Murder in the Vatican

by Lucien Gregoire

  5 Mathew 19

  6 Mathew 6

  7 Mark 10

  8 Paul issued his encyclical ‘Populorum Progressio’ on March 26, 1967. It sparked the worker’s revolution in Italy which led to the Communist Party rise in the polls in the seventies. The cover quote is taken from Paul’s edict and it established what would have been the scope of John Paul’s papacy.

  Photo Egyptian Hieroglyphic - author

  The author is a scholar in Egyptology and has spent much time in Egypt. Through the intercession of the Cairo Museum he has gained access to tombs off limits to the general public

  Chapter 20

  Albino Luciani and General Patton

  “It is our differences that have built us into the great nation of one that we are. There should be no room here for preachers and politicians who would choose to use them to divide us.”

  General George Patton

  We took a table outside a restaurant where the street formed a wedge with its neighbor, one of those they try to duplicate in the big cities with little success. Heeding Jack’s advice, I decided on bread, cheese and fruit. He doubled the order.

  Shortly, the waiter returned and spread an assortment of breads, cheeses and fruits. In the center he placed a crystal clear bottle of wine set in chopped ice. I was about to get a taste of the afterlife.

  Reaching for the bottle, Jack poured our glasses properly half full of this memory—this wine of the Gods—which is still with me today. Like any other close friends, who hadn’t seen each other for a number of years, we started to chat about the good old times.

  Alas, I asked, “You sure are popular. Just being a seminary priest gets you that?”

  “It has nothing to do with that,” he answered. “It is owed entirely to something else.”

  A thousand ‘hellos’

  “My uncle was in the military during the world war. He held two purple hearts and a dozen other enviable decorations. In a heroic action he was hit in North Africa and was hospitalized for six months with serious liver damage. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor, but instead received a Silver Star.

  “He was hit again, this time paralyzed from the waist down. He was hit by friendly fire when he placed himself between his own men and twenty-eight Italian school children to alert them they were about to fire on the children. It happened just outside Milan.

  “He was nominated for the nation’s highest award. Because it had occurred toward war’s end and helped to heal the wounds of war and since it had been witnessed by so many, we were certain this time he would reap the honor that had escaped him in North Africa.

  “Wow. He won the Medal of Honor!” I exclaimed

  “Not quite,” he corrected me. “This time they gave him the Distinguish Service Cross, the nation’s second highest award.”

  “But, I don’t under…”

  He cut me off, “The Distinguished Service Cross is awarded for risk of life ‘not quite’ justifying the Medal of Honor. The ‘not quite’ in my uncle’s case was determined the same way as was the case of many other candidates who were passed up for the highest award.”

  “How’s that?” I queried.

  “During the world war, ‘not quite’ was most often defined as being soldiers of color and of ethnic backgrounds including Asians. In my uncle’s case ‘not quite’ meant something else.”

  “Something else?” I repeated.

  “My uncle was gay. Because his life seemed wasted he felt he could be a martyr for the cause. Foolishly, he announced he was gay while the matter was pending. He told my mother his admission of his homosexuality took much more courage than when he had placed himself before the firing squad to protect the children. He hoped he could attract national attention but he didn’t attract a fly. All he did was to deprive himself of the nation’s highest military award.

  “Nevertheless, this is why I am a celebrity in these parts. This is why wherever I go I get a thousand ‘hellos.’ People believe some of my uncle’s courage has rubbed off on me.

  “Back then, homosexuality was not the type of thing his family wanted to talk about, much less see spread across the front page of the local newspaper. In fact, it still isn’t today.”

  “So, the Army threw him out?” I presumed.

  “No. There was no policy restricting homosexuals from serving in the armed services. Many gay men and women served honorably through the years. There was no box to check, no problem.

  “When you have a real war, one in which you are fighting for survival, one doesn’t stop to sort out what the preacher considers to be morality.

  “That he didn’t attract a fly was not entirely true. He drew an official reprimand from Eisenhower; something General Patton, my uncle’s commanding officer, tried to block.

  “My uncle relished it. He saw it as a victory; he had drawn the attention of Ike, himself.”

  “So how is he now? Certainly he could do something now, being a war hero,” I offered.

  “He isn’t,” he replied, “A couple of months after receiving the award he died from a liver infection related to his earlier injury that was brought on by his confinement to bed.”

  “…a new and different of courage…”

  “Only his father flew to Italy. His mother was too distraught. His father told my mother the army provided full military honors for him. There was speculation General Patton, who happened to be in the area at the time, would attend.

  Although several hundred villagers attended, he didn’t show up. In fact, not a single officer showed up despite that my uncle held one of the nation’s highest awards. Yet, someone else did show up.”

  “Someone else?” I queried.

  “Yes, Piccolo. It is not by mere chance I managed to secure an assignment here as an instructor in this remote Italian seminary and eventually grew so close to my patron. Piccolo had officiated at my uncle’s interment. Yes, I groomed myself for the assignment going so far as to earn a PhD in psychiatry and becoming fluent in Italian. But, the only reason I got the job was because Piccolo had rendered my uncle’s eulogy.

  “At the time, Milan was conservative and no local priest could be found who was comfortable in officiating at the ceremony. The archbishop reached into the Veneto country. The choice was the revolutionary and outspoken young priest from Belluno.

  “As I said, the army provided full military honors for my uncle. A lance corporal showed up heading up a detail of four soldiers, three with rifles and one with a bugle. Piccolo doesn’t remember too much of what he said, other than he had ended his string of prayers with an embittered comment, ‘It is the soldier who shed his blood on the field of battle and not the preacher who cowers in his pulpit, who should determine who should or should not be free.’2

  “The detail raised their rifles and fired off three volleys over the heads of three hundred villagers and the man with the bugle did the best he could with the taps.

  “Three volleys for a man who gave his life to save twenty-eight children. Yet, military rules call for nineteen volleys for political appointees of a president. It kind of tells one how America thinks.

  “Anyway, as the crowd started to move away from the grave, a strange thing happened.”

  “A strange thing?” I repeated his statement as a question.

  “Yes, an olive green military sedan, one of those with the big bubble fenders one often sees in the movies, entered the cemetery and moved along its outer perimeter and came to rest in the roadside along my uncle’s grave. A young soldier got out of the front seat and opened the rear door. An army officer of about sixty stepped out.

  “When Patton reached the gravesite he introduced himself to Piccolo and my uncle’s father as if the rows of stars on his shoulders could not have conveyed the message. A light rain was falling from darkened skies and one could imagine hearing the firing of artillery shells in the distance though there was nothing there.

  “Patton told them, speaking decisively and pausing on each syllable, as if he was addressin
g Congress, ‘At West Point, there are many courses, one learns many things. One learns the history of war, one learns the purpose of war, one learns the strategy of war, one learns the struggle of war, one learns the noise of war, one learns the horror of war, one learns the victory of war and one learns the hopelessness of war. Yet the most important course one takes is taken on the great battlefield itself. That course is called courage.

  “‘This is the difference between Ike and myself for Ike has never taken this course. Never once in his lifetime has he carried himself into battle, into the pit. Not once in his lifetime has he pulled the boy out of the mud and searched for where the mud left off and the blood began. Not once has he reached for the final pulse of this thing called life. Never, not once, has he given himself the opportunity to realize this great prize we know as courage. His only experience in battle has been in his textbooks and in his toy soldiers and in his toy tanks and in his toy ships that he moves about on his great table of war. Like the preacher in the pulpit whose only time in battle has been in the atrocities of the ethnic cleansing wars in his scripture.’

  “With a great tear forming in the corner of his eye, Patton placed his hand on my uncle’s father’s shoulder and told him, ‘I apologize for Ike’s action. It does not speak for me, does not speak for those who fought alongside your son, does not speak for America.

  “‘Your son has won for all of us, this thing called courage. This thing called courage that I, too, have sought many times. That I, as a commanding general, would place myself upon a tank at the forefront of battle in open line of enemy fire and with artillery shells bursting all about me, I too, have craved for the taste of this thing courage. Yet, even I have yet to realize its dream.

  “‘Yesterday, I assigned my most courageous and most highly decorated officer to represent your son’s fellow soldiers here today. Yet, I found that officer had failed in his duty by delegating his sacred responsibility to a subordinate.

  “‘Not because he had more important things to do, but because he didn’t have the courage to be here—a different kind of courage, a greater kind of courage. He was afraid of what the press might do to him, of what his fellow soldiers might do to him, of what his family might do to him, of what America might do to him.

  “‘Your son had that kind of courage. He wasn’t afraid of what the press might do to him. He wasn’t afraid of what the army might do to him. He wasn’t afraid of what his family might do to him. He didn’t care what America might do to him.’

  “The general then stepped a few paces to the left and placed his hand on the shoulder of the adjoining tombstone, the one marked Anthony Jackson, Bronze Star. ‘Even today the Christian right continues to segregate and persecute blacks, many of whom have also shed their blood on the great battlefields of this war.’

  “He placed his hand on the shoulder of the next stone, the one marked Patricia Wilde, Bronze Star. ‘The world will never know of her valor, will never know of her bravery, will never know of the things she did for freedom. All that evidences she had ever been, is this small white granite stone and the marks upon it.’

  “Freedom without equality is not what it pretends to be …”

  “The general then turned toward the crowd and raised his voice, ‘After this war is won, after the final volleys are fired, after the smoke clears and the tears begin, America must fight a new kind of war and that war will be fired by a new kind of courage.

  “‘This war will win for America and all mankind this thing called freedom. But that war, the war within, will someday win for America the great prize of equality for all men and women, something this war cannot do. For freedom without equality is not what it pretends to be. The diamond would be made of paste.

  “‘It is our differences that have built us into the great nation of one that we are. There is no room here for those preachers and politicians who would choose to use them to divide us.

  “‘Today men and women of great courage are engaged in this great war which will soon crush the enemy from without, but it must take many more men and women of still another kind of courage, a greater kind of courage, to rise up and crush the enemy from within. Only then, would these brave men and women not have died in vain. Only then, will the diamond, this thing one calls freedom, be real.’1

  “As he climbed into the car, Patton turned to my uncle’s father, ‘I have been proud to have had your son serve in my army here.’ Looking up, ‘He is proud to have him in His army, today.’ A tear dropped onto his cheek. He nodded to his driver. They were off.

  “Yet, you’re right. If my uncle were alive today, he could do something; perhaps not much, but something. In fact, all the other homosexuals who hold high military awards including many who hold the Medal of Honor could do something.”

  I interrupted him, “I thought they weeded out the gays in awarding the Medal of Honor?”

  “The great majority of gays remain in the closet today, even more so was the case then. In the war, four hundred congressional medals were awarded. If one plays the percentages, this would mean about thirty to forty of them are held by truly homosexual men. But of course, like my uncle most did not survive. But if a few of them who did survive were brave enough to come forward, it would stop much of the preacher’s bigotry in its tracks. But, as my uncle said, that would take a greater kind of courage than did his action in 1944 when he stood before the children.

  “This is what Patton was referring to when he said ‘It must take many more men and women of still another kind of courage, perhaps even a greater kind of courage, who must rise up and crush the enemy from within.’ Celebrities who make public their sexual orientation serve as great role models for gay youth. Bring it out in the open and the stigma will disappear overnight. As you know in the fifties, this is what brought an end to the stigma of born-out-of-wedlock children, something the Vatican has never accepted.”

  With a gesture of reverent solemnity, he stretched out his arm. He pulled back his sleeve to display his watch. On one side on the band was welded a small heart pendant with an image of George Washington on a purple background. On the opposite side of the face of the watch was welded a Silver Star. “The Distinguished Service Cross and the others are with him. They are in the great cemetery at Milan. Yet, there is something more.

  “Three years ago, Piccolo used his influence with Aldo Moro who was then Prime Minister. In 1965, at the grave with twenty-three of the surviving children looking on, on behalf of my uncle I accepted the citation from Moro that is on Piccolo’s office wall.”

  Leaving some of the wine in order that we could find our way, I settled up with the waiter and we started back. Stopping at the gelato stand, I followed his lead, “One of these, one of these, one of these and one of those.” As we walked away, I wondered how the finest gelato in the world could have found its way so near to its finest wine. At the end of the street, he went one way, and I the other. He called out after me, “Dinner is promptly at seven.”

  As I walked back to the hotel, it ran over and over again in my mind, “To carry out that solemn promise, to answer that fervent prayer, to carry it out for each and every one of them, that what they dreamed of, those things they willed to be, will come to be, for each of them, and for me, and for you, and for all humanity!”

  Author comment: Patton and Luciani shared an interest in the possibilities of reincarnation something they often discussed until Patton’s untimely death. On Christmas day 1945, Luciani eulogized Patton in the Duomo at Belluno,

  “I remember them all

  Many names, many faces

  Many times, many places

  Many ups, many downs

  Many smiles, many frowns

  Many struggles, many dreams

  Yet always, me!”

  Albino Luciani

  1 Affria Italiani 31 Mar 44. Milan Italy 29 March 44. General George Patton. Albino Luciani, who had officiated at the same ceremony, quoted Patton’s remarks on October 17, 1973 in a sermon in the Basil
ica San Marco in Venice—author’s file. The unitalicized remarks are to the best of Albino Luciani’s recollection as he related them to the author.

  2 Albino Luciani, Milan Italy 29 Mar 44. He repeated this many times during his ministry

  Chapter 21

  The Mud in the Street

  “When I was a teenager, 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, 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…”

  Albino Luciani

  I found myself in an ancient room of stone. Its focal point a pair of bottle-bottom leaded glass windows peering out through ornate iron grates. Though their opaqueness obscured the view, it was clear what they were looking at—the surviving ruins of the castle walls.