The Mysterious Death Of Pope John Paul I

To understand the theories regarding the death of John Paul I, it is necessary to understand the 20th-century history of the Catholic Church. John Paul I became pope on August 26, 1978, following a turbulent period in the Catholic Church's history. The controversial and misunderstood Second Vatican Council (aka Vatican II) brought a slew of changes to the Catholic Church. The most significant was the replacement of the Latin Tridentine Mass with the current vernacular Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo in Latin) in 1970, a major sticking point between Traditionalists and their opponents.

Cathleen Kaveny, writing in Commonweal Magazine, notes that critics called the decade following Vatican II the Church's "silly season," as strict catechism and solemn masses were traded in favor of "sharing, caring, and constructing felt banners." But there was hardly anything silly about it. Catholicism suffered acrimonious splits with Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre's Traditionalist faction SSPX in 1970 (via EWTN) and another with the sedevacantists, who consider post-Vatican II popes to be fake. But the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978 opened the possibility to elect someone open to reversing parts of Vatican II. Thus, John Paul I came to the papal chair in an atmosphere of instability inside the Vatican as he sought to navigate the minefield between Traditionalists, who wanted to restore the pre-'62 church, and progressives (aka supporters of female priests, birth control, etc.) who felt that Vatican II had not gone far enough.

1978 was a special year in that there were two conclaves. The more famous one elected Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II. But the one of interest to this article was the August Conclave of 1978. According to the Washington Post, this conclave was a breeze. The College of Cardinals quickly elected a political outsider to Vatican politics: Albino Luciani, the patriarch of Venice.

Luciani styled himself Pope John Paul I in honor of his two predecessors. His niece Lina Petri (via Catholic Review) gives some insight into his agenda that never materialized. The new pope's goal was not a "progressive update" to the church that would have allowed birth control and female priests. He sought to frame Catholic teachings in simple, everyday language accessible to all. Because of his warmth, he became known as the "smiling pope" and wasted no time in building that image. According to Time, he dispensed with the papal coronation, opting for a solemn mass that made him seem more like an ordinary person rather than a monarch.

Although he seemed like the perfect candidate to lead the Catholic Church post-Vatican II, EWTN series Papal Artifacts notes that the new pope was considered a political "lightweight" due to his lack of experience in papal government. In an interview with UPI, crime author David Yallop suggested that this choice was deliberate. His lack of experience with Vatican intrigue made him pliable by the Vatican's less scrupulous factions. Regardless, he never had a chance to do much. 33 days later, he was dead.

In 1987, the Irish Times challenged Fr. Magee's narrative. Fr. Magee responded that "[he] found him and [he] will stand before any person and challenge him." But in 1988, he changed his story. It turned out that a nun named Sr. Vincenza Taffarel had discovered the dead pope first. 

According to "The September Pope," Sr. Margherita Marin rose at 5 a.m. to pray and receive a grocery delivery. Her fellow nun Sr. Vincenza left the pope's morning coffee in the sacristy around 5:10 for him to drink before prayer. Sr. Margherita noticed it was still there 15 minutes later. It was not normal for the industrious John Paul I to sleep in. Thinking it a joke from the "smiling pope," the nuns went to check on him. They found him stone-cold dead in bed with darkened fingernails. But nothing else was out of place. The Vatican doctor concluded the pope had died of heart failure.

Thus, it turned out that Fr. Magee's claim was, at minimum, misleading. He covered for himself claiming that ​​"[he] did find the body of his holiness. [He] just didn't find it first" (via Irish Times). Sr. Vincenza had called him around 5:30 a.m. to inform him of her discovery. So why the "white lie"? The Irish Times notes that Fr. Magee justified his words claiming that a nun in the pope's bedroom would have been inappropriate, creating fodder for a tabloid scandal. Regardless, his "white lie" fueled suspicions of a coverup of a papal murder.

The above headline looks like a bad joke, but these are the three players at the center of the alleged murder plot. The Vatican Bank's establishment and Italy's generous concordat with the Vatican had allowed the papacy to enter the world of international finance tax-free, as noted in a 1982 New York Times article. In the 1970s, the bank's head was tough-talking Chicago native Archbishop Paul "the Gorilla" Marcinkus (pictured above), who earned his nickname from his size and strength. Marcinkus' philosophy, according to English crime writer David Yallop's book "In God's Name," was simple: "You can't run the Church on Hail Marys."

To help run the Vatican Bank's investments, Marcinkus contracted Milanese banker Roberto "God's Banker" Calvi, the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, and Michele "the Shark" Sindona, a shady Sicilian financier whom the New York Times referred to as the man who "unloosed ... the largest bank collapse in U.S. history." The Vatican Bank scandal, which eventually came to light in 1982, was "mind-numbingly" complicated. But simply put, Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano, according to Crisis Magazine, laundered at least $1.3 million into shell companies that Marcinkus' Vatican Bank (Ambrosiano's majority shareholder) had helped set up. Sindona acted as their go-between and Marcinkus' financial advisor. When Banco Ambrosiano collapsed and the money was nowhere to be found, Marcinkus, according to the Washington Post, raided the Vatican's pension fund to replace the lost money. But his worldly dealings brought him into direct confrontation with John Paul I, a man who had grown up in poverty and felt that high finance was not the church's business.

Propaganda Due (aka P-2) was the brainchild of Italian financier and "always ... fascist" Licio Gelli (pictured above). This banned masonic lodge, as noted in Crisis Magazine, included top Italian generals, financiers, industrialists, and politicians, including Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona. But most sensationally, it allegedly also counted high-ranking Vatican officials such as Paul Marcinkus and Vatican secretary of state Jean Villot among its ranks. This would have been an earth-shattering scandal. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, Catholics have been barred from freemasonry since 1738 due to its ties with the occult. Discovery of such membership (if true) would have resulted in the public humiliation of the Church and the punishment or expulsion of over 100 corrupt Vatican prelates that had broken their oaths to uphold church teachings.

According to David Yallop, when John Paul I decided to exorcise the demons of freemasonry and high finance from the Vatican, P-2 was able to throw the full weight of its political and religious connections against him. There are issues with this scenario, however. According to Crisis Magazine, when Italian police raided Gelli's home, they claimed that no members of the Vatican were on the P-2 membership list. But running a coverup likely would not have been difficult either, given the other illicit activites P-2 has been accused of. Regardless, full exposure of the scandal alone risked, at minimum, tarnishing the reputations of prelates and P-2 members alike. Thus, the pope had to die, and the well-connected P-2 was best positioned to organize the coup with help from another unexpected source: New York's Cosa Nostra, which has been implicated thanks to revelations from one of its former members.

After the Pope John Paul I died, he was embalmed and buried without an autopsy in accordance with Vatican protocol, leading to rampant media speculation (via NPR). The October conclave elected Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II. Paul Marcinkus escaped earthly punishment (if guilty), but his associates were less fortunate. According to Forbes, Roberto Calvi (pictured above) was found hanging from London's Blackfriar bridge (likely murdered) while his secretary Graziella Corrocher committed "suicide" by jumping from a window. According to the New York Times, Michele Sindona died of poisoning in Italian prison in 1986, while serving time for a raft of charges ranging from fraud to murder-for-hire.

Were the two fixers murdered to prevent exposure of their potential role in the pope's death? In Calvi's case, it is certainly possible. The timing of his death coincides with the unfolding of the Vatican Bank scandal in 1982. Sindona's death four years later, though, could have resulted from other issues. After all, both men had many powerful enemies outside the Vatican. 

Now, there is still one more loose end. When John Paul II came to the papal throne, Marcinkus allegedly told gangster Anthony Raimondi (via New York Post) that the new pope could follow in his predecessor's footsteps. So they concocted a plot to kill him, forcing John Paul II to curb any suspicions he might have had. Raimondi and his Vatican friends went out to celebrate in Rome with a booze-and-women-fueled orgy. Is this just a tall tale, or had Marcinkus, Raimondi, and their associates pulled off the greatest murder conspiracy of the 20th century? You decide.