John Paul I was only pope for about 33 days before he died in his sleep of a heart attack. He was only about 66 years old, and didn’t seem to be in poor health, from what I’ve gathered.
There are various theories that he was murdered. How credible are these theories, or the idea that he was offed?
Well, one of the few mainstream books on this subject was “A THief in the Night” by John Cornwell (who’s best known for “Hitler’s Pope,” an exploration of Pope Pius XII’s seeming lack of interest in the Holocaust).
Cornwell was actually invited by the Vatican to investigate the case, precisely because there were so many rumors of scandal and murder.
Cornwell’s conclusion may reassure some, but it may scandalize others. Essentially, he concluded that John Paul I was a sick man, that it should have been obvious to Vatican City doctors, but that the Vatican’s doctors tend to be bumbling incompetents.
That is, if you’re the top doctor at the Vatican (or the Kremlin or the White House or any major institution), in THEORY, you must be a brilliant medical mind. But in reality, it’s more likely you got the job because you’re well connected, and have freinds in high places. Hence, Popes (like Communist party chairmen and Presidents) often get LOUSY medical care- just the OPPOSITE of what you’d expect.
Read “In God’s Name” by David Yallop. The full conspiracy is laid out there (and it’s a great read). I read this book not long after it came out and found all the accusations contained therein to be fun but hard to take seriously but then, over the next few years, almost everything he said started to come true…
The Banco Ambrosiano siphoned off about a billion dollars via the Vatican Bank. It was closed down amid a huge corruption scandal. One of the things JPI was about to do was order an investigation into the Vatican’s finances.
The chairman of the bank, Roberto Calvi (known as “God’s banker”) was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in 1982. This is a masonically significant site. At first the police thought it was suicide but after exhuming his body and re-examining the case, it is now officially thought to have been murder.
There’s also various allegations involving a secret society called P2. A list was found of all the members of P2 - there were 900 names. Many of the names were politicians and military figures (especially from the Italian secret services). The current Italian PM’s name (Berlusconi) was found on the list. A document was found stating the aims of P2. The document was called “Democratic Rebirth Plan” and it set out a plan to form a new political elite to lead Italy toward a more authoritarian form of democracy.
No autopsy was done of the pope’s body raising suspicions that he was poisoned (and it was this that caused the heart attack). Calvi was also a member of P2. Some top mafia figures were arrested in Rome on suspicion of being involved in Calvi’s murder and also some top bankers.
There’s also a shadowy figure (who’s name I forget) in the Vatican. He’s an archbishop or something. He’s wanted by the police for questioning - if he ever leaves the Vatican, he’ll be arrested. I think he was the link man between the Banco Ambrosiano and the Vatican Bank.
As I previously pointed out in this old thread on the subject, rather than having “started to come true…” afterwards, this was all relatively well known when Yallop published the book in 1984.
Hmm, forgot all about that thread. Anyway, I’m not talking about the “big” allegations re the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and the death of Calvi, although I think he was saying that Calvi was murdered and at the time it was thought (by the police) to have been suicide. So he was vindicated on that.
There are lots of other allegations he makes in the book which only subsequently came true afterwards. Unfortunately, without re-reading the book, I can’t remember exactly what any of them are.
His website says this:
I do recall though, as the 80s and 90s progressed, that things would happen in the news from time to time and I would think to myself “My God, that’s what Yallop said”.
I’ll have to re-read the book sometime (think I read it in 1984, when it came out).
Ah, you mean Archbishop Paul “The Gorilla” Marcinkus? He’s an American.
So “the gorilla” makes his life entirely in the Vatican? How much space is that?
The key is that it’s easy to kill a heart patient and no one will think to autopsy
Probably a lot more than he’d find in a Federal prison. I don’t know if I buy the conspiracy theories of JPI’s death, but certainly there’s ample evidence that some of the folks working for the RCC aren’t exactly what you’d call “honest.”
Just popping in to mention that this, if true, would fit well into Italian political history. In the pre-WWII era the Catholic leadership was strong supporters of the Italian right, including the reign of Mussolini. Later, when a new Constitution was crafted after WWII the traditional Italian right was placed on the sideline. So it became a center-left/left creation. Ever since, Italy’s conservative establishment has viewed the Constitution as, well, kind of unfinished really.