Death shortly after assuming power – regardless of whether the deceased was the head of the state or of God’s people – always arouses suspicion. When it occurs alone, and death is preceded by important events, speculation about the alleged conspiracy emerges almost immediately. This was also the case with John Paul I – the pope who died only 33 days after the beginning of his pontificate. For years, it has been debated whether the official cause of death – a heart attack – is not just a smokescreen against the cruel truth about the poisoning of the pope by members of the mafia or at least freemasons …
- John Paul I was an Italian clergyman who was elected Pope on August 26, 1978, successor of Paul VI
- His pontificate lasted only 33 days
- It was officially announced that Alberto Luciani died of a heart attack
- Sudden death sparked an avalanche of speculation and conjecture fueled by contradictory testimonies through the Apostolic Palace on the eve and on the day of the Pope’s death
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Your Holiness is (not) joking
It’s five in the morning. Vincenza Taffarel, Margherita Marin, Cecilia Tomaselli and Elena Maggi have just woken up. They only need a few minutes to complete their morning toilet, get dressed, and be ready to go. They are nuns and have been serving in the papal residence in the Vatican for 33 days. Cecilia is responsible for the kitchen, but it is Vincenza, the nurse, who prepares fresh espresso for the Holy Father every day. She has been honoring this honor for a reason – she has known John Paul I for a long time, from the time of his episcopal ministry, and it was at his request that she found herself in the very heart of the Vatican. The coffee tray lands on the table in front of the door of the Pope’s apartment, and Vincenza goes to help prepare for the morning mass.
When he comes back, the drink is still intact. Vincenza has a bad feeling. Albino Luciani has been serving for 19 years, he never overslept. He also knows his habits – at this time he should shave while listening to the next lesson of the language course – the Italian polyglot is currently learning English. There are no sounds coming through the door, however. He calls Margherita, the youngest sister, responsible for the preparation of the wardrobe, sacristy and chapel. «The Holy Father has not left yet. Let’s try to knock… »he says quietly, then waits for a reaction from the other side. Silence answers.
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After a while, they both enter the papal chamber and notice the still burning night lamp. The Pope is sitting on the bed, leaning against the pillows. He wears glasses and holds individual pages in his hand. Sister Vincenza says: “Your Holiness should not make fun of me.” The nun is the oldest sister serving here and has a heart problem. The sight of the Pope sitting motionless could scare us, but both nuns knew that the Holy Father had a great sense of humor. The slightly closed eyes and the gentle smile on his face seemed to confirm this. This time, however, the Pope was not kidding. John Paul I was dead.
When Bishop John Magee arrives at 5.25:XNUMX, panic reigns near the residence’s most important bedroom. Pale as a wall, nuns inform the papal secretary that he is dead. The Irish clergyman found it hard to believe – when he escorted him to his apartment in the evening, the supervisor was in an excellent mood and assured him that he was feeling great. Although he took an additional pill “for the heart”, he forbade him to call a doctor, saying that there was no cause for concern.
It turns out that John Paul I’s personal secretary was the last to see him alive. You don’t have to wait long for the accusations – he must have murdered him by sprinkling poison into his coffee.
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No bloat
Meanwhile, 66 years earlier, nothing announced that Albino Luciani – an Italian clergyman, Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, Patriarch of Venice – would ever find his way to this bedroom, to take over the See of Peter, or to become a priest at all. And there was absolutely no indication that he would survive the day of his birth at all. When he was born on October 17, 1912, the midwife present at the birth ordered him to be baptized on the same day – she doubted that such a frail and weak child would find the strength to live.
He came from a poor working-class family. His father – Giovanni – was a bricklayer who traveled across Europe to work. Fate suffered him hard – his wife died very young, leaving him alone with two disabled daughters. Not believing that something good awaited him, he left for Venice, where he met his second wife. Before the wedding, Bartolomea had only one wish – if they had children, they would raise them in the Catholic faith. It was a serious test for Giovanni – he declared himself anti-clerical and Marxist – but he emerged victorious. So much so that when his firstborn son (the first of four children from his second relationship) confesses to him that he wants to become a priest, he will not only grant him permission, but also sincerely hope that Albino will serve not only God, but also people, especially the poorest.
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However, the road to the priesthood of the future Pope was not all roses. Apparently, teachers in the lower theological seminary (a kind of Catholic high school – editor’s note) complained about his expressiveness, and Albino was not very diligent. During his studies at the major seminary, he became interested in the order, but his attempt to join the Jesuits failed. Nevertheless, in 1935, at the age of 23, he was ordained a priest and since then his career has developed in an exemplary fashion. He was a vicar, then vice-rector of the seminary and its lecturer, bishop chancellor and vicar general of the diocese of Belluno, in the meantime he defended his doctorate and wrote a book. He was not even forty then.
His approach to power and money was revealed in Vittorio Veneto, a small town in Veneto, which was the seat of his diocese. He did not like to surround himself with luxury, where he could, he wore an ordinary black cassock, and he arranged the apartment – despite the fact that it was in a castle – extremely modestly. Later, as the patriarch of Venice, at the episcopal synod, he threw the idea that the dioceses should donate one percent. incomes to Third World countries. He initiated charity campaigns. Apparently, he ordered parish priests in his diocese to sell gold from churches, and use the money obtained in this way to help disabled children. Years later, for the same purpose, he donated the gold cross and chain that had once belonged to Pius XII, which he had received from Pope John XXIII.
During the oil crisis in Italy – Luciani was already a cardinal – he had to leave. He did not agree to travel by car and an additional allocation of gasoline, choosing a train and – on the section station-church in which he was to celebrate mass – a bicycle. He introduced new customs in the Vatican, strange for the hierarchs established there for a long time. He resigned from the customary coronation, refused to wear the tiara, refused to hear about carrying it in a litter. He tried not only not to add work to the ministers in the Apostolic Palace, but also to take it away from them. The nuns recalled how one hot day he came to the kitchen and told the sisters to iron only the collar and cuffs of his shirt, because the rest is not visible (apparently it was the fact that the Pope had to change this garment several times a day, sweating, which after his death was associated with the undiagnosed disease he suffered from).
He was elected pope almost by accident – he became the silent victor (or – as some would like – a victim) of the mutual struggle between the main opponents. It was supposed to be a safe choice – after all, what could a modest cardinal who had no idea about the great Vatican politics? Luciani himself was aware of his preparation (or rather the lack of it). Before the conclave, he said that in his life he would not have agreed to take the seat of Peter. When he was elected, he was supposed to feel compelled to accept the honor, but – as he admitted in one of his private letters – he regretted it deeply the very next day.
Loud echoes of silent death
Despite the short reign, the sudden death of the pope caused great despair of the faithful and a wave of anxiety among the clergy. There was no end to conspiracy theories, especially in Vatican circles. The atmosphere was heated by the fact that an autopsy was abandoned. The doctor’s report was discontinued, which stated that the death had occurred around 23:XNUMX the previous day, and that his immediate cause was a myocardial infarction. The lack of an autopsy was suspect. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the poison theory was quickly refuted. It was said that the pope’s coffee was sprinkled with lethal powder, and yet this was found intact – there were too many witnesses to drill down further. So they searched further.
The issues that John Paul I had to deal with during his short pontificate were quickly reviewed. The issue of corruption in the Vatican Bank was highlighted – the pope wanted to investigate the history of this institution and take a closer look at the people managing it. The problem is that they were suspected to be related to the Italian mafia, which “did not wish” to rummage in its business.
There was also a strange case of the president of another institution – Banco Ambrosiano – in which the Vatican Institute of Religious Works (called the Vatican Bank) had a stake. His boss, Roberto Calvi, was a member of an illegal Paramanian lodge and was found dead shortly after a corruption scandal was exposed. One of the authors of numerous books on the short pontificate and the possible causes of the death of John Paul I, David Yallop reportedly offered the Vatican profits from the sale of a bestseller in exchange for confirming its main thesis: just before his death, the pope compiled a blacklist of curia employees involved in corruption at the Vatican Bank. This was evidenced by the arrangement of the papal hand allegedly holding a pen. The Vatican, of course, ignored the request.
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Others directed their deliberations towards Freemasonry and documents hidden by the Vatican regarding the apparitions in Fatima. The theory was long held that the pope discovered how many Vatican clergy were Freemasons at the same time and wanted to have them exposed and expelled. The third secret of Fatima was also dealt with for a while. Its content, unlike the first and second secrets, was not made public (until 2000). Reportedly, it was read by Pope John XXIII and deposited in secret Vatican archives. It has been speculated that the new pope had become acquainted with her and that his heart could not withstand the terrifying visions.
He did not help himself in extinguishing the understatements Vaticanwho never he did not agree on a coherent version of the events this fateful night. The priests and nuns who served in the Apostolic Palace were supposed to be silent, but for the light of day anyway emotional, conflicting relationships flowed out. For example, the one about the person who discovered the Pope’s body. According to official sources, it was Bishop Magee, unofficial sources – Sister Vincenza, although they did not want to talk about it, because it looked like a woman had access to the papal bedroom, and was the first …
The time of death was also unclear – it was said at 23 p.m., but the people who dealt with Luciani’s corpse in the morning claimed that it was still warm; so the pope had to die around five in the morning. The cards that were held in his hands at the time of his death by John Paul also aroused hot emotions. Were they just notes for a sermon with Gospel passages, or maybe secret documents, a report on an investigation, a list of names whose owners should be afraid of something? Oil was added to the fire by the fact that the pages disappeared from the room the fastest.
Last breath
The closest to the truth was probably the British writer John Cornwell, who – with the consent of the Vatican – traced the last years of the Pope’s life. He found that despite being quite young for a high-ranking hierarchy, Luciani was struggling with cardiological problems. Several times he was diagnosed with ailments, the sources of which were seen in blood coagulation disorders. John Paul I was taking anticoagulants. The magic pills, as he jokingly referred to them, came with him to the Apostolic Palace, but the one who wrote them was missing. The doctor of the current patriarch of Venice has not been called to papal service, and his successor has not yet been appointed. Perhaps, during the short pontificate, health problems worsened, perhaps the dose of the drug had to be adjusted, perhaps John Paul I needed a watchman who would make sure that the tablets were taken on time or not taken at all.
The British journalist in his book also attempted to recreate the last hours of the Holy Father’s life. According to his findings, he actually felt pain in his chest in the evening, but the ailment passed when he performed the previously prescribed exercises for his legs, which he had notoriously swollen. An additional tablet given by Sister Vincenza probably also helped. During the effort, however, it had to break off a fragment of the clot and travel to the lungs. Perhaps it wouldn’t have done much harm if it weren’t for the fact that Luciani ran to answer an important phone during dinner, and the camera was located at the end of a long corridor. Another effort might have caused a serious blockage in the lungs. Death was most likely swift and silent.
Today, conspiracy theories about the death of John Paul I are not so sensational, and most doubters agree that the pope died of a heart attack. For amateurs of writing alternative stories, it remains to guess what would happen if the first Holy Father using the two-part name survived. Could he have had a chance to develop his ideas by decades ahead of Pope Francis’ efforts on behalf of the poor, and by dealing with at least some of the hidden sins of the Catholic Church? Would his pontificate last for years, or would destiny reach him sooner or later? If on that memorable evening he had allowed a doctor to be called, would the road to the Holy See for the Polish Pope even open up? How would the history of Poland, the Church, Europe and the world unfold then?
At the end of 2021, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had approved a decree recognizing a miracle through the intercession of the Servant of God Albino Luciani. It concerns a young girl in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who suffered from acute encephalopathy and treatment-resistant epilepsy characterized by daily seizures. Sepsis also developed at a critical juncture. The woman recovered despite the disastrous prognosis.
The beatification of John Paul I will take place on September 4, 2022.
We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time we devote it to the problems of the perineum – a part of the body just like any other. And although it concerns all of us, it is still a taboo subject that we are often ashamed to talk about. What do hormonal changes and natural births change? How not to harm the pelvic floor muscles and how to care for them? How do we talk about perineal problems with our daughters? About this and many other aspects of the problem in a new episode of the podcast.
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