First, I was granted the privilege of seeing Hell. As I peered in through the gates, I saw an immense room with many long tables.
On these were so many bowls of cooked rice and gourmet delicacies as one could imagine, properly spiced, aromatic, inviting.
The diners were all seated there, filled with hunger, two at each bowl, one facing the other. Then what?
To carry the food to their mouths they had, in oriental fashion, chopsticks affixed to their hands, but so long that no matter how great their efforts, not a single grain of delicacy could reach their mouths. Although starving, they could not take of these things.
Then, I was able to peer into Heaven.
Here again, I saw a great room with the same tables, same gourmet delicacies, same long chopsticks affixed to their hands. But here the people were happy, smiling and quite satisfied. Why?
Each, having picked up the food with the chopsticks, raised it to the mouth of the companion that sat opposite, and all was right.
So my dear Casella, we must learn here, as we make our way toward the great wall, how to use the chopsticks, else we will not know how to use them when we are on the other side of the wall.
Your magical friend, Albino” 3
If one cannot accept his written word, there is the surviving video clip, “Look, Daniel, the Lord has put in us a strong desire to progress, to go forward…” John Paul explicitly declares himself a progressive in a televised audience on September 27, 1978.4
The most reliable evidence that has survived—his own writings and papal video clips which have survived the Vatican cutting-room floor—place him clearly on the left. Yet, he did at times lick at both sides “If you confront opinion you do not agree with, trim it patiently to reveal the good that is in all things.”5
Even the press, which I rely on for much of what I have to say, spoke from both the right and the left.
In the spring of 1974, when questioned as to the psychological community’s declaration homosexuality is a God-given birthright, a right wing paper reported, “Sex, natural of a man, is a part of love for one of the opposite sex,” while an allied paper reported, “It would seem sex, natural of a man, is a part of love for a person of the opposite sex…Yet, God makes mistakes.”
A left wing paper reported “It would seem sex, natural of a man, is a part of love for a person of the opposite sex…Yet, God makes exceptions and society must accommodate God’s exceptions…”6
Which is taken out of context?
On the first anniversary of the ruling he clarified his position. He spoke of the road ahead to unravel the stigma which has wrongly been associated with it, “As long as one can be accused of being a homosexual, we have not put this one behind us.”7
Yet, perhaps, only the impartial referee can break a tie.
Again, from his Illustrissimi,
“Dear Figaro,
Well then, who and what are you my dear Figaro?
A variety of dress? A mixture of feminine and masculine? Of Orient and Occident?
Poor Figaro, against all these nobles with their coats of arms, these bewigged bourgeois, who themselves do every trespass.
They are no better, perhaps, worse than you.
Barber, marriage broker, adviser of pseudo diplomats, yes, ladies and gentlemen, whatever you like.
They demand that you alone be honest in this world of cheats and rogues.
Do not accept what they say, dear Figaro. You, too, are a citizen.
Sadly, perhaps, your only solution is in revolution!
Your magical friend, Albino”3
Luciani refers to scant evidence condemning homosexuality and transsexuality. No mention of these in the commandments and only a single explicit condemnation and less than a half dozen ambiguous mentions of them elsewhere in the Bible, as compared to more than eighty explicit condemnations of heterosexual sexual activities, most calling for the death penalty and permanent exclusion from heaven.
For those who are lucky enough to stumble across a 1949 edition of Catechism in Crumbs, one will find the formation of his doctrinal position—as long as doctrine did not treat people unfairly he conformed to it, yet, whenever doctrine placed undue hardship on the lives of innocent people, he stepped in.
The day he became a cardinal, Luciani paid homage to Lincoln for having had the great courage to have defied the written word of his God, “Thou shalt not covet (desire to take from) thy neighbor his property, including his house, his wife, his slaves, his ox, his ass.”
He told the youth group which had gathered to listen, “Never be afraid to stand up for what is right, whether your adversary be your parent, your teacher, your peer, your politician, your preacher, your constitution, or even your God!”8
His letters to Carlo Goldoni in his book Humbly Yours prove him an ardent feminist. For those who can’t accept his written word, we have his papacy, “God is our Father, more so, our Mother.”9
Common ground
When it comes to his primary ambition in life, all agree—to rid the world of poverty. So much so, he was universally recognized by both those on the right and those on the left as a monumental Marxist—an enemy of the capitalistic world we live in.
One day in Venice, he was bombarded by activists on a range of issues from contraception, women ordination and homosexuality to remarriage and so forth; issues of the emerging social revolution he had, from time to time, championed. He stopped them,
“As long as there is a single child anywhere on earth who is starving to death because he or she does not have enough to eat, there exists no other problem in the world.”10
How can one possibly wiggle one’s way around it?
The film-clip of September 27, 1978, “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
Doesn’t sound like much of a republican to me?
1 Associated Press See film clip: www.johnpaul1.org
2 Murder in the Vatican 2003
3 Reprinted from Luciani’s book Illustrissimi 1976
4 this video can be viewed on you-tube. September 27 1978 audience
5 Treviso Notizie 1 Aug 68. (1)
6 Il Gazzettino 12 Feb 74 (2) - Messaggero Mestre 14 Feb 74 - Nostro Privilegio 17 Feb 74
7 Messaggero Mestre 17 Dec 74
8 La Nuova Venezia 6 Mar 73
9 La Repubblica 8 Sep 78. Right and left media reported variations
10 Messaggero Mestre 19 Dec 75 vain repetitions. A union made by men.
(1) Author’s note: For brevity, Luciani’s actual words in this book have often been shortened but in no case do they take out of context what he said. His actual words in this case: “If you come across error, rather than uprooting it or knocking it down, see if you can trim it patiently, allowing the light to shine upon the nucleus of goodness and truth that usually is not missing even in erroneous opinions. “
(2) at the time, the Vatican had a controlling interest in Il Gazzettino
Chapter 8
His Ministry
“The desire to parent children is a basic human need… Until we can guarantee basic human rights to the tiniest minority we cannot truthfully call ourselves a democracy.”1
Albino Luciani
Albino Luciani’s first post was in the small village in which he had grown up. He had been on the job for less than a week when he was summoned to the rector’s office for his first commission.
“My sister is gravely ill. She will not make it another month.
“That is not the bad news, for we must all meet our maker. The bad news is she will not see Him for long. She remarried outside the Church and has been living in a state of mortal sin.”
The old man reached across the desk grasping the young priest’s hand with a frightened look as if he were hanging from the edge of a cliff, “You must rescue her from Satan. It is your sacred duty to convince her to renounce her husband or she will surely be buried in unholy ground and
burn in the everlasting fires of hell.”
When he arrived at the hospital he was given yet another task. The woman’s doctor met him outside her room and told him she had only a few hours to live and asked if he would tell her this.
Rosary beads ran like a miniature freight train through her fingers to rumbling repetitions. Though dealing with a woman who had remarried, he was, nevertheless, dealing with a devout one.
Taking up her hand he told her the bad news—she was about to die. He followed it up with the real bad news, “Unless you renounce your husband, you will surely go to hell.”
To his astonishment she answered with a question, “What do you think I should do?”
The young priest struggled between his duty and his heart. He answered her question with another question, “Do you love him?”
A tear ran down her cheek, “With all my heart.”
Her hand still in his, Albino fell silent wondering what he should do. During his seminary days he had excelled at soccer, so much so, his team had never lost a game. Yet, now the clock was running out and he was about to lose this one.
His eye caught the tiny crucifix hanging from the beads. He had his answer, “I wonder what Jesus would do in this case?”
Holding a tear in the corner of his eye, he cuffed her hand tightly, “Then cling to it, your love for your husband. Don’t ever give it up. Not for me, not for your brother, not even for the Pope.
“Your love for your husband was not given to you by men. It was given to you by God. He would not be happy if you were to give it back to Him to satisfy the whims of common men.
“I promise you, if you have the courage to do this for me, there will be reserved for both you and your husband a place in heaven. Believe me, if it takes me all the remaining days of my life, I will make this possible for you.”
He reached for a photo of her husband on the bedside table. Unwinding the beads from her fingers, he placed it in her hands. She died a few hours later, still clutching the picture in her hands.2
Thus began the ministry of John Paul I.
Checkmate!
Of the persecutions imposed by the Church on innocent people, it was its position on remarriage that tormented him the most. He could not accept the Church could take it upon itself to refuse sanctification of the union of two people who, having had made a mistake in choosing a mate at age twenty, at thirty had fallen truly in love. It troubled him deeply the Church condemned millions of people to have lived out their lives in loneliness and despair who otherwise would have lived out their lives in loving relationships.
In 1950, he wrote a letter to Rome recommending Hitler and Mussolini be excommunicated posthumously.3
Ignored, he followed it up with a another letter demanding the authority to grant annulments be moved to the local bishop level, “I am greatly tormented Mother Church would see it as her duty to close the Gates of Heaven to so many young innocent people who have at last found true love and yet see it as its duty to leave the Gates of Heaven open to the likes of monsters.”4 A leading Italian tabloid capitalized on his fondness for chess. Its headline read ‘SCACCO MATTO’ ‘CHECKMATE!’5
Pius moved for excommunication but his undersecretary of state, Montini, stopped him warning it would cause an uproar in the press.
Montini recalled the young priest from Belluno. During the war, Luciani had approached him to use his influence to gain asylum in the Vatican for five hundred Jews who had shown up on a boat in Naples. Montini struggled with Pius for a compassionate decision. Instead, the Pope ordered the boat to Germany to death camps.6
These encounters marked a turning point in Luciani’s life as they won him the favor of Giovanni Montini who eventually rose to the papacy—Paul VI, which would eventually lead to his own papacy.
“…sex is good and beautiful…”
Luciani was convinced removing the stigma associated with out-of-wedlock pregnancies would eliminate what was, at the time, the leading cause of abortions—family embarrassment.
He recalled his childhood in his memoirs, “I could hear my mamma and aunt and sister talking in low tones and every time I entered the room there was a hush-hush. Then one day my sister took a short holiday. I was told she had gone to a neighboring village to rest for awhile, but they didn’t fool me at all, for I knew exactly what was going on. As I fell on my knees that night I vowed I would someday bring an end to it all. Believe me, I will.”7
A pioneer of the sexual revolution, he was the first in either the public or private forum to introduce sexual education into schools. He wanted to bring about a day when sex would be discussed openly between parents and children. Until his time, sex, being sinful, was not to be talked about in either the family or public.
He looked forward to a time when “sex would be seen as good and beautiful, but there is a time and place for everything, rather than in one in which sex was condemned as being shameful and sinful.”7 He knew the Church’s position sex was sinful caused many children to grow up in a state of trauma, resulting in guilt complexes which led to less than healthy sex lives and, at times, even suicide.
“My part in this thing is to bring about a day when the young girl would no longer think she has gotten herself into trouble, as the preacher might lead her to believe, but rather she would realize that she had, indeed, gotten herself into paradise.”7
Today few abortions are owed to embarrassment. It is much to the credit of Albino Luciani millions of children, who might have otherwise been aborted; now see the light of day.
Champion of orphans
Referring to Italy’s enormous homeless orphan population, one Sunday morning, he looked up at the immense dome of the Basilica di San Marco. He told his congregation, “We must learn to lower our ceiling height to make room for all of Christ’s children.”8
In his twenty years as a bishop and as a cardinal, Luciani never built a single church, yet, he built forty-four orphanages, many of them equipped with schools and clinics.
A monk, one of an army of monks and nuns who had spent most of their lives in prayer, once spoke of him, “He pulled us up off our knees and put us to work, we monks building and maintaining orphanages and serving as youth counselors, and the nuns teaching class and others caring for those children too ill to come to class.”9
Whenever faced with the question as to whether to use money raised from the faithful for a church or an orphanage, he would ask himself, “Now, what would Jesus do in this case?”
Strange parents
Faced by an orphan population of two million in Italy, it was his lobbying in Italian Parliament that made it legal for single persons to adopt children in Italy. An opposition member challenged “But, that would make it legal for homosexuals to adopt children.”
Luciani responded, “The desire to parent children is a basic human need…Until we can guarantee basic human rights to the tiniest minority we cannot truthfully call ourselves a democracy.”10
His adversary didn’t give up, “But homosexuals have a record of splitting up after the ‘honeymoon’ is over. This would cause children to lose one or both of their parents.”
Luciani closed the gap on his attacker, “There are two major forces involved in making for long term loving relationships and regardless of what Rome might believe sex is not one of them.
“As a matter-of-fact, sex is often a declining force in many relationships. It has little to do with the long term survival of a union. The longevity of a relationship of those who parent children that is so instrumental to protecting the stability of children until they reach adulthood depends not on sex, but rather on those forces that create long term relationships, love and companionship.
“In companionship, the homosexual has the edge. Two people of the same sex who fall in love make much better companions of each other because they are more likely to share common interests. Children parented by homosexual couples are less likely to undergo the ordeal of arguments and the trauma of divorce…”
His attacker didn’t give up. “But, homosexuals are pedophiles.”
The bishop cut him off, “Homosexuality is a God-given instinct and pedophilia is a Satan-driven perversion. Yet, since pedophilia often involves incest, one must address the question.
“If our objective is to prevent pedophilia in adoption then the only logical action is to permit only homosexuals to adopt children who are of the opposite sex. This would reduce incest in adoptions to zero as the sex of the victim is determined by the sexual orientation of the predator. If we permit heterosexual couples to adopt children, children of both sexes would be at risk. Regardless, on average, homosexual adoptions reduce the risk in half.”10
The measure passed. Overnight, a million orphans were provided loving and economic support by single parents. Some were gay couples of which one of the parents adopted the child, as it remained illegal for parents of the same sex to adopt the same child.
Little is known of Luciani’s involvement with gay parents other than a few notes written in connection with his orphanages, “We have found homosexual couples will take handicapped and born-out-of wedlock children which make up most our orphan population today. Heterosexual couples go for the cutest and healthiest children as if shopping for a puppy in a pet shop.”11
There is another note written in diary format,
“Dear Mamma,
I have for years counseled a young couple. They have great sexual attraction for each other, yet, beyond that they have nothing in common. I have yet to be in their presence when they have not been arguing or yelling at each other.
What’s more, they both suffer from an ongoing drug and alcohol addiction problem for which they have not sought counsel. Both children, having been bombarded for years by the incompatibility of their parents, are now confined to institutions. In that I sanctioned this marriage, I must live out my days with this on my conscience.
Last week, this couple came to me on a matter of such great urgency I had to cancel another appointment. They told me of a neighbor—one of the new single parents in Italy—a homosexual. Another man has been living with him for many years.
Murder in the Vatican Page 10
