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Murder by the Grace of God
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Witness for the Prosecution
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For those of us who remember him, I bring nothing new. Yet, for those of us who have allowed the Vatican’s misrepresentations of what he was all about, who have allowed its falsehoods to distort his legacy, I bring a treasure trove of yesterday.
In the crypt beneath St. Peter’s Basilica is a granite tomb,
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Like its counterpart in Arlington across the pond, it, too, marks an unknown tomb, 'The Tomb of the Unknown Pope.' Not even his period of reign marks his place in time. The Church would rather keep his life a secret. 'Murder by the Grace of God' is the Secret Life of John Paul I.
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Bishop's Castle at Vittorio Veneto where the author first met Albino Luciani
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In 1984 David Yallop published 'In God’s Name' and in 1989 John Cornwell published 'A Thief in the Night.' These bestsellers still reign today as the premier books concerning John Paul’s death.
Both these men are reputable world-renowned journalists. One can trust what they reported was the truth. One knows this for a more definitive reason. Most of their witnesses were alive after their books were released and the press confirmed the testimony they had published.
Yet, neither Yallop nor Cornwell subjected their witnesses to the scrutiny of a court of law. That we will do now.
Moreover, we have a key witness for the prosecution not before heard from. Crucial testimony as to what happened to the money that disappeared in Central America in the Great Vatican Bank Scandal is my chat with Paul Marcinkus, President of the business that was involved in the scandal.
Then one has my friend Jack. Some of what I speak of here is the record of our conversations and correspondence. Only one of Jack’s letters arrived during John Paul’s papacy,
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Then there is my direct testimony of the man himself. I don’t want to mislead the reader I was a lifelong acquaintance of Albino Luciani. If you count the fingers on your hands and toes on your feet you will have the number of times I sat down in conversation with the man. So I can speak with some reliability of his childhood and young priesthood and of his fundamental ideology. Yet, that is all.
Luciani's ideology is not necessarily consistent with my own. For the most part we operated on opposite sides of the political arena. When I first met him, he was a bishop leading the priest-worker movement—revolution of the poor—in northern Italy. Conversely, I was a NATO Intelligence officer charged with the mission to crush the priest-worker movement and the communist ideals it represented.
When as pope he announced his support for the revolution of the poor in Central America, I was an officer of a corporate giant allied together with the coalition of ruling juntas and the CIA in crushing the revolution of the poor in Central America and returning the war-torn isthmus to the stability inherent in a capitalistic society.
Nevertheless, the mainstay of my testimony is not 'me,' nor is it the witness of Yallop and Cornwell and others.
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It is the press. I say that again. It is the press.
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From the time he became a bishop in 1958 the press recorded his every move up to the moment he 'woke up' dead in his bed in the fall of 1978. As one knows, it followed him well beyond death.
Alluding to the Marxist threads bonding them together and the sudden and unexplained deaths within Vatican walls of Cardinal Yu Pin, KGB affiliate Metropolitan Nikodim and John Paul I in rapid consecutive order as if a machine gun had mowed them down—not one of them subjected to autopsy—Corriere della Serra posted the bold headline,
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"Why No Autopsies.... a Chinese, a Russian and now the Bolshevik Pontiff, himself."
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If you want what the Vatican wants you to know, listen to what its pawns have to say.
I give you what the newspapers have to say: more than five hundred indisputable witnesses to the revolutionary life and mysterious death of Albino Luciani.
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Photos tomb and bishop’s castle - author photo
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