Murder in the Vatican

by Lucien Gregoire

  Photo Anthony - author

  Photo Daniele - author

  Photo John Paul funeral - author

  Chapter 3

  The Minor Seminary at Feltre

  “The most fundamental weapon of war is not guns and bombs. It is propaganda which conditions children of nations to hate children of other nations so that when they grow up they will kill each other for the few at the top. “1

  Albino Luciani

  It was a dark dismal afternoon in October of nineteen hundred twenty-three, when eleven year old Albino Luciani climbed into the carriage that would take him to the minor seminary at Feltre—his first stop on a long journey which would eventually lead to Rome.

  His father, who had spent a lifetime trying to change the Church from the outside, decided it could only be changed from the inside. He committed his son to the task.

  In those days, prep schools, particularly minor seminaries, were reserved for the very rich—the reason priests came only from wealthy families—a reason priest do not take a vow of poverty. The best a poor boy could look forward to was a monk’s robe. His father, Giovanni Luciani, a member of the Socialist Party of Italy, made a deal; it would contribute the money, he would contribute Albino.2

  In his farewell, the revolutionary outcast of the Veneto country commissioned his son, “Albino, unlike those hypocrites who prance about the Vatican palaces in magnificent robes of silk and satin with jeweled chalices and rings of diamonds and rubies and gold, you must promise me you will live your life in imitation of Christ.”

  Emulating Albino’s fondness for chess, he gave the boy his game plan, “Play your pieces carefully and work hard until that day when at the helm of their ranks you will establish the common dignity of all Christ’s children in the Church.” He left him with one last word of caution, “Never risk your king to save a pawn.”

  So it was, his Papa, together with his little brother Edoardo, with tears in their eyes, waved goodbye, on that dreary drizzly autumn afternoon, to this Pauper who would be Pope.

  The road to Feltre had been a difficult one for the little boy. In the impoverished town of Canale d’Agordo, his family had been the poorest of the poor. His father was not only an atheist, he was a revolutionary socialist activist—a thorn in the side of the Church.

  So much so, he had to migrate hundreds of miles away where he was unknown to earn enough to support his family. Also, he spent much of his earnings building sheds for the orphans.

  Nevertheless, Feltre was a big step up for the little boy Luciani. To begin with, the buildings had indoor plumbing. In the poor mountain village where he had grown up, none of the houses had indoor plumbing. Going to the bathroom was the worst of times, particularly in the wintertime. That is, it was the worst of times for everyone except the orphans. They would sneak into the outhouses to keep warm. For them, it was the best of times.

  For this reason most people kept padlocks on them to keep the orphans out. Nevertheless, going to the bathroom would never again be the worst of times for Albino Luciani. Actually, the worst of times for this little boy were not over. They were yet to come.

  Luciani told me of the time he knelt in the chapel at Feltre.

  “It was at the age of eleven I began my ministry.

  “The haunting memory of the hopeless struggle of the orphans would trouble me all the rest of my days. These unfortunate children would become the central focus of all my energies. It was then, in the solitude of that tiny chapel, I made my sacred pledge to Christ,

  “‘I can offer you no great cathedral, no chant, no offering of gold. All I have to give is my promise that I will do what you have told me to do. I know not where this path leads. All I know is that you have told me to take it, and that is all I need know.

  ‘ If at its end there is nothing there, it is enough for me that you have allowed me the opportunity to have walked this way. That you have called upon me to bring about the equality of all your children.

  ‘I care not if it takes me over the highest mountains, or across the widest seas, or against the armaments of all the armies of the earth, or even through fire. I intend to do this thing with all the strength, vigor and courage that is within me as if the very existence of each and every one of your children depends on me, alone.’”3

  Thus began the work of John Paul I.

  The bell tower

  When he had first arrived at Feltre, he gazed up in wonderment at the bell tower which annexed the school. It was the first time he had seen a building so tall—easily twice the height of the next tallest building in town. In total mass, it was every bit as big as was the school itself. It made no sense to him one would build a structure of monumental cost just to house a bell.

  It was when he gazed up at the bell tower, he realized how far the Church had strayed from what Christ had intended. It would use an immense amount of money it collected for the poor, which could be used to build housing for a hundred orphans, to house a bell.

  He noticed something strange about the tower. There was no lock on its door. Why no lock on the door to the bell tower? He was soon to find out there was another purpose of the tower.

  The strange little boy in the schoolyard

  It was early in the spring, the bishop, Jack and I—were enjoying the afternoon sun on the terrace of the bishop’s castle in Vittorio Veneto when the local newsboy delivered a week-old copy of the New York Times. There was a picture of a boy on a fence.

  A gay Hispanic teen had been arrested in Washington Square Park and brought to the Eighth Precinct Station for booking. Later that night he was found impaled face downward on the heavy iron fence which enclosed the station with six of its spikes protruding upwards through his body from his neck to his thigh. It was then I learned this smiling, grinning, laughing, teasing, joking, Albino Luciani, could cry. It was then he told me of his first brush with homosexuality.

  “It was on my twelfth birthday, I learned there was another kind of BASTARD. He was a delicate little boy who spoke with a lisp and waved his hands in a funny little way. All the kids laughed at him in the schoolyard. Then one day he died. No Mass was said for him and he was buried outside of town in the village dump. The day after he was buried, Father Gaio explained to the class Giovanni had been born bad, so the Devil had taken him back. But I knew the priest was wrong. I knew Giovanni, like all Christ’s children, had been born good. I also knew why he had jumped from the bell tower. He just couldn’t take it anymore. That afternoon, as I stood over my friend’s grave, I vowed I would never let anyone laugh at him again.”3

  As he crept into his teens, Albino came to realize many of his classmates were gay, despite few of them displayed effeminate traits as had Giovanni. He knew why. A teenager who contemplated the priesthood had to make the great sacrifice of celibacy.

  Under canon law, all sex outside of marriage is mortal sin. A straight youth had the option of marriage and could look forward to a life of sex free of sin. For him, celibacy was a great sacrifice.

  But, a gay teen could never marry and therefore, if he was devout—in those days everyone was devout—he was condemned by canon law to a life of celibacy anyway. So in choosing the celibate life of a priest, a homosexual teen wasn’t giving up anything.

  He also found a number of his classmates were transsexuals—girls born into boy’s bodies—attracted to the priesthood because it allowed them to dress up in beautiful gowns and live their lives as objects of admiration otherwise reserved for the fairer sex.

  In the five years he would be at Feltre, a dozen of his classmates leaped from the bell tower. Some were homosexual or transsexual teens whose identity was uncovered by their ‘holy’ keepers. A few were discovered to have been born-out-of-wedlock and went off the tower on the eve of their excommunication. Others developed deformities, one was crippled in an accident and another stopped growing and was determined to be a midget. Each one, with his dream of becoming a priest shattered, went off the tower on the eve of expulsion—the remains splattere
d across the cobblestones below.

  No Mass was said for any of them. Each of them, one by one, was put into a burlap sack and taken to the town dump. It had been Moses’ testimony in Leviticus, “The lord spoke to Moses saying, whosoever should he be that hath a blemish, whether he be a blind child, or a lame child, or a child with a flat nose (Negro), or a child broken-footed, or broken-handed, or a hunch-backed, or a dwarfed child, or a child of disease is not to approach the altar of the Lord.”4

  There were many different kinds of BASTARDS in those days, but nevertheless, they were all BASTARDS—the worst of boys.

  His rise to the world stage

  Albino Luciani’s rise to the world stage did not begin when he became a cardinal in 1973. It began in 1926 when he was just thirteen years old. He had wiggled himself into the job of Assistant Editor of the school paper and his first article, through his father’s influence, was republished in a socialist literary journal and eventually reached all of Europe “…The problems of the Western World will only come to an end when free nations, in accordance with their copyright laws, require the Old Testament be prefaced, ‘This is a work of fiction. Keep away from children.’

  “A function of copyright laws is to protect the public from what might not be true. The state is derelict in its duty in failing to place a warning on this book, as many people are using it to guide the way they live their lives and this is costing many others their lives.

  “There is not a word in this book that has been proven true. What’s more, all of the major claims set forth by Moses have been proven to be false. After all, everyone knows the earth is round. Let us not be so foolish as to believe this man Moses who talked to a God who thought it was flat. It is obvious to any man or woman of good conscience, this book was not inspired by God; rather, it was inspired by the greed and hatred of evil men.”5

  Most laughed, they took it to be a joke. Some were critical of the boy’s audacity, some called for his expulsion, others going so far as to call for his excommunication. On the other hand, one of them, Albert Einstein, called the child prodigy’s article, “The first bit of common sense to ever come out of the Roman Catholic Church.”6

  Just a few months later, when it seemed the smoke had cleared, Albino struck again. He wrote his first editorial and, again, through the influence of his father, although it did not attain the notoriety of the first article, it showed up in periodicals throughout Europe.

  “I cannot accept Moses was the holy man the Church and the motion pictures make him out to be. Moses introduced fascism to the Western World, the concept some kinds of people are better than others and are entitled to more. That ideology which fosters hatred of certain kinds of people and a rich and poor society, one in which some children are born into immense wealth and other children are born into dire poverty and starvation.

  “Moses talks of God the Father’s dream in which the white male rules at His side with woman held in servitude to man and all others who are different are to be subordinated, annihilated or cast into slavery. Moses subordinates those with ‘flat noses’ (Negroes) and ‘those who are of physical blemish’ (the handicapped).

  “In all my life I have never seen a black person as black people are not allowed in Italy. We are an entirely white Catholic country because the minds of the voters are controlled by a Vatican that wants to preserve the purity of our superior race…

  “On the other side, we have Christ. He introduces communism to the western world, the ideology based on the premise all God’s children are created equal and are entitled to share equally in God’s province. Christ dictates a world in which every child has an equal opportunity at a good and healthy life, a far different world than we live in today. Christ gives us only two commandments ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ and ‘Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.’

  “These are the pillars of society, communism and Christ on the left and fascism and Moses on the right…

  “Despite Christ’s overwhelming testimony two thousand years ago, Christianity remains steeped in fascism today. It is obvious Mother Church in her support of a fascist state has chosen the word of Moses over the word of Jesus Christ Himself.”7

  Albino’s editorial was in response to an order by Pius XI, a week earlier, requiring all children be enrolled in the new Fascist Scout Organization, which served as the kindling wood for World War II.

  Conditioning children for war

  While at Feltre, he had his first look at a big city. From early childhood, he had expressed an expertise in chess and was permitted to go to Milan—his anonymous benefactors financing the trips.

  Albino made the acquaintance of Russian teens his own age.

  He found it was propaganda which conditioned Catholic children to hate children of communist countries. It was this strategy that enabled a few at the pinnacles of churches and nations to cause the mindless masses at the bottom to sacrifice their lives in war to the benefit of those at the top.

  He found Russian children were every bit as good as he was. On the other hand, the Russian children found their western counterparts were not as good as they were. They had heard stories about how Catholic countries treated born-out-of-wedlock children. Yet, they believed it to be Russian propaganda. When they found out it was true, they thought less of their western friends. In their homeland all children were seen to be equal. There were no orphans in the streets.

  His Russian roommate Alexander Rotov was a bit older. Made possible by the Russian’s fluency in Italian, the two struck up a relationship which would last until Rotov’s death in 1959. The Russian would sire a son, Boris, who would eventually rise as Luciani’s counterpart in the Russian Orthodox Church.

  On return to Feltre, another of his editorials reached notoriety, ‘The Shroud of War.’ He concludes, “The most fundamental weapon of war is not guns and bombs. It is propaganda which conditions children of nations to hate children of other nations so that when they grow up they will kill each other for the few at the top.”8

  He tastes of the forbidden fruit

  In addition to required studies of Feltre designed to brainwash students in fascism, Albino got a glimpse of the other side of the coin. Through his father, he obtained a parade of forbidden books.

  Among them were Darwin’s Origin of the Species and Mendel’s Experiments in Plant Hybrids. He took a particular interest in these pioneers of modern day genetics believing they would eventually pave the way to a time when all children would be born healthy.

  He found Albert Einstein’s works most fascinating, particularly as it defined the infinite unit of creation—the atom—from which all matter evolved. He would refer to Einstein’s Theory of Evolution and be corrected by his teachers he was confusing Einstein with Darwin. But, he knew what he was talking about.

  There were books on astronomy, anthropology, archeology, chemistry, physics, history, and psychology—how the mind works.

  Then there were those banned from Catholic seminaries—the ‘Bibles’ of other religions including Mohammed’s Koran, the Hindu scripture the Vedas, the Sutras and the Tripitaka of the Buddhist culture and an endless array of others.

  He became particularly fascinated with Tao who, like Einstein, centuries after him, defined man as a microcosm of nature. In all, he spent countless hours scouring through the worlds of the other Gods.

  Above all, the Church banned any book that mentioned sex, even scientific journals. That he was exposed to books which discussed sex at an early age made possible the most prolific testimony of his ministry, “We have made of sex the greatest of sins, whereas in itself it is nothing more than human nature and not a sin at all.”9

  Most instrumental to the man he would become were those on socialism. Among these were the works of Antonio Rosmini, a nineteenth century theologian who believed the purpose of society was to protect the individual and not the other way around—chagrin to the Vatican which limited human rights and dignity of those who did not conform to scripture. Regardless, exc
ept for this philosophy which would remain at the core of his existence for the rest of his life he would eventually refute much of what Rosmini had to say.

  He studied at length Marx’ Das Kapital and Lenin’s The State and Revolution and The Rise of Capitalism in Russia and countless others. He swallowed up Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto.

  He quickly put two and two together.

  Marx’ Ideology

  Christ’s teaching

  All God’s children are equal

  Love thy neighbor as thyself

  Redistribution of wealth society

  Sell all thou hast and give to the poor

  Marx had tried unsuccessfully to bring Christ’s teachings into a selfish world. He told his papa of his discovery. His papa explained.

  “When the evangelists first went out teaching the word of Christ they found they had no customers. To give up one’s greed for wealth and one’s superiority over other kinds of people was too much to sacrifice for what most conceived as a long shot at an afterlife.

  “So they went back to the drawing boards and made up a new kind of church, one that allowed one to accumulate wealth beyond one’s wildest dreams while others starve to death. One based on the premise some kinds of people are better than other kinds of people.

  “They built their new church on these principles:

  • You can ignore what Christ had to say, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Little boys are better than little girls, whites are better than blacks, straights are better than gays…

  • You can ignore what Christ had to say. You can accumulate wealth beyond your wildest dreams while others starve to death provided you give us our share.

  • You can ignore what Christ had to say. We give you the loophole of forgiveness. We give you the opportunity in which you can lie, cheat, steal, rape and even murder all of your life and go to heaven. There is a catch. Only we can forgive you.

  “One can’t get a better deal than that. Lie, cheat steal, hate, greed and bask in untold wealth while others starve to death, and still go to heaven. From this grew the largest church in the world—the largest business in the world.