Dark Mysteries of the Vatican

CHAPTER 5

Murder in Holy Orders

The archives of the Vatican contain evidence that being pope has been one of history’s most dangerous jobs. Through the centuries many have been murdered or assassinated. The first was Pope John VIII. In 882, he was poisoned and then clubbed to death by scheming members of the papal court. According to Matthew Brunson’s The Pope Encyclopedia: An A to Z of the Holy See most murders of pontiffs occurred in the Middle Ages, especially in a period described by Cardinal Cesare Baronius in Annales ecclesiastici as “the Iron Age of the Papacy,” from 867 to 964, when powerful families had popes elected, deposed, and murdered to advance political ambitions, or as vengeance. Of the twenty-six popes during this era, sixteen died by violence.

The most tantalizing of the murders was that of John XII (955-964). “Just 18 years old when he was elected pontiff, John was a notorious womanizer and the papal palace came to be described as a brothel during his reign. He died of injuries after he was caught in bed by the husband of one of his mistresses. Some legends say that he died of a stroke while in the act of love.”

Theories and claims of murderous cabals blossomed following the death of Pope Clement XIV in 1771. He “was reportedly so racked with guilt over disbanding the Jesuits that he spent his last years terrified of being poisoned.” Following his death, there were so many stories about his possible murder that a postmortem was conducted. It found nothing to implicate the Jesuits.

The following is a list of murdered pontiffs and the manner in which they are thought to have been removed from The Pope Encyclopedia:

John VIII (872-882): Poisoned and clubbed to death

Adrian III, St. (884-885): Rumored poisoned

Stephen VI (896-897): Strangled

Leo V (903): Murdered

John X (914-928): Suffocated under a pillow

Stephen VII (VIII) (928-931): Possibly murdered

Stephen VIII (IX) (939-942): Mutilated and died from injuries

John XII (955-964): [Killed while caught in the act with a mistress by the woman’s outraged husband] or suffered a stroke while with a mistress or murdered by an outraged husband

Benedict VI (973-974): Strangled by a priest

John XIV (983-984): Starved to death or poisoned

Gregory V (996-999): Rumored to have been poisoned

Sergius IV (1009-1012): Possibly murdered

Clement II (1046-1047): Rumored poisoned

Damasus II (1048): Rumored murdered

Boniface VIII (1294-1303): Died from abuse while a French captive

The most bizarre story of a pope is that of Stephen VII. In “896, [he] set in motion the trial of his rival, who had been dead for 9 months.” Author Mark Owen noted in an article on the notorious pontiffs that the body of Pope Formosus was dragged from its tomb and placed on a throne. Wrapped in a hair shirt, the corpse was provided with legal counsel, who remained silent while Pope Stephen raved and screamed.

“The crime of Formosus,” Owen recorded, “was that he had crowned emperor one of the numerous illegitimate heirs of Charlemagne after first having performed the same office for a candidate favored by Stephen.

“After Stephen’s rant, the corpse was stripped of its clothes and its fingers were chopped off. It was then dragged through the palace and hurled from a balcony to a howling mob below, who threw it into the Tiber River. The body was rescued by people sympathetic to Formosus and given a quiet burial. Stephen was strangled a few years later.

“In 964 Pope Benedict V raped a young girl and absconded to Constantinople with the papal treasury, only to reappear when the money ran out.” A church historian called Benedict “the most iniquitous of all the monsters of ungodliness.” He was also “slain by a jealous husband. His corpse, bearing a hundred dagger wounds, was dragged through the streets before being tossed into a cesspit…

“In October 1032, the papal miter was purchased for eleven-year-old Benedict IX. Upon reaching his 14th year, a chronicler wrote that Benedict had surpassed in wantonness and profligacy all who had preceded him.”

According to historian Peter de Rosa in his book Vicars of Christ, popes had mistresses as young as fifteen years of age, were guilty of incest and perversions of every sort, had innumerable children, [and] “were murdered in the very act of adultery.”

Pope Alexander VI (formerly Rodrigo Borgia) reigned from 1492-1503. He committed his first murder at the age of twelve. “Upon assuming the Papal miter, he cried, ‘I am Pope, Vicar of Christ!’ Like his predecessor, Innocent VIII, Alexander sired many children, baptized them personally, and officiated at their weddings in the Vatican. He had ten known illegitimate children (including the notorious Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia), by his favorite mistress Vannoza Catanei. When she faded in allure, Borgia took fifteen-year-old Giulia Farnese. Farnese obtained a Cardinal’s red hat for her brother, who later became Paul III. Alexander was followed by Julius II who purchased the papacy with his own private fortune… A notorious womanizer, Julius was so eaten away with syphilis that he couldn’t expose his foot to be kissed.”

“Pope Sixtus IV charged Roman brothels a Church tax. According to historian Will Durant, in 1490 there were 6,800 registered prostitutes in Rome. Pope Pius II declared that Rome was the only city run by…the sons of popes and cardinals.

Pope Leo I (440-461) asserted that it did not matter how immoral or inept a pope was as long as he was deemed the rightful successor to St. Peter.” There is no official list of popes, but the Annuario Pontificio [Papal Yearbook], published every year by the Vatican, contains a list that is generally considered the most authoritative. It cites Benedict XVI as the 265th pope of Rome.

Number 263, John Paul I, received the designation on August 26, 1978. The first pontiff to choose two names (in honor of his predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI), he was born Albino Luciani on October 17, 1912, in Forno di Canale (now called Canale d’Agordo), Italy. He differed from his predecessors in having never held a major position in the Vatican ’s internal government or diplomatic corps. Despite being prominent within Italy, he was largely unknown to the wider world.

Ordained on July 7, 1935, “he studied at Rome ’s Gregorian University before a brief period as curate in his childhood parish. After he was appointed to a deputy position at Belluno seminary in 1937, he spent years teaching, during which time he became vicar-general to the Bishop at Belluno. Toward the end of 1958, Pope John XXIII appointed Luciani as bishop of Vittorio Veneto, and after a slow start at the Vatican Council (1962-65), he soon became an active voice in doctrinal matters.” Named archbishop of Venice (1969) and a cardinal in 1973, he rejected many of Catholicism’s more opulent aspects and encouraged richer churches to give to poorer ones.

After his election to the papacy by the College of Cardinals, Time magazine reported, “The Cardinals knew what they wanted: a warm and humble man. Seated at a table in front of the Sistine Chapel altar, the Cardinal solemnly intoned the name written on each ballot. ‘Luciani…Luciani…Luciani…’ Beside him sat two other Cardinal scrutatores (vote counters) who carefully plucked the ballots from a silver chalice, unfolded them and passed them to their colleague. It was the fourth and final ballot of the astonishing one-day conclave that gave the Catholic world its 263rd Pope.”

Succeeding in penetrating “the wall of secrecy that attends such conclaves, and the vows of silence taken by the Cardinals as they enter and are sealed from the outside world, Time’s reporters Jordan Bonfante and Roland Flamini pieced together much of the story of the proceedings in the Sistine Chapel. It was clear that Luciani came to power through no accident, but as a result of a spontaneous consensus that evolved from three agreements reached in a lengthy pre-conclave period that followed the death of Pope Paul VI on Aug. 6 [1978].

“Probably half of the 111 Cardinal-electors went into the conclave undecided. Most were fairly convinced that the Pope would have to be an Italian…

“The second consensus, resisted to the end by some members of the Curia, was that the Church, whatever its far-flung political and administrative problems, needed a pastoral Pope. ‘It is one thing to interpret the faith and another to convey it to the people in the parishes,’ said one ranking Curia prelate. ‘That is something that the bishops-whatever their theology-understand better than the Curialists at their little desks.’”

Another Cardinal said, “I think all of us had agreed in our own minds before the conclave that we needed to go back to a humble, pastoral man, although we did not really consult each other about it. And then, when we went in, it became clear to us that this was what we wanted.”

One participant said there was a consensus that the new Pope be “not obvious, and not controversial.”

As the balloting produced no obvious leading candidate, Luciani was a man “not actively disliked by anyone, and actively liked by everyone who really knew him.”

“At noon,” the Time reporters wrote, “the two sets of ballots, skewered on a long needle and strung like a kind of combined ecclesiastical shish kebab and necklace, were thrust into the chapel stove along with black chemical flares to send up a dark ‘no Pope’ signal to the waiting crowds in St. Peter’s Square. But the flue above the stove was broken, and black smoke seeped through the chapel, partially obscuring Michelangelo’s famous frescoes. For a quarter of an hour, the assembled Cardinals coughed, covered their mouths and rubbed their eyes until two windows were opened to clear the air.

“As the Cardinals broke for lunch, walking to the Pontifical Hall in the palace’s Borgia apartments, intense discussions were under way. On the third ballot, at 4:30…Luciani burst to the fore, falling just short of a majority.

“At that point,” Luciani explained later with a grin that would earn him the nickname “the smiling pope,” the situation “began to get dangerous for me.”

“Cardinals Willebrands of the Netherlands and Ribeiro of Portugal, sitting on either side of him, leaned toward him. Whispered one: ‘Courage. If the Lord gives a burden, he also gives the strength to carry it.’ Whispered the other: ‘The whole world prays for the new Pope.’”

On the fourth vote, “no other name but Luciani’s was read out. There were a number of blank ballots… But roughly ninety votes went to Luciani.” Ringing applause echoed in the chapel. “The chapel door was opened and eight conclave aides entered to accompany Jean Cardinal Villot, the church’s ‘Camerlengo,’ or chamberlain, to the flustered Luciani, who was still seated in his place under a fresco of the baptism of Christ. The Camerlengo, his face wreathed in smiles, asked the ritual question, ‘Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?’

“Luciani at first replied, ‘May God forgive you for what you have done in my regard.’ Then he gave his assent, ‘Accepto.’”

Burning ballots and chemically treated straw in a stove sent a puff of white smoke up a chimney, signaling to a throng in St. Peter’s Square that the Church had a new pope. Inside, Luciani announced the name he had chosen for himself as the new pope. He would be “loannes Paulus.” The crowd outside was told the name of their new pope was “John Paul.”

“After the singing of the ‘Te Deum’ of thanksgiving, the pontiff was escorted to the sacristy to don his temporary papal robes. He reappeared in a white cassock with a shoulder-length cape and a high white sash. Grinning happily, he took the throne that had been erected in front of the altar, and joyful Cardinals approached one by one to embrace him and to kiss the papal ring.”

“ Rome did not get its first real look at John Paul until the next day, when 200,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square for the weekly Sunday noon blessing. John Paul spoke for seven minutes…Let us ‘understand each other,’ he told the crowd. ‘I do not have the wisdom of heart of Pope John, nor the preparation and culture of Pope Paul. However, now I am in their place and must try to help the church. I hope you will help me with your prayers.’…

“The new pope, John Paul, gave a glimpse of his personal style with the plans for his Sept. 3 open-air accession ceremonies. At his direction it was not called a ‘coronation’ or ‘enthronement,’ but a ‘solemn Mass to mark the start of his ministry as Supreme Pastor.’ John Paul asked not to be carried on the usual portable throne but to walk in procession. Most significant, he did not wish to be crowned with the triple-decked, bee hive-shaped tiara. Instead, a pallium, the white woolen stole symbolizing his title of Patriarch of the West, would be placed on his shoulders…

“In his inaugural address to the Cardinals, John Paul pledged to carry forward the work of the Second Vatican Council, convened by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and concluded by Paul VI in 1965. He would, he said, put a ‘priority’ on a revision of the canon law codes.” It was immediately recognized that John Paul intended “a new style of papacy, more simple and less formal than many at the Vatican were used to. His first speech to the world, delivered from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, was personal and direct… He asked Catholics to ‘have mercy on the poor new pope who never really expected to rise to this post.’ He joked about having to pick up the Vatican ’s thick yearbook, the Annuario Pontificio, to study how the Roman Curia worked.”

“The new pope made no secret of the fact that he felt a bit intimidated by the church structure he was supposed to be running…In public events he made connections with everyday Catholics by adopting a storytelling manner of preaching and bringing a parish atmosphere to the Vatican. He explained the concept of free will with a metaphor about prudent automobile maintenance. He spoke sympathetically about those who could not bring themselves to believe in God. He jokingly compared marriage to a gilded birdcage. ‘Those on the outside are dying to get in,’ he said, ‘while those on the inside are dying to get out.’”

He shocked many Catholics by saying that God “is a father, but even more, a mother’” in the way He loves humanity. He quoted the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: “Could a mother forget her child? But even if that were to happen, God will never forget his people.”

Some church commentators viewed his “pontificate as a time of grace and joy,” calling him “the smiling pope.” “Other analysts characterized Pope John Paul as out of his depth, and as a man who was overwhelmed by the burdens of his new position.” Vatican veterans and traditionalists worried that John Paul was too liberal and feared that he intended to revolutionize Church doctrines, including revising laws on contraception.

Cardinal Ratzinger saw “great goodness, simplicity, humanity and courage.”

In an article by Ruth Bertels, she writes that on the evening of September 28, 1978, when John Paul “sat down for dinner in the third-floor dining room of the Apostolic Palace, his two secretaries, Father Diego Lorenzi, who had worked closely with him in Venice for more than two years, and Father John Magee, newly appointed since the papal election, were present. Nuns had prepared a simple supper of clear soup, veal, fresh beans, and a salad.” The three men ate while watching the news on television.” The Pope appeared in good spirits and good health.

“On the floor below, lights were still on at the Vatican Bank, where its head, Bishop Paul Marcinkus, [had recently received a report about the Pope’s] investigation of the Vatican Bank and the bishop’s methods of running it, including its recent takeover of the Banca Cattolica.” Its shares were held by various dioceses, but the majority rested with the Vatican Bank.

“Cardinal Jean Villot, the Vatican secretary of state, was also still at his desk that evening studying the changes the pope had given him an hour before. Villot had pleaded and argued…, but the pope was adamant. The changes would stand.”

In Buenos Aires, banker Roberto Calvi and a pair of associates, Licio Gelli and Umberto Ortolani, knew that “the Bank of Italy had been secretly investigating Calvi’s Milan bank since April, prompted by a public campaign against Calvi, begun in 1977, giving details of criminal activities…

“In New York, Sicilian banker Michele Sindona had been fighting the Italian government’s effort to extradite him to Milan to face charges involving a fraudulent diversion of $225 million. A federal judge had ruled in May that the extradition should be granted. While free on a 3 million dollar bail, Sindona had demanded that the United States government prove that there was well-founded evidence to justify the extradition. The hearing was scheduled for November.”

In Chicago, Cardinal John Cody, “head of an archdiocese of “21/2 million, with nearly 3,000 priests, 450 parishes, and an annual income he refused to” disclose knew that numerous organizations had petitioned Rome to remove him.

The pope went to bed. Nighttime quiet enveloped the Vatican.

In the predawn hours of September 29, 1978, the Pope’s housekeeper knocked at his bedroom door, as she always did, promptly at 4:30 A.M. Hearing no response, she left. “She returned fifteen minutes later to find him still not stirring.” When she entered his bedroom, “she found him propped up in bed, still holding his papers from the night before.” Dead.

“On the night table beside him lay an opened bottle of Effortil, a medication for his low blood pressure.” The shaken and tearful housekeeper immediately informed the papal chamberlain, Cardinal Villot. Villot arrived in the Pope’s room at 5:00 A.M. and gathered the crucial papers, the Effortil bottle, and several personal items that were soiled with vomit. None of these items were seen again.

“The Vatican claimed that its house physician had determined myocardial infarction as the cause of death. Although Italian law required a waiting period of at least 24 hours before a body may be embalmed, Cardinal Villot had the body of Albino Luciani prepared for burial 12 hours after his death. Although the Vatican refused to permit an autopsy on the basis of…canon law, the Italian press verified that an autopsy had been” done on Pope Pius VIII in 1830.

The initial report to the public was that “the Holy Father was found dead by Sister Vincenzia and not by his secretary… One report had him dead in his bathroom, another by his desk in his bedroom.” There were also discrepancies about the time of death, though the official estimate was that he died at 11 P.M. on September 28.

“Another report stated John Paul had complained during the day of feeling sick but wouldn’t call a doctor. It said he had suffered a pain and a violent cough during that afternoon.” It was reported that “after dinner he rushed down the hallway to get a telephone call around 9:15 pm.”

Did this trigger a fatal heart attack? Or had he been poisoned?

Some who believed he was murdered stated that the motive was fear that the spiritual leader of Roman Catholics was embarking on a revolution. He wanted to set the Church in a new direction that was considered undesirable and dangerous by many of the high-ranking Church officials.

In a 1984 book titled In God’s Name: An Investigation into the Murder of John Paul I, British author David Yallop contended that the pontiff was ordered killed by one or more of six suspects, all of whom “had a great deal to fear if the papacy of John Paul I continued.” Among those in the Vatican with a reason to worry were numerous members of a clandestine Italian Masonic lodge called Propaganda Due [doo-ay], or P2. Founded in 1877, in Turin, as “Propaganda Massonica,” it had as members politicians and government officials from across Italy. “The name was changed to ‘Propaganda Due’ following World War II when the Grand Orient numbered its lodges.” Although the Church banned Catholics from joining the Freemasons, P2 extended its reach into the Holy See in the form of “The Great Vatican Lodge.” In September 1978, members included cardinals, bishops, many high-ranking prelates, and laymen.

The Grand Master was Licio Gelli. A financier, he had been a Mussolini fascist, “liaison officer” for the Nazis, organizer of a “rat line” to assist Nazis in avoiding arrest as war criminals by fleeing to Argentina, ally of Argentine dictator Juan Peron, post-World War II informant for both U.S. Intelligence and Italian Communists, and agitator for the establishment of a right-wing government in Italy.

According to Yallop, the murder of John Paul was triggered by his decision to purge the troubled Vatican Bank and cleanse the Church of ties to P2.

“The man who had quickly been labeled ‘The Smiling Pope,’” wrote Yallop, “intended to remove the smiles from a number of faces the following day.”

Yallop cited Villot, who had learned he would be replaced as the Vatican’s Secretary of State and who was dismayed that John Paul was thinking of loosening the church’s prohibition on artificial birth control; Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank, who was said to have been scheduled for immediate removal; Roberto Calvi, president of Banco Ambrosiano, who faced ruin if his trickery with Vatican funds were discovered; Sindona, who knew about the Vatican Bank’s alleged laundering of Mafia money; Gelli; and John Cardinal Cody of Chicago, who was said to have been tipped off that he would be asked to resign.

Yallop speculated that the Pope was poisoned, possibly by someone tampering with a bottle of low blood pressure medicine called Effortil that John Paul was said to have kept at his bedside. Yallop wrote that these inconsistencies in the Vatican ’s account of the papal death and the absence of an autopsy pointed to a cover-up.

“It was abundantly clear,” he wrote, “that on September 28th, 1978, these six men, Marcinkus, Villot, Calvi, Sindona, Cody and Gelli had much to fear if the Papacy of John Paul I continued. It is equally clear that all of them stood to gain in a variety of ways if Pope John Paul I should suddenly die.”

Conspiracy theorists were quick to find a prediction of John Paul’s murder in the writings of the ancient prophet Nostradamus:

The one elected Pope will be mocked by his electors,

This enterprising and prudent person will suddenly be reduced in silence,

They cause him to die because of his too great goodness and mildness.

Stricken by fear, they will lead him to his death in the night.

All that could be said with certainty was that John Paul had been Pope for thirty-three days

EVENTS AFTER JOHN PAUL’S DEATH:

October 1978: Election of Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyła to the papacy. He takes the name John Paul II in honor of the dead Pope. None of John Paul I’s instructions or edicts are carried out.

January 21, 1979: Judge Emillio Alessandrini, a magistrate investigating the Banco Ambrosiano activities is murdered.

March 20, 1979: Nino Pecorelli, an investigative journalist, exposing membership and dealings of the Freemason’s P-2 group, is murdered.

July 11, 1979: Giorgio Ambrosioli, following his testimony concerning Sindona and Calvi in Vatican business circles, is murdered.

July 13, 1978: Lt. Col. Antonio Varisco, head of Rome ’s security service, is murdered. Varisco was also investigating the activities of the P-2 group; he was seen speaking with Giorgio Ambrosioli two days before Ambrosioli’s death.

February 2, 1980: The Vatican withdraws an agreement to provide videotaped depositions of Sindona in his trial in the U.S. on charges of fraud, conspiracy and misappropriation of funds in connection with the collapse of Franklin National Bank.

May 13, 1980: Sindona attempts suicide.

July 8, 1980: Roberto Calvi, also jailed for fraud, attempts suicide.

September 1, 1981: The Vatican Bank acknowledges its controlling interests in a number of banks fronted by Calvi-for more than one billion dollars of debt.

January 2, 1981: Shareholders in Banco Ambrosiano send a letter to John Paul II that expose the connections between the Vatican Bank and Roberto Calvi, P-2 and the Mafia. The letter is never acknowledged.

April 27, 1982: Attempted murder of Roberto Rosone, General Manager of Banco Ambrosiano. Rosone was reportedly trying to clean up the bank’s operations.

October 2, 1982: Giuseppe Dellacha, executive of Banco Ambrosiano, dies after a fall out of one of the bank’s windows.

March 23, 1986: Michele Sindona, in the Italian jail for which he was serving time for ordering the death of Giorgio Ambrosioli, is poisoned to death.

The most sensational of these events occurred on June 17, 1982. On that date, Roberto Calvi was found hanging by the neck from a bridge in London.