In God's Name (45 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The trickle of lies became a flood.

The Pope’s Will. The Pope’s health. The time of his embalming. The exact nature of the medical examinations on the body before the funeral. It lied on each and every one of these aspects.

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

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

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

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

As has already been established, worldly goods held no interest for Luciani but a Papal Will invariably includes more than instructions on material assets. There is always a spiritual message – comments and reflections on the state of the Church. Was the Will of Albino Luciani destroyed because it accurately reflected the Pope’s feelings and views on what he had discovered in those 33 days? Luciani, an accomplished writer, one of the most literary Popes in modern times, failed to leave a final written observation? Were there no last reflections from the revolutionary Pope?

It may be considered shocking that so much false information emanates directly from the Vatican, a place considered by millions to be the spiritual home of Christianity. Is it any less shocking that men who have dedicated their lives to Jesus Christ should destroy so much vital evidence? Is it any less shocking that the Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot, should impose a vow of silence on members of the Papal Household? Is it any less shocking that Villot, acting in his capacity as virtual caretaker Pope, should take medicine, reading glasses, slippers from the Papal bedroom? That he should remove and destroy the papers clutched in the dead Pope’s hands – papers which detailed the important changes Albino Luciani was about to make and which he had discussed with Cardinal Villot a short time before the Pope’s totally unexpected death? Was Villot a party in a conspiracy to murder the Pope? Certainly his subsequent
actions were those of a man determined to cover up the truth of that death. Doubtless he took the Will as he sat at Luciani’s desk in his study and made his series of early morning phone calls. Having removed the papers from Luciani’s hands Cardinal Villot was clearly determined that no trace of those changes that had so concerned him on the last evening of the Pope’s life should remain. God alone knows what else was stolen from the Papal Apartments. We know beyond all doubt that the items already mentioned vanished.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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