meet in theVatican on October 24 with a delegation from the U.S.government on population control. That appointment


The Murder of Pope John Paul I46frightened the Curia deeply. Why did the U.S. governmentwant to confer with the new pope? The Roman CatholicChurch controlled the minds of over 18 percent of theworld population; and, under the old plan of the Church,that 18 percent needed to keep expanding, since it wasnearly the sole means by which the church seemed ableto enlarge itself. But what would be the position of thenew pope on this important matter?

Soon a gambling lottery got started within the officesof Vatican workers. Someone was sure to make moneyon this one. The wager turned on this question: “On whatday would Marcinkus be formally removed from office?”Money was being placed, and events were being watchedclosely.

But the more ominous question was not being wa-gered: When will it be my turn next? This was a realproblem, for so many were implicated in activities thenew pope wanted to change.

Cardinal Giovanni Benelli had consistently been onLuciani’s side, and he knew much that had been goingon. Personal calls from the pope’s office phone to Benelliand a select few others by the new pope yielded muchinformation. The present writer cannot help wonderingwhether his line was bugged. It would not have beendifficult to do, and there were men in the Vatican whowould not have hesitated to do such a thing.

It is known that members of the secret organization,P2, kept Licio Gelli in Buenos Aires informed of develop-ments in the Vatican. Through him Roberto Calvi, alsotraveling overseas “for his health,” learned of Luciani’srock-hard determination to clean up the papacy.

On Tuesday, September 12 (the 17th day), AlbinoLuciani found some sheets of paper laid in his apartmentfor his inspection. A disgruntled former P2 member,Mino Pecorelli, had begun a limited-circulation newslet-ter with highly sensitive information, which time gener-ally revealed to be very accurate. On these latest papers,

47was to be found a list of 121 members of MasonicLodges. Most of those on that list were cardinals, bish-ops, and members of the Curia! To a Protestant, suchinformation would matter little; but, to a conservativeCatholic, it would indicate men who placed their ownobjectives before Catholic creedal ones. Alerted, Lucianiset to work to verify the list, and 14 days later his check-ing was completed.

For example, the Masonic name and data on CardinalVillot was Jeanni, lodge number 041/3, enrolled in aZurich lodge on August 6, 1966. Similar data was avail-able for Marcinkus and a surprisingly wide range ofother leading Catholic officials throughout Italy, Europe,and elsewhere.

On their junket through the large cities of SouthAmerica, Calvi and Gelli discussed each new item ofinformation fed them by associates in the Curia. Calvihad already stolen over $400 million. Gelli and Sindonawere deeply involved also. In New York City, Sindona wasreceiving reports also. He had been in a four-year battleto fight extradition to Italy, and was paying lawyers mil-lions to keep fighting the extradition papers filed againsthim. All three men would be in serious trouble ifLuciani’s plans were carried out.

When the foreign minister, Monsignor AgostinoCasaroli, came to the new pope with seven questionsconcerning the Church’s relationship with various East-ern European countries, Luciani immediately told himwhat to do on five of them, and said he needed a littletime to think about the rest. Gasaroli went away as-tounded. When asked, “Were they the correct solutions?”the prelate replied, “In my view, totally. It would havetaken me a year to get those responses from Paul.”

At this point, it is well to note a key point here: Over800 million people, nearly one-fifth of the world’s popu-lation looked to one man’s mind to make their mostimportant decisions for them. Not a committee of


The Murder of Pope John Paul I4810,000, or even 10, but one man. To do such a thingwould be to treat him as though he were a god. This isthe worship of man. Yet it makes the entire organizationand its people very weak. We have here an organizationin which the oddities, foibles, imaginings, and errors ofone man rule one-fifth of the world!

A long-standing controversy had raged over CardinalJohn Cody, who for years had mismanaged one of thewealthiest archdioceses in the world: Chicago, with its2.4 million Catholics. He mistreated the workers—somuch so that the priests had formed a “labor union” (theAssociation of Chicago Priests) to oppose him! Hefraudulently misused, misapplied, and diverted funds,—which was easy to do since he permitted no one else tohave the say over how an annual revenue of $300 millionwas to be spent. On each yearly trip to Rome, he wouldlavishly bribe various officials in the Curia—and thepope himself,—in order to maintain his position inChicago. Lastly, he had given millions to a woman, HelenWilson, whom he was frequently seen with. Her son,David Wilson, was made the sole insurance agent for theChicago archdiocese’s more than 1 billion in assets.

Paul VI dared not oppose him. Why not? The reasonprobably was blackmail. Cody knew all about the VaticanBank and hundreds of other potential scandals hiddenin the church. Cody openly boasted that no one dared tooust him, including the pope.

But now Luciani was being told of the “Cody prob-lem,” and he asked that further information be givenhim. In Chicago, Cody at last was becoming worried.

In the midst of his pressing duties, Luciani decidedhe must continue on with his habit of visiting the needy,the hospitals, and the prisons. Not only was he the Pope,he was also the official “bishop of Rome.” Rome had aCatholic population of 2.5 million, yet it was so secularthat it only produced six new candidates for the priest-hood yearly. Only about 3 percent of the Catholics in

49town went to church. Luciani wanted to help strengthenthe faith of his people.

But the Curia said Absolutely no! Their position wasthat it was impossible; it could not be done. It had neverbeen done before, and he could not now break the long-standing precedent! The pope never helped the poor orvisited the sick or those in prison!

This controversy continued on for days. There wasprobably more here than meets the eye. They probablywere afraid what people “out there” might tell the pope.They would also be ashamed to have him out there doingthe kind of things they ought to be doing.

One day, a third of the way through September, Pia,Luciani’s sister ate lunch with him—and listened wide-eyed with amazement as, over the phone, an officialloudly denounced the idea and said the pope could notvisit in Rome outside Vatican City. Soft-toned and re-laxed, the pope smiled and responded that it pleasedhim to do it anyway. He had the iron will, and he knewhe had the authority to press it through.

On Saturday, September 23 (the 28th day), Lucianileft the Vatican for the first time. It was an official visit toa Roman cathedral to be installed as the bishop of Rome.Giulio Argon, the communist mayor of Rome, shookhands with him and the two gave speeches. A mass wasthen conducted; and, with a majority of the Curiapresent, he mentioned in his speech a number of theproblems he intended to deal with. None of his wordswere quoted in the official Catholic media.

Partway through the speech, he turned; and, lookingdirectly at the men managing the Vatican Bank, he said:

“[The priest] should, with compassion, be close toeach one who is subject to him: forgetful of his rank heshould consider himself on a level with the good sub-jects, but he should not fear to exercise the rights of hisauthority against the wicked.”

Few in the vast audience understood the deeper


The Murder of Pope John Paul I50meaning of these words. All those in the Curia did.

Throughout Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Europe,incriminating records against Marcinkus, Calvi, Gelli,and Sindona were being stifled, mislaid, or removed.Officials were being bribed, and some were being mur-dered. Perhaps those four men and their associateswould survive the investigations. But they surely wouldnot survive one, instituted by the pope, into VaticanBank!

“Vatican scandals involving large-scale fraud andcorruption and complicity in a cover-up have sim-ply been shrugged off. Archbishop Marcinkus, whowas at the center of it all, was protected by the Pope[John Paul II] for more than seven years and the Ital-ian state authorities somehow rendered helpless . .Roman Catholic Oxford Professor of Logic, MichaelDummett, accused the Pope of complicity in acover-up to protect Marcinkus. The Sunday Tele-graph 15th March, 1987, reporting from the Catho-lic weekly, The Tablet, said that Prof. Dummett spokeof ‘the Vatican Bank entangled with complicatedpractices from which the most pungent stink of cor-ruption arises. These practices involved other banks,the Mafia and the seamiest type of Freemasonry,culminating in what was possibly the bizarre sui-cide, but more problably the grotesque murder ofan Italian banker in London.’ ”—Michael de Semlyen,All Roads Lead to Rome? p. 71.

51

Thursday, September 28, 1978, dawned. It was the33rd day.

After a light breakfast, Luciani was at his desk before8 a.m. All his life he had been a very light eater, and it isof interest that he was one of the few in the Vatican whotook no wine with his meals. This helped give him aclearer mind than others around him.

As usual, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., he met withvisitors; “audiences” these were called. But this morning,they were concluded with a talk with Cardinal Baggio. Aswell as being an identified Mason, Baggio was known tobe a problem in other ways as well. The time-honoredChurch way of solving any problem was to move the manto a post somewhere else (never to fire him, even if adul-tery and the vilest lust might be involved). Luciani of-fered to make him the patriarch of Venice; but, at this,Baggio flatly refused and shouted his refusal in Luciani’sface! (Baggio had been a leader at the recent election intrying to sell the cardinals on giving him—Baggio—thepapal throne.)

After his usual 12:30-1:30 lunch and 1:30-2:00 rest,Luciani made two telephone calls to friends at 3:30 p.m.(Felici, in Padua, and Benelli in Florence). He discussedthe Baggio affair, and everything he planned to tell Villotthat afternoon.

Cardinal Jean Villot, Vatican Secretary of State, hadbeen the closest associate of Pope Paul VI. He deeply

- 9 -tHE lAST dAY

The Last Day

The Murder of Pope John Paul I52admired Paul for his conservative ways, his non-interfer-ence with the Vatican financial circus, although he hadwished that Paul could make a few decisions once in awhile! Now he was confronted with a pope who wasliberal—more like John XXIII,—and who made decisionsso frequently and so fast it was somewhat astounding. Atthe rate things were going, the Vatican might soon bechanged from an old-cronies’ country club into a reform-minded international church headquarters. A man likeLuciani could be the ruination of the leadership.

But the biggest shock of all for poor Villot was tocome this afternoon of the 27th. After completing thosetwo telephone calls, Luciani called in Villot. They satdown to chamomile tea, and then Luciani brought outsome papers.

Albino Luciani told Villot what he was planning to doover the next several days, and much of it was to be donethe very next morning!

Luciani still had in mind a large number of changeshe wanted to be started within his first hundred days inoffice, just as John XXIII his beloved role model haddone before him. Already a third of that hundred dayshad passed. Luciani was settled in office, he was nowwell-acquainted with the situation on many fronts. It wastime to get the wheels of change turning in Vatican City.

Luciani began with the Vatican Bank, the so-called“Institute for Religious Works.” Luciani wanted the IOR—the Vatican Bank—to do what its name said it was doing:Spend its money on religious works.

By his 33rd day in office, Luciani had a large amountof detailed information on the Vatican Bank. A portion ofit had come from Villot. Luciani told Villot thatMarcinkus must be moved out of the Vatican Bank thevery next day. More than that, he must be shipped toAmerica and made an auxiliary bishop in Chicago, assoon as the problem with Cardinal Cody, head of theChicago archdiocese, had been settled. Giovanni Abbo

53was to take his place.

As for Cody, the next day steps must be taken toeliminate him. The papal nuncio in Washington, D.C.should be consulted for a worthwhile successor to re-place Cody. On this one item, Villot expressed approval;on every other item he was silent. Luciani then spokeabout Baggio, the man who had shouted refusals in hisface a few hours before. Luciani told Villot that Baggiowas to be sent to Florence whether he liked it or not.But, even as he said it, his tone was his normal patient,cheerful one. Luciani’s careful diet, self-control, wide-ranging knowledge, and careful but rapid thinking con-sistently kept him one step ahead in his work. Two menwhom Luciani had come to highly trust were next men-tioned. Cardinal Pericle Felici was to become vicar ofRome, replacing Cardinal Ugo Poletti, who would becomearchbishop of Florence. The man now in that post, Car-dinal Benelli, was to return to Rome to become secretaryof state, taking Villot’s job.

Villot was now 72 years old, seriously ill, and a two-pack-a-day smoker. In August, before the election, he hadmade it clear he wanted to retire soon. But now it wascoming sooner than he thought: within a few days. Andhis replacement was Benelli, a man whose views he didnot like.

When the pope was finished, he waited for some signof agreement, but there was only silence. When urged fora comment, Villot said that many in the Vatican wouldfeel betrayed by what Luciani was about to do.

It was now 7:30 p.m. and the end of nearly 2 hours ofconversation. Villot left the room. From there he re-turned to his own office, sat down, and reviewed the listof changes to be implemented the next day. Then Villotpulled another list out of the drawer and compared thetwo. All the Masons were to be removed from power inthe Vatican, including himself, and non-Masons were totake their place. The Vatican was to become Catholic

The Last Day

The Murder of Pope John Paul I54again.

Pecorelli, the man who had published that list wasnot to gain much for his efforts. Within a couple monthshe would be shot to death as he sat in his car. The Ital-ian solution was to be applied repeatedly.

Glancing down, Villot saw a note on his desk. It wasfrom a staff member confirming that the U.S. groupwishing to speak with the pope about population prob-lems would definitely meet with the pope on October 24.They were hoping that the new pope would give hisapproval to the birth-control pill. Villot knew that whenLuciani’s reversal of Paul’s Humanae Vitae decree onbirth control was released, it would be a disaster toCatholic conservatism.

Finally Villot left his desk, departing hurriedly, andcarelessly leaving all those significant papers scatteredacross the top of his desk for others to read—somethinghe would not normally do.

After the 7:30 p.m. conclusion of his conversationwith Villot, Luciani tried unsuccessfully to reach some-one by phone (Columbo), spoke for a time with the twofriends who were his assistants (Diego Lorenzi and JohnMagee), and then ate supper with them at 7:50 p.m.After the meal, Luciani returned to his study to look overhis notes for the earlier Villot meeting. At 8:45 p.m. hewas able to reach Cardinal Colombo in Milan by phone,and he discussed relevant points with him. Columbo—like everyone else who had spoken with Luciani duringthe preceding month—attested that Luciani was in excel-lent health. Luciani’s assistant (Lorenzi) noted that theColumbo call ended at 9:15. Luciani then glanced overthe speech he was to make to the Jesuits three days lateron the 30th.

Walking out the door, he said good night to his twoassistants, “Buona notte. A domani. Se Dio vuole.”(“Good night. Until tomorrow. If God wishes.”)

Two hours after the meeting with Villot ended, at a

55little past 9:30 p.m., Albino Luciani entered his bedroomand closed the door. He had spoken his last words.

The Italian solution was to be applied.

The Last Day

“Cardinal Wojtyla [the future John Paul II] was inthe adjoining room, seated at a long, narrow table,discussing the day’s agenda with his closest aides.

“He had just finished celebrating mass in hischapel and was taking his short morning break. Heregularly ate breakfast not in the palace’s historicapartments on the second floor, but on the groundfloor next to the kitchen.

“Mucha tried to persuade one of the nuns work-ing in the kitchen to bring the news to the cardinal.

“ ‘You have to go tell him the pope has died inRome!’

“ ‘But he died a month ago.’ The nun’s expres-sion was dazed.

“ ‘No, the new one.’“ ‘I can’t tell him that. If you want to, tell him

yourself.’“Irriated, Mucha poked his head into the food

delivery passageway and asked the cardinal’s sec-retary, Stanislaw Dziwisz, ‘Have you heard that JohnPaul I is dead?’

“Wojtyla had just spooned the sugar into his tea-cup. He froze and turned pale, his right hand stillraised. In the silence the only sound to be heardwas the spoon dropping onto the table.

“ ‘No,’ Wojtyla murmured.”—Carl Bernstein andMarco Politi, His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hid-den History of Our Time, p. 153.


One acquainted with European history cannot helpbut recall a similar earlier incident. Pope Adrian VI(1522-1523) came to the papacy from Holland only fiveyears after Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door ofthe Wittenberg church. Adrian recognized that the solu-tion to the “Protestant problem” was not warfare againstthe rebels, but a thorough reformation of the church—areformation which must begin at the Vatican. But hisprincipled honesty, careful economy, and efforts tochange headquarters led to his undoing. Historiansbelieve his brief reign was ended by poisoning.

(An earlier pope regularly practiced the same solutionon his friends. He would invite one to dinner and arrangefor the glass of wine set at the friend’s place to be poi-soned. One day, hot from the chase, this hunter-popestrode early into the banquet room sweaty and in hishunting clothes. Slumping into a chair, he called for wineto quench his thirst. A servant, unacquainted withVatican Palace procedures, took one of the wine glassesset around the table and handed it to him. He was deadwithin half an hour.)

At 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning, September 29,Vincenza, the nun who had prepared Luciani’s meals formany years, brought him his morning coffee. As usual,she knocked and called out, “Good morning.” But there

- 10 -How

Did It Happen?

57was no reply this time. She left and returned at 4:45.The coffee was untouched. She entered the room andfound that he was dead. He was sitting up and his teethwere clenched. He had suddenly died in agony. No markswere on him at all; something inside his body had pro-duced death, yet his heart had always been known to bein good condition. The notes of the meeting with Villotwere clenched in his hand and his bedside light was on.(It was later to be reported by Villot that a copy of thebook, The Imitation of Christ, had been found in hishand.)

(Interviews with the embalmers later revealed theirestimate that Luciani had died about 5 a.m. Apparently,he awakened just before 4:30 a.m., and switched on thebed-table light [which night-watchmen Swiss guards onthe lane below said had been off all night], reached forthe notes,—and then his strong heart gave out. It hadwithstood the poison all night! When Vincenza knockedat 4:30, she saw the light coming from under the door.Entering at 4:45 a.m., she nearly fainted when she sawhim, then checked his pulse. Just then his old alarmclock, always set for 4:45, went off and she reached overand pushed it off. So Luciani died just before—or as—she first knocked on the door.)

A number of details could be mentioned here, but wewould do well to focus on but seven of them:

(1) It was well-known to Villot and certain others,that, each night before he retired, Luciani reached for asmall bottle from a table by his old battered alarm clock,and took a small amount. It was Effortil, a liquid medi-cine to alleviate low-blood pressure.

(2) A fatal dose would be taken if a small amount ofdigitalis, or a similar substance, had been added to thebottle. Digitalis would bring death within two to sixhours.

(3) Extra bottles of that medicine would either be onhand or could easily be procured. A bottle could be

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

The Murder of Pope John Paul I58prepared for the fatal night a week or two ahead of time,and then substituted for the one in his bedroom whenthe crisis of his papacy warranted such an extrememeasure. Luciani’s conversation with Villot the nightbefore clearly showed that the crisis had arrived. What-ever was going to be done—had to be done before thenext day dawned. Delay of even one more day would betoo late.

(4) The Vatican has 10,000 rooms and halls and 997stairways, 30 of which are secret. One of these little-known and unused stairways was close to the pope’sbedroom. At its entrance and throughout its length, itwas unguarded, as well as the hallway outside the pope’sbedroom. The pope’s bedroom was never locked. (Inter-estingly enough, prior to Pope John XXIII Swiss guardspatrolled that hallway day and night. But John hadbanned them.)

(5) Villot’s meeting with the pope ended at 7:30 p.m.and the pope went to bed, exactly on schedule as usualand not before then, at 9:30 p.m. That provided some-one with two hours to enter that room.

(6) It would appear that, either Villot switched bottleshimself or, because of what he told others on the phonethat evening, another person in the Vatican carried outthe assignment.

(7) Not only what happened that night—but whatoccurred the next morning—was extremely important.That bottle had to be removed! It is known that, whenVillot entered the bedroom at 5 a.m., he slipped thatbottle into his pocket. That is an extremely incriminatingfact. If he did not give Luciani the poisoned bottle thenight before, he knew enough to remove it the nextmorning! If he had not known the plot, he could nothave known to take the bottle. He also removed fromthe room Luciani’s copy of the very incriminating notesfrom the meeting with Villot the night before.

(8) Villot instructed Vincenza, and those she had

59already told, to be absolutely quiet about the matter.Then, with extremely remarkable presence of mind,Villot made some phone calls. One of the very first was toErnesto and Arnaldo Signoracci, the papal embalmers.They were told to come immediately to embalm some-one. Such early embalming after death was not done,and the two Signoracci brothers had never embalmedanyone that early in the morning before. But, this time,quick embalming was urgent before the authorities ormedical doctors arrived! It had to be done even before ahospital resuscitation team could work on the pope in anattempt to restore him to life! There could only be onereason for this strange, apparently well-thought-outtimetable: to eliminate the evidence of the poison inLuciani’s bloodstream. (Embalming removes the blood,and replaces it with embalming fluid to help preserve thetissues.) The Vatican Institute of Medicine was told to getthe embalmers over immediately. The Signoracci broth-ers arrived in a Vatican car at 5 a.m. The medical doctor(Renato Buzzonetti) arrived at 6 a.m. and examined him,and said it was “sudden death that could be related toacute myocardial infarction [a heart attack].”

(9) Cardinal Villot had been in charge of the Vaticanduring the interim between the death of Paul VI and theelection of John Paul I. Now, again in charge of theVatican, he did not let the public know of the death of thepope until 7:27 a.m., two hours after it had been discov-ered. By that time, all that needed to be done had beencompleted.

(10) The embalmers were delayed for a short timefrom doing it, because of angry disputes by certainVatican staff who recognized why it was being demandedso quickly. Indeed, Italian law required that no embalm-ing could be done for 24 hours, except with amagistrate’s permission. What were Villot and his associ-ates trying to hide? It was well-known by medical andcriminal experts that embalming greatly lessened the

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

The Murder of Pope John Paul I60likelihood of identifying death by poisoning.

(11) When the embalming was finally done, thestrange order was given that the fluid had to be put intothe body while the blood remained! The problem herewas that if the blood were drained out first (as is nor-mally done), some of that blood might be saved by some-one and later examined. Therefore Villot ordered that thefluid be put into the veins and arteries with the bloodstill there. This made the task much more difficult forthe two brothers.

(12) To ensure that nothing incriminating could befound anywhere in the papal apartments, everythingbelonging to Luciani was boxed and removed. It was as ifhe had never existed. By 6 p.m. on that same day, the 19-room apartment was sealed by Villot, not to be openeduntil the next election was completed.

“The Roman Church now presents a fair front tothe world, covering with apologies her record ofhorrible crueties. She has clothed herself inChristlike garments; but she is unchanged. Everyprinciple of the papacy that existed in past agesexists today. The doctrines devised in the darkestages are still held. Let none deceive themselves.The papacy that Protestants are now so ready tohonor is the same that ruled the world in the daysof the Reformation, when men of God stood up, atthe peril of their lives, to expose her iniquity.”—GreatControversy, 571.

61

In Florence, when Cardinal Benelli came out of hisroom at 9 a.m., he was surrounded by reporters. Tearsflooding from his eyes, he said, “The Church has lost theright man for the right moment. We are very distressed.We are left frightened.”

When Pope Paul VI died, little emotion had beenexpressed. But when John Paul I died, the entire city wasup in arms. Men and women wept openly everywhere.When his body was shown, people passing it were heardto shout, “Who has done this to you? Who has murderedyou?”

Within two days, the public and the press were loudlydemanding an autopsy. But the Vatican was determinedthat no autopsy be performed, for that might have re-vealed something new about the cause of death.

It was also decided that a quick burial must occur;and, at the earliest possible date, another papal electionmust be held. It was obviously hoped that a quick burialand the immediate convening of the cardinals for theelection process would give the media something else tothink about: Who would be the next pope?

Before concluding, it is worth noting that an earlierspecialist who had worked with him, later commentedthat Luciani had low-blood pressure of 120/80. Low-blood pressure was confirmed by 23 doctors as being

- 11 -The After math

The After math

The Murder of Pope John Paul I62“the best possible condition for increased life expect-ancy.”

Diego Lorenzi, Luciani’s youthful personal attendant,later said that Luciani had an excellent heart; and, thattogether, they would climb mountains at a rapid pace forexercise. He also said that Luciani had numerous ECGswhich showed that he had a strong heart.

A surprising number of irregularities in the Vaticanstory of Luciani’s earlier history, health, personality,mental and physical capabilities, beliefs, and death couldbe related. They were very willing to publish lying re-ports about the man they had laid in the grave.

The best man to take the place of Luciani was hisclose friend, Giovanni Benelli. But he fell nine votesshort, and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland became thenext pope (Pope John Paul II). Wojtyla appears to be anice man, and he also smiles. But, whereas Luciani wasdetermined to cleanse the Vatican temple, Wojtyla hasbeen very willing to let all the evil remain. (He probablyfears for his life, after what obviously happened to hispredecessor.) Not a single reform of the Vatican wasmade. Marcinkus remained in power; all the VaticanBank cover-ups and illegal activities continued on. Tothis day, the Vatican remains a sinkhole of corruption.

As for the Milan investigation, that was convenientlystopped. The Italian solution was applied again. On themorning of January 29, 1979, another incorruptible mandied: Judge Emilio Alessandrini. As he stopped at a redlight on his way to work, five men approached the carand began firing bullets into it. The investigation ofCalvi’s bank stopped.

But then, in February 1979, the Bank of Italy starteda new investigation; and, this time, it appeared likelythat Calvi would be apprehended. To avoid letting himtell anything, he was “suicided” in London in 1982. InRome, a few hours earlier, his personal secretary,Graziella, was “suicided” by being thrown out her fourth-

63floor office window of Calvi’s headquarter’s bank, BancoAmbrosiano.

Several more deaths also occurred (Mino Pecorelli,Georgio Ambrosoli, Boris Giuliano, and RobertoRosone).

And whatever happened to Sindona, Gelli, andMarcinkus?

Michele Sindona is currently serving a 25-year prisonsentence in the U.S. on American bank fraud charges, inwhich Vatican Bank involvement was not referred to.

Licio Gelli was wanted by the Italian authorities andwas lured into a trap on September 13, 1982. Arrestedby Swiss police when he arrived from Argentina, he wasconfined in the maximum security prison, ChampDollon. On August 10, 1983, with the help of P2, he“escaped,” and made his way back to Argentina where hehas since remained.

Paul Marcinkus continued on as head of the VaticanBank, at least until the late 1980s. He may still be there,if not now retired. No one would dare transfer him out ofhis position as president of Vatican Bank; and, for hispart, never since the mid-1970s has he dared leaveVatican City. To do so would mean immediate arrest bythe Italian police.

So that is the story of Pope John Paul I. You mightwonder why we told it. The book, Great Controversy,contains the previous history of the church for over athousand years. It is well that you be made aware ofsome recent history. It might enable you to better under-stand coming events. At least it will make chapter 35much more believable. Just now, open the book to page563 and read it again.

The After math


- Appendix -Chronology of

the popes

It is difficult for a non-Catholic to comprehend howfully the Roman Catholic Church is centered around thepope. It is for this reason that it has been said that theCatholic Church is the “worship of man.”

“The Pope is the Roman Pontiff who, by divine law,has supreme jurisdiction over the universal Church. Heis the superior of all religious. The pope may act alone orwith a council in defining doctrine for the universalChurch or in making laws. He is addressed as His Holi-ness the Pope. By title and right he is: Bishop of Rome,Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of St. Peter, the Princeof the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff, Patriarch of the West,Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of theRoman province, and Sovereign of the State of VaticanCity.”—The Catholic Encyclopedia, page 479.

The Annuario Pontificio is the official Vatican list ofall the popes. It includes both the popes and, what theVatican considers to be, the “anti-popes.” In the followinglist, the antipopes are italicized. It is of interest thatsome of them were canonized by the church! (See “217St. Hippolytus,” below). The year of his ascendency(when he took office) is given before each pope’s officialname.

65 St. Peter 67 St. Linus 76 St. Anacletus or Cletus 88 St. Clement I 97 St. Evaristus105 St. Alexander I115 St. Sixtus I125 St. Telesphorus136 St. Hyginus140 St. Pius I155 St. Anicetus166 St. Soter175 St. Eleutherius189 St. Victor I199 St. Zephyrinus217 St. Callistus I217 St. Hippolytus222 St. Urban I230 St. Pontian235 St. Anterus236 St. Fabian251 St. Cornelius251 Novatian253 St. Lucius I254 St. Stephen I257 St. Sixtus II259 St. Dionysius269 St. Felix I275 St. Eutychian283 St. Caius296 St. Marcellinus308 St. Marcellus I309 St. Eusebius311 St. Melchiades314 St. Sylvester I336 St. Marcus337 St. Julius I352 Liberius

355 Felix II366 St. Damasus I366 Ursinus384 St. Siricius399 St. Anastasius I401 St. Innocent I417 St. Zosimus418 St. Boniface I418 Eulalius422 St. Celestine I432 St. Sixtus III440 St. Leo I461 St. Hilary468 St. Simplicius483 St. Felix III (II)492 St. Gelasius I496 Anastasius II498 St. Symmachus498 Lawrence (501-505)514 St. Hormisdas523 St. John I, Martyr526 St. Felix IV (Ill)530 Boniface II530 Dioscorus533 John II535 St. Agapitus I536 St. Silverius, Martyr537 Vigilius556 Pelagius I581 John III575 Benedict I579 Pelagius II590 St. Gregory I604 Sabinian607 Boniface III608 St. Boniface IV815 St. Deusdedit or Adeodatus

Chronology of the Popes

The Murder of Pope John Paul I66819 Boniface V625 Honorius I640 Severinus640 John IV642 Theodore I649 St. Martin I, Martyr654 St. Eugene I657 St. Vitalian672 Adeodatus II676 Donus678 St. Agatho682 St. Leo II684 St. Benedict II685 John V686 Conon687 Theodore687 Paschal687 St. Sergius I701 John VI705 John VII708 Sisinnius708 Constantine715 St. Gregory II731 St. Gregory III741 St. Zachary752 Stephen II (III)757 St. Paul I767 Constantine768 Philip768 Stephen III (IV)772 Adrian I795 St. Leo III816 Stephen IV (V)817 St. Paschal I824 Eugene II827 Valentine827 Gregory IV844 John

844 Sergius II847 St. Leo IV855 Benedict III855 Anastasius858 St. Nicholas I867 Adrian II872 John VIII882 Marinus I884 St. Adrian III885 Stephen V (VI)891 Formosus896 Boniface VI896 Stephen VI (VII)897 Romanus897 Theodore II898 John IX900 Benedict IV903 Leo V903 Christopher904 Sergius III911 Anastasius III913 Landus914 John X928 Leo VI928 Stephen VII (VIII)931 John XI936 Leo VII939 Stephen VIII (IX)942 Marinus II946 Agapitus II955 John XII963 Leo VIII964 Benedict V965 John XIII973 Benedict VI974 Boniface VII974 Benedict VII983 John XIV

67965 John XV996 Gregory V997 John XVI999 Sylvester II1003 John XVII1004 John XVIII1009 Sergius IV1012 Benedict VIII1012 Gregory1024 John XIX1032 Benedict IX1045 Sylvester III1045 Benedict IX1045 Gregory VI1046 Clement II1047 Benedict IX1048 Damasus II1049 St. Leo IX1055 Victor II1057 Stephen IX (X)1058 Benedict X1059 Nicholas II1061 Alexander II1061 Honorius II1073 St. Gregory VII1080 Clement III1086 Bl. Victor III1088 Bl. Urban II1099 Paschal II1100 Theodoric1102 Albert1105 Sylvester IV1118 Gelasius II1118 Gregory VIII1119 Callistus II1124 Honorius II1124 Celestine II1130 Innocent II

1130 Anacletus II1138 Victor IV1143 Celestine II1144 Lucius II1145 Bl. Eugene III1153 Anastasius IV1154 Adrian IV1159 Alexander III1159 Victor IV1164 Paschal III1168 Callistus III1179 Innocent III1181 Lucius III1185 Urban III1187 Gregory VIII1187 Clement III1191 Celestine III1198 Innocent III1216 Hononus III1227 Gregory IX1241 Celestine IV1243 Innocent IV1254 Alexander IV1261 Urban IV1265 Clement IV1271 Bl. Gregory X1276 Bl. Innocent V1276 Adrian V1276 John XXI1277 Nicholas III1281 Martin IV1285 Honorius IV1288 Nicholas IV1294 St. Celestine V1294 Boniface VIII1303 Bl. Benedict XI1305 Clement V1316 John XXII

Chronology of the Popes

681328 Nicholas V1334 Benedict XII1342 Clement VI1352 Innocent VI1362 Bl. UrbanV1370 Gregory XI1378 Urban VI1378 Clement VII1369 Boniface IX1394 Benedict XIII1404 Innocent VII1406 Gregory XII1409 Alexander V1410 John XXIII1417 Martin V1431 Eugene IV1439 Felix V1447 Nicholas V1455 Callistus III1458 Pius II1464 Paul II1471 Sixtus IV1484 Innocent VIII1492 Alexander VI1503 Pius III1503 Julius II1513 Leo X1522 Adrian VI1523 Clement VII1534 Paul III1550 Julius III1555 Marcellus II1555 Paul IV1559 Pius IV1566 St. Pius V1572 Gregory XIII1585 Sixtus V

1590 Urban VII1590 Gregory XIV1591 Innocent IX1592 Clement VIII1605 Leo XI1605 Paul V1621 Gregory XV1623 Urban VIII1644 Innocent X1655 Alexander VII1687 Clement IX1670 Clement X1676 Bl. Innocent XI1689 Alexander VIII1691 Innocent XII1700 Clement XI1721 Innocent XIII1724 Benedict XIII1730 Clement XII1740 Benedict XIV1758 Clement XIII1769 Clement XIV1775 Pius VI1800 Pius VII1823 Leo XII1829 Pius VIII1831 Gregory XVI1846 Pius IX1878 Leo XIII1903 St. Pius X1914 Benedict XV1922 Pius XI1939 Pius XII1958 John XXIII1983 Paul VI1978 John Paul I1978 John Paul II

The Murder of Pope John Paul I$3.00

The Murder ofPope John Paul 1

Casting about for someone to manage their giganticbank, the cigar-chewing Marcinkus was placed in chargeof the Vatican Bank by Paul VI In 1967, even though heprotestingly admitted, “I know absolutely nothing aboutbanking!” Fortunately, the pope gave him friends to teachhim.

Another man was Michele Sindona. Born in Sicily,Sindona had three special qualities: (1) A powerful abilityto work with, and shuffle around, numbers and money.(2) Close friends in the Mafia (the real Mafia! Sindona wasSicilian as they were; this made for close working rela-tionships). (3) A remarkable capacity for inventing newtypes of financial crime.

Using his connections with the Vatican Bank to im-press businessmen and financiers, Sindona borrowedmoney and bought banks. Why banks? It is an intriguingfact that the easiest way to rob a bank is to buy it. That isthe great truth that the crooks in America in the 1980slearned in the 1960s and 1970s from the Vatican.

Then, after buying it, use the bank for a variety of crimi-nal activities. Associates of the Vatican Bank did this soflagrantly—and successfully—in nearly a dozen nationsfrom the late 1960s onward, that Americans finally caughton to the same techniques. The S&L and bank scandalsof the 1980s followed. The Vatican techniques had beenlearned well.

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