Murder in the Vatican

by Lucien Gregoire

  He pulled back the huge door—its heavy opaque glass panels protected by elaborate iron lattice work required the strength of both arms. As we entered, I mentioned the protestors I had passed on the way, “It seems you have your union problems here in Italy, too.”

  Jack’s answer was abrupt, “It is much more than unions. We will get to that later.”

  We entered a large open space, the reception area of the house. Definitive paths had been worn into the ancient stone floor. One could make out where people had walked through the ages. There was nothing there. That is, not a single piece of furniture, just open space leading to colorless leaded glass windows which I correctly guessed overlooked the village below.

  Today, this room is an impressive introduction to the house. Its walls are lined with ornately framed life sized oil portraits of the dozen or so bishops who have lived here in the twentieth century. At the far end of the room, the portrait of Albino Luciani, the only one to have risen to the papacy, is hidden behind a door that leads to a prayer station which fronts a window.

  Like other portraits and statues of Papa Luciani that have been planted by the Vatican across northern Italy, from the small village he grew up in Carnal de Argo to Venice, this portrait depicts a man of one-hundred-andfive who is in the final days of a long, unsuccessful bout with pancreatic cancer—a part of the Vatican’s deception to convince the public John Paul was at death’s door when elected to the papacy.

  The hand-painted arched ceiling in this grand vestibule contains the coat-of-arms of the eighty bishops who served here in Vittorio Veneto since the castle was built in the eighth century.

  “Blessed are the poor… for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”

  Jack took me to the end of the hall. We accessed a small alcove, his little corner of the world. A very little corner it was. I visualized my office back in the states overlooking the marina at the corporate headquarters of the company in which I was rapidly making my way up the ladder. “I was certainly winning this race,” I thought.

  The windowless area was as bare as it was small and clashed with its rich green, black and white marble terrazzo flooring which, instead of giving it the feeling of wealth it reflected, gave it a feeling of coldness. It was obvious the floor was not original; it had been added in recent times. Most of the opposite wall was made up by the room’s centerpiece, a beautifully carved mahogany arched door.

  The unbroken line of the yellowing wall was interrupted only by this door and a small bargain basement crucifix above it and a cheaply framed photograph of Pope John XXIII on the wall behind the desk which was more of an old wooden slab on legs than it was a desk. On the opposite wall hung one of those cheap alpine clocks one picks up in souvenir shops.

  A message was written on the photograph. Approaching it, I found it was written in Italian. I heard over my shoulder,

  Albino Luciani,

  Christ asked me to express His congratulations on this important day of your life.

  His Servant, John, 27 Dec 58

  “It was given the man who occupies the adjoining cell” nodding at the richly carved mahogany door, “when he was made a bishop. Piccolo was the first bishop installed by John XXIII. The ceremony took place in St. Peter’s.”

  I was struck by his reference to the bishop as ‘Piccolo’ and, at the same time, by the yodeling of a nun who ran out of the clock on the opposite wall. Sensing my shock at the sparseness of his corner of the world, he laughed, “‘Blessed are the poor… for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’

  Mostly because of his toes

  We chatted for awhile. He had just told me Piccolo must have run off to Venice, “… but you will meet him at dinner. He has been looking forward to meeting you,” when suddenly, at the doorway stood the man who had run past me in the plaza. Clad in shorts and sandals, his wet hair told me he had just come out of the shower.

  Two things struck me, the countenance of his smile and the perfection of his toes. I never thought of bishops as having toes, especially toes as flawlessly pedicured as these. I wondered if the nearby convent provided this service for bishops, a service that when I splurged for it cost me fifty bucks a throw back in the states.

  A third thing struck me—his voice.

  The voice was a piping, rasping voice. Not as if he was talking through his nose, but as if the pipe was built into his throat. It was a one-of-a-kind voice. It was this that made it relatively easy for me to follow what otherwise was heavily Italian accented broken English.

  I could not think of the bishop title. “I apologize. I forget what I’m supposed to call you?” He cut me off, “Just call me the same thing everyone else calls me, ‘Piccolo.’

  “Yet, I must go. The thief of the ages is knocking at my door.”

  I turned toward Jack, “Did you hear someone knock?” The bishop laughed, “Time. Time is knocking. Time is a thief. It will rob one of one’s childhood, eventually deprive one of one’s youth and ultimately take one’s life. But it is a good thief. It provides the span of wonderment for the child, the term of enlightenment while he grows and the age of fulfillment as he gives…”1

  He added, “My time to give is near.” He was off.

  “Piercing voice, huh?” Jack offered, noticing I had reacted to the bishop’s voice. When he was a teen, he had a tonsillectomy that went haywire and left him with a uniquely raspy voice.

  “Anyway,” getting up from his chair, “I will show you where the boss spends his time dreaming up the next chapter for this sprawling paradise here in the foothills of the Italian Alps.” He moved toward the great mahogany door and opening it, we proceeded in.

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”

  The office could not have been more impressive. My heart sank a bit as I thought of my relatively modest surroundings back in the states. I thought of the tax-free exemption status of the Church. Yes, the rich marble terrazzo flooring continued into the room, but here it was not out of place. The walls were richly carved mahogany.

  We were in the company of angels.

  Each one in Byzantine fashion, each one in individual color, each one bearing a shield with coat-of-arms, each one armed with a weapon of medieval times, each one topped off with a golden halo, each one standing in a carved mahogany panel. Each one watching, each one listening…

  Yes, in addition to their protective presence they seemed to be listening, as if all that would be said within these walls would be related to the one above. Two more, in three dimension and white marble, guarded a huge walk-in fireplace at the far end of the room.

  Above the mantel was an aging oil painting of Christ driving the moneylenders out of the temple—its dark tones accented by the brilliance of golden coins which cascaded out of the painting beyond its heavily gold encrusted frame. I thought it could be a Rembrandt.

  Jack, noticed my appraisal, “No, not Rembrandt. It’s a Titian. This is Titian country. His best works are here in Vittorio Veneto. His masterpiece is the altarpiece in the cathedral you passed on the way. Piccolo put this one here to remind us that Christ too had to deal with the republicans” he laughed.

  One side of the room was set up as a boardroom with a huge coffin shaped mahogany table with gargoyles protecting its corners. Two wide Persian carpet runners lay along each side. Of a kind so plush that if one didn’t take notice one would easily trip over them. On them sat a dozen richly embroidered chairs with matching gargoyles shooting out of their arms—six on each side. There were no chairs at the table’s ends. “Piccolo is an advocate of symbolism. He reminds his visitors we are all equal. No one is at the top.”

  On the other side of the immense room was a personal work and reception area. A sofa and armchairs in Italian provincial sat in front of a huge kidney-shaped mahogany desk with neatly arranged writing instruments. There were no papers on the desk. The room seemed to be set up for display rather than set up as a workplace.

  On the wall behind the desk, the only break in the perimeter of the room other than t
he door in which angels did not stand, were two relatively new life-sized oil paintings. The matching simplicity of their cheap modern frames clashed with the ornate antiqueness and wealth that was all about them—one of the reigning pope, Paul VI and the other of his predecessor, John XXIII. Between the two paintings was a framed document, this one in English,

  Republic of Italy

  For extraordinary heroism while engaged in military battle without regard to his own safety and risk of life no matter how great, to the betterment of lives of others no matter how small; the Republic of Italy is indebted to our eternal friend.

  Aldo Moro, March 29, 1965

  “Wow. He’s a war hero.” I exclaimed. “I will tell you about that later.” With an athletic curl he rolled himself into the chair.

  Suddenly, the somber setting came to life with the chiming of the hour. To one side a huge clock reached upward toward the ceiling easily fifteen feet in height. Glancing back to the door and then back to the windows, I wondered how one could have ever got a clock of such massive proportions into the room.

  “It’s a great, great grandfather clock,” Jack offered. “Valdini’s clocks fetch upwards of a quarter-million—on occasion, a half-million dollars. Because of its history, this one is worth twice that.

  “It was given to the diocese when Leo XIII visited here late in the nineteenth century to mark the establishment of the seminary. The rest of the contents of the room including its paneling and mantelpiece came out of a monastery that was set on a mountain outside Naples. It was moved here as a protective measure when the allies reached Sicily and it became imminent they would take Italy. Pius thought the allies might destroy it. He was right. They bombed the hell out of it thinking it was used as an Axis headquarters.”2

  Summing up what I had just witnessed, “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” I kept the thought to myself.

  Jack read my mind, “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven,’ are Christ’s actual words.

  “Piccolo says Christ refers to those who reason, those who don’t easily believe, the poor in spirit. Those that use their conscience,” he pointed to his temple, “rather than what is in a book. Those he calls the lions—as opposed to sheep. Yet, the mass of theology prefers to believe Christ was talking about the poor. Certainly, that is not what it says. Christ very obviously meant exactly what He said, ‘the poor in spirit.’ Those lions who believe the search for the truth requires some effort of their own, rather than those sheep who just assume it is handed to them on a silver platter in their scriptures when they are born—those that think their birthright is their ticket to salvation.

  “Piccolo rarely uses the office. He doesn’t feel comfortable here. He handles his paperwork on the dining room table.

  “Each of us sees in the clock a work of fine art and scientific achievement. Piccolo sees something else—the right of a good and healthy life for a thousand children. Within a week of his arrival, Piccolo started to sell much of this but the Vatican stopped him.

  “If you have followed him in the world press, he is a threat to the regency of Rome should he ever rise to the papacy. Should he become Pope, his first act would be to liquidate the Vatican treasures to help annihilate poverty in third world countries.”

  “Shoes of the Fisherman was based on Piccolo. Anderson spent time here last year.” Jack could not conceal his pride.

  “Anderson?” I had never heard of him.

  “Michael Anderson. He directed the film.”

  Jack walked to the mahogany table. Falling into a seat, he waved me into the opposite chair. “A word of our adversary,” he began.

  “Our adversary?” I repeated in a question.

  “Yes, our adversary, Moses” he replied.

  “Moses?” I questioned, again.

  “Yes, Moses,” he returned the ball. “Moses is the quartermaster of selfishness in the western world. It is he more than anyone else who draws the line between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It is he who supplies the bigot with his arsenal of weapons—a bottomless pit, this arsenal that gives the bigot the words he needs to conduct his evil war.

  “It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command woman live in dire servitude to man.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command slavery be a way of life.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command those with flat noses, those we call Negroes today, and the handicapped are subordinate people and are not worthy to approach the presence of the Lord.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command born-out-of-wedlock children are not to approach the congregation of the Lord.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command homosexuals are to be put to death.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command sex is shameful and sinful.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command the prostitute and the adulteress be taken outside the city and stoned to death.’ It is Moses in the Old Testament who tells us ‘It is God the Father’s command whoever does not seek the Lord God of Israel shall surely be put to death…’”3

  “Each of these instructions and many more like them tell us what kind of God we are dealing with in the God of Moses, a selfish God.” He raised his voice a notch, “No preacher can stand on a stage and tell his flock otherwise, for his scripture is his adversary.”

  He paused to give me time to grasp all the terrible things he had said. “The validity of Moses depends entirely upon whether or not he was telling the truth. Was Moses telling the truth when he told the story of the four hundred years the Israelites spent in Egypt? Was he telling the truth when he told the story of the Ten Plagues? Was he telling the truth when he told the story of the Exodus? Was he telling the truth when he told the story of the parting of the Red Sea? Was he telling the truth when he told the story of the forty year wandering in the desert? Was he telling the truth when he claimed a ghost in the form of a burning bush talked to him in the desert? Was he telling the truth when he told his people a ghost appeared to him and gave him the Ten Commandments? Was he telling the truth when he told the stories of Creation and of Adam and Eve?

  “This is the great hurdle we face. Picture books and motion pictures, influenced by preachers, have created the illusion Moses was a holy man. Yet, anyone who takes the time to read the books literally can only come to the conclusion Moses was a monster.”

  He raised his voice an octave or so with a tinge of frustrated anger, “There was nothing holy about this man. He has led the world into thirty-three hundred years of hatred and prejudice and persecution and horror and suffering and destruction and death!”

  Silence prevailed. I broke the stillness, “Well, it is clear no one could prove Moses was not telling the truth in what he had to say. None of us were there; we don’t really know what God told him.”

  Jack stopped. He peered around the room suspiciously, carefully examining the expressions of each of the angels which surrounded us. His action gave me the chance to count them, thirty-three in all.

  I thought of the thirty-three years Christ had lived and of the thirty-three months of His ministry and of the thirty-three months Anne Frank had hid in the attic. In retrospect, I could add the thirty-three days of Luciani’s papacy. I thought of the thirty-three centuries Moses had wreaked havoc and bloodshed upon mankind.

  Jack’s eyes finally wandered back to me, “Let’s go for a walk.”

  1 Luciani originally said this in eulogy to John XXIII in the Basilica di San Marco in Venice 4 Jun 63

  2 The trappings of the room were returned to Naples in the early seventies. The space was divided into four separate rooms including reception rooms lined with Italian provincial chairs and a secretary’s office and the bishop’s office. In one of the reception rooms is a small glass case housing items of John Paul’s ministry, including mili
tary medals mentioned in this book.

  3 Biblical quotations in this chapter are taken from the five books attributed to Moses

  Photos: All photos in this chapter are in the author’s collection and were photographed by the author

  Author’s note: For brevity, the author relates his time with Albino Luciani as if it was a single encounter, whereas there were about a dozen encounters in all.

  Chapter 19

  Murder in the Veneto

  “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”1

  Jesus Christ

  A light mist was falling. “I am about to show you our best kept secret.” I followed him along a path edged in with lush underbrush which wound down around and then back up the mountainside.

  We came into a grotto. Towering walls of darkened slate showed off a cascading waterfall splattering down onto and off rocks into a sparkling blue pond edged in splashes of green.

  On our side of the pond was spreading greenery flowering with red, white, yellow, blue and orange—whatever colors the Master happened to have dabbed into with His brush when He executed this breathtaking work of art.

  Much of the color was in motion, butterflies and fireflies hovered here and there and everywhere. In the crystal clear water ran a living rainbow of fish glistening in an endless array of silver, gold, orange, red and what have you.

  Opposite, a silent wind crept about evergreens. Half-circling the pond, they formed a crescent as if to reflect the moon which was not there. As the mist made its retreat, slivers of the sun’s rays pierced through the trees as if trying to take out a frog or two which sat on island rocks of gray surrounded by more islands of green lily pads. All told, like a family reunion posing for a picture.

  I thought of the infinite diversity of earth’s species as my ears captured the hum of bees, the chirping of birds, the croaking of frogs, the chirping of crickets, the squeaking of a field mouse or two in a nearby bush and, alas, Jack’s voice, “Piccolo and I call it our Garden of Eden. We do our best thinking here.” Suspiciously glancing about the grotto, “We tell our best secrets here, too.”