Murder in the Vatican

by Lucien Gregoire

  “Yet, today we know the truth—no vegetation can exist without the process of photosynthesis which is a product of the sun. In fact, the earth, itself, could not exist without its sun.”

  Daniele, with a triumphal smirk, “But, God would have told the story of creation as people at the time believed the world to be.”

  The Pope nodded, “Yes, in the seventeenth century when Galileo proved the organization of the universe—when he proved the story of creation as told by Moses was not the truth—Pope Innocent declared God would have told the story of creation in the way people understood the world to be at that time.

  “Everyone believed him. Today, many still believe Innocent’s proclamation that the same God who gave us the commandment ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness,’ lied about the organization of the universe in His first words to man.

  “Of course, I, too, am Pope. In addition, I have at my disposal the great abundance of knowledge the world has accumulated since Innocent’s time. I ask myself, ‘Would God have had reason to have lied?’ The answer is that God had no reason to have lied. In fact, God had great motive to have told the truth. For had He told Moses the truth, had God revealed the true organization of the universe to Moses, it would have proved He was the true God.

  “It would have explained a great mystery of that time. How it was possible for the sun to rise in the east each morning and set in the west each evening? How did it ever return to the east? So God had great motive to have told the truth. Yet, Moses, in convincing his people he had talked to God, inspired them to take the Promised Land so future generations would think God gave that land to the Jews. So Moses would have had great motive to have lied.

  “Daniele, now listen very carefully to what I am about to say to you. I want you to keep it with you always.” He raised his voice and his eyes roamed around the hall so that all would hear what he had to say, “Daniele, I do not believe the same God who has endowed us with reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use; we would believe a God, who had great motive to have told the truth, lied, and a man, who had great motive to have lied, told the truth.

  “In his day, Moses thought he was telling the truth. But, today we know he was not telling the truth because, at his time, he did not know the truth. Daniele, if we are ever to know the truth, we cannot start with falsehoods. We must start with what we have determined to be the truth to a given point in time and go forward.

  “As each generation comes and goes we grow closer and closer to the truth. Daniele, the truth does not lie in the past; it lies in the future. It is your job to help society in its struggle to find it.”

  John Paul looked at the boy, “Daniele. Let me tell you a story.

  “In America, for two-hundred years, Negroes were taken from their children and placed in bondage and the white church-going Christians thought it was right, it was holy, the will of God. They thought this way because they were in the fifth grade and wanted to stay in the fifth grade because they could not give up their teacher.

  “Their fifth grade teacher was the God of the Old Testament. He told them in His Tenth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not covet—desire to take from—thy neighbor his property, including his house, his wife, his slaves, his ox, his ass.’6 Their fifth grade teacher felt so strongly slavery was right, He protected the right of one man to enslave another in His Commandments.

  “Then one day, a man named Lincoln and others like him came along and scratched their heads, ‘There is something wrong here? Let us go onto the sixth grade.’ There they found a new teacher, His name was Christ and Christ told them slavery was wrong.

  “In Matthew, when asked, ‘Which commandments must I keep that I shall have eternal life?’ Christ makes no mention of Moses’ first four commandments which require adoration of the God of the Old Testament: 1) I am the one God, 2) no graven images, 3) don’t take the name of the Lord in vain, and 4) keep the Sabbath.7

  “Unlike Moses’ God who tells us the only path to Heaven is to fall down on our knees and adore Him, Christ tells us falling down on our knees and adoring Him isn’t going to get us anywhere. He tells us clearly the only path to heaven is on our feet helping others.

  “Christ does retain five of Moses’ requirements: 5) honor thy father and mother, 6) shalt not kill, 7) shalt not steal, 8) shalt not commit adultery, 9) shalt not bear false witness. Yet, He specifically excludes the tenth commandment, Christ decrees Moses’ intent to protect the right of one man to enslave another was wrong.”

  The boy whispered, “I never thought of it in this way.”

  John Paul continued, “Through the centuries, Mother Church has had the same problem the American Christians had back before Lincoln’s day. In Moses’ time, the Israelites slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their peaceful Canaanite neighbors including all of their children and thought it was right because their faith told them it was right. Back in Christ’s time, they would stone unwed mothers to death and thought it was right because their faith told them it was right. The Crusaders slaughtered millions of Muslims and Jews and thought it was right because their faith told them it was right. In the World War, Italy sided with Germany in its quest for the superiority of the white race and the annihilation other races. Again, we thought it was right because our faith told us it was right.

  “Daniele, not too long ago when I was your age, every village in Italy had a cart that went about the streets each morning picking up the frozen bodies of orphans who had not made it through the winter nights. At the time, all we good Christians thought it was right because our faith told us it was right. Now, a few generations later, we know it was wrong. It was an atrocity.

  “Just a few weeks ago, the first artificially inseminated child was born. Catholics overwhelmingly condemn the child. The reason they condemn the child is because their faith condemns the child. So even today, faith does not know right from wrong. Today, we persecute many kinds of people who live their lives differently and continue to think it is right because of what someone once wrote in a book.

  “Daniele, you too must make progress or you will never know right from wrong. You will never be able to help society in its search for the truth. You will never be able to make your mark toward making this a better world to live in for those who come after you.”

  Daniele, “Now I know why I must go on to the sixth grade.”

  “Yes, Daniele, you have your sacred commission. You must go on to the sixth grade, then on to the seventh, and then on to the eighth. You must go forward, always advancing, never looking back. Progress must be your guiding ambition. So that someday the whole world will come to know the truth. So that the day will come about when all men and women will treat each other equally as Christ had commanded, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Not as they have in the past, just because someone once wrote something in a book.

  “Always remember,” John Paul cautioned, “faith is something someone once wrote in a book. Someone who wanted to take advantage of others who didn’t know what we know today. Faith is not the truth. It does not know right from wrong…”

  Daniele baffled, “But, how would we know right from wrong?”

  The Pope pointed to his head.8

  Women ordination

  On CBS News the next day: John Paul held an audience with a Philippine delegation this morning. He was challenged on doctrine concerning rumors a woman might be ordained. John Paul told the bishop, “When I was a boy, my father made me promise I would live my life in imitation of Christ. I have kept that solemn promise. Each time the fork in the road has come up, often only minutes apart, I have asked myself, ‘Now, what would Jesus have done in this case?’ I have often pondered the possibility as to how much better the world would be if everyone were to do this.” He then asked the bishop, “Now, what do you think Jesus would do in this case?”

  The bishop remained silent. John Paul told him, “It makes no difference what was written by self-serving men for yesterday, all that counts is what Jesus would do today.�
� He reminded the delegation, “God is more our Mother than She is our Father!”9

  The next day, I woke up to the news: “Just thirty-three days into his pontificate, Pope John Paul died last evening… Vibrant and on the job to the end, he was sixty-five… the only Pope whose death was unwitnessed… On hearing the news, Cardinal Benelli of Florence called for an autopsy… Born of a social revolutionary atheist father who had placed him in a seminary at the age of eleven with the commission to bring change to the Church… What would have been John Paul’s papacy is perhaps best defined by his compassion for women, the remarried, bastards, homosexuals, the poor and others oppressed by scripture as expressed in the underlying message of his acceptance speech* in the Sistine Chapel on August 27, 1978, ‘…We must rise up the courage to set aside the preferences that have been built into us by our Christian forefathers…Together we will muster the strength to lift those restraints unfairly placed upon the everyday lives of so many innocent people by doctrine… for God-given human life is infinitely more precious than is man-made doctrine.’”10

  Cardinal Willebrands, the most outspoken cardinal for women and married priests, who had recently defended homosexuals in an incident of gay-bashing, “When Mother Church incites suffering and death, the thread which weaves her moral fabric is flawed,” told the press, “It is a disaster. I cannot put into words how happy we were on that day we had chosen John Paul. We had such high hopes. It was such a beautiful feeling, one that comes once in a lifetime, a feeling that something fresh was about to happen to our Church.”11

  Five days later, Associated Press, October 4, 1978, Vatican City: “…The coffin, a pine box as reserved for paupers, was hemmed in by the princes of the Church in their rich and elegant attire…

  Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens, the leader of liberalism in the Roman Catholic Church, gave the final tribute for his dear friend.

  ‘…Like a shimmering white light, he rose up from the mud in the street and left no one untouched.

  For those of us at the top, from heads of churches, to leaders of nations, to those of great scientific achievement, he was the Enlightener—the Imitation of the Holy Ghost.

  For those of us at the bottom, from the poor, to the homeless, to the handicapped, to the oppressed, he was the Redeemer—the Imitation of Christ.1

  Above all, he was the best of men.’”12

  Thus was the beginning and the end of Albino Luciani. Now, witness the whole of him. This is the Testament of John Paul I.

  Author’s note: ↓ PLEASE READ ↓

  *‘Acceptance speech’ as used herein is a misnomenclature as Luciani chatted with the cardinals for hours in a closed session. Its message is limited to what various right and left wing cardinals told various right and left wing elements of the press, the reason newspapers reported variations of what was said.

  Yet, from all that is known, John Paul made a partisan effort to appeal to all. His ‘greetings to all’ message, particularly to the oppressed, won the hearts of those on the left. Cardinals Benelli and Felici were pleased with the high priority given revision of the code of canon law the reason the Florence newspaper La Nazione focused on this point. Progressives who took ‘ecumenism’ to include all religions were happy he committed himself to it. Conservatives were content as they took ‘ecumenism’ to be religious unity within Catholicism the reason L’ Osservatore Romano focused on this point. Third world cardinals were pleased with his overly compassion for the poor and his emphasis on human rights and international justice the reason Latin American media focused on this part of what he had to say. He made friendly tones toward the Synod of Bishops which was taken by Cardinal Suenens that future bishops, including popes, would be elected by the Episcopate to avoid polarization of the hierarchy of the Church which was reported in L Europeenne de Bruxelles. His most uniformly published comment in the world press, ‘The Church existed not to be served by the world but instead to serve the world’ recalled Jack’s last letter to me, ‘Mother church will cease to be the cause of the world’s problem and instead will begin to be the answer to them.’

  Except for some bits which had reached the world press, he was unknown outside Italy. Comments in world newspapers varied the day he was elected,

  Official transcripts available on the Internet and in libraries of what a pope said on a specific occasion are usually not representative of what was actually said and are often contradictory of what was said. If one takes the time to view the clip of John Paul’s September 27th audience www.johnpaul1.org one will find a simple man speaking in everyday conversation. Conversely, the official Vatican transcript of this audience—available in libraries and on the Net—portrays a great orator addressing a group of Noble laureates—it will drive the scholar to his dictionary.

  John Paul’s public audiences ran two to four hours during which time he spoke extemporarily. The Vatican transcripts can be read in less than a minute or two— in most cases not remotely representative of and in some cases contradictory to what actually took place. For example, during his four audiences he interviewed seventeen people including twelve children—the meat of what he had to say. Every one of these conversations ended up on the Vatican’s cutting-room floor. The Daniele conversation exceeded thirty minutes, yet, only a few briefs reached most newspapers and it is not mentioned at all in the Vatican transcript.

  Authors have written of this. Roger Crane, in his play The Last Confession which premiered in 2007 in London starring David Suchet, probably tells it best.

  John Paul: (Disturbed) “The Vatican press has changed my speech again…This isn’t what I said at all. Just official statements cleverly redrafted by the Curia. They even have me celebrating the tenth anniversary of the encyclical against birth control. Everyone knows I intend to revise it.”

  Lorenzi: “There is also an article of your condemnation of the birth of the recent test-tube baby.”

  John Paul: “They know of and are ignoring the letter I wrote congratulating the parents. (Angry) Damn them!”

  Lorenzi: “Holy Father.”

  John Paul: “Forgive me.” (Smiling) “Just a figure of speech…”

  … then we have the author’s own play—Torn Lace, Shattered Dreams—John Paul and his secretary Magee the afternoon before his last audience:

  Magee: (reading a newspaper) “It says here, ‘The new pontiff refused to join the priest-worker movement. A strong supporter of Paul’s Populorum Progressio he is seen as an avid anti-communist.’ They have it in all the newspapers.”

  John Paul: (Laughs) They’ve got that one partly right. I never joined it. I started it.

  Magee: (Dumbfounded look)

  John Paul: “Together with Paul, I drafted Populorum Progressio—the inalienable right of all men to reasonable working conditions and just wages. Instead of rumors, they should read my book Illustrissimi I make clear my support for the priest-worker movement in my letter to Saint Therese, ‘…A justified strike is in progress…to feel solidarity in progress of men fighting for their rights, is Christian charity…’ And this name tab, ‘Anti-communist?’ They are confused by what is going on in Russia. The Soviet Union is an autocracy. It was never a true communist society. The world does not know the meaning of the word ‘communism.’ Tomorrow, I will tell it what it means,

  Magee: (Dumbfounded again)

  John Paul: “It is the inalienable right of no man to accumulate wealth beyond his needs while other men starve to death because they have nothing.”

  1 27 Sep 78. Lifting a chalice to a worldwide television cameras he said this in his last audience

  2 Deuteronomy 23 ‘A bastard child shall not enter the congregation of the Lord.’ Moses condemnation of born-out-of-wedlock children is why the word continues to have a terrible connotation today despite that the stigma is now dead. In 1973, Paul VI motioned to make Luciani a cardinal. Luciani sent a message that unless the Pope reversed canon law’s condemnation of bastards, he would refuse the red hat. Paul complied. Yet, even today, in cons
ervative Rome, one will not find a priest who is willing to baptize an illegitimate child. Despite Paul’s reversal of the statute, the Church continues to cling to Moses’ condemnation of these children, e.g., today an illegitimate child cannot become a priest, cannot become a Swiss Guard, etc.

  3 carried in its entirety by ANSA, Italy’s premier wire service. Conversation with the boy Anthony

  4 John Paul originally said this to Cardinal Villot on September 19th. He repeated it is his 4th audience.

  5 Visit www.JohnPaul1.org for film clip “…It is the inalienable right…” 27 Sep 78 4th audience

  6 The Tenth Commandment as it appears in the oldest surviving texts and in eastern Bibles including the Jewish Torah today: “Thou shalt not covet (desire to take from) thy neighbor his property including his house, his wife, his slaves, his ox, his ass.” In the twentieth century, most Bibles changed its meaning from the original texts: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor his…servants or employees…” Moses’ intent was to hold women as mere property of men and protect the right of one man to enslave another. The United States Constitution was originally based on this commandment—women and slaves were property and had no rights as human beings until the mid-nineteenth century.

  7 Matthew 19

  8 This relatively substantial text of the boy Daniele interview and is a composite of excerpts published in La Repubblica, La Stampa, El Mondo, Corriere della Serra, Corriere del Alpi, The Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Bulletin and other world newspapers

  9 As reported in La Stampa 12 Sep 78. Other newspapers reported variations of what was said reflecting their political position. John Paul originally said this on Sunday September 10, 1978 and repeated it in his private audience with the Philippine delegation on September 27, 1978.

  10 See author’s note above

  11 De Groene Amsterdammer 2 Oct 78

  12 L Europeenne de Bruxelles 5 Oct 78