“In the early afternoon, we loaded his soup with vegetables. When I brought it to him he gobbled it up like he had been starving to death. He picked up the bowl of butternut pudding and was midway through it when he suddenly dropped the bowl onto the sheets and started choking and gasping for breath.
“At first, I thought it was that he had been eating too quickly. Then I realized what I was witnessing were convulsions. I ran out of the room and fetched Doctor Fontana. He examined Paul and told us it was just a matter of time. From that time on Paul gasped for breath as if each was his last; his chest rising and falling with each gasp.”2
The press asked the nun if Paul had experienced pain and she told them he did not complain of any and his expression did not reflect pain. “It was that he couldn’t breathe. He was gasping for breath.”2
This led the profession to conclude Fontana had misdiagnosed the Pope’s condition; respiratory failure without pain is not symptomatic of heart attack. This criticism by the medical profession was well founded as a common physician would have known this, much less a pope’s physician. In fact, most laymen would have known it.
The nun who had the scullery duty of emptying the bedpan told a third reporter “There had been nothing but blood in the pan for a week.”3 Although bloody discharge from the bladder is a sign of serious illness, it has nothing to do with heart attack
An urologist in Rome confirmed the nun’s story, telling still another reporter, he had been consulted by the Pope’s physician earlier in the week concerning a bladder infection.4
When these conflicting testimonies were released the next day, editorials in Italian, French, UK and even American newspapers criticized this inaction on the part of the Pope’s physician. Neither the doctor nor the Vatican ever responded to the criticism.
Dr. Sebastiano Caffaro, President of the Italian Medical Society, was particularly harsh. “It is unbelievable a pope could be left to die without the care one would afford a cat or a dog.”5
The South African heart specialist Christian Barnard condemned Fontana’s failure to call for an intensive care unit, “If that had happened anywhere else in the world, the doctor would have been denounced by his medical association and found himself in court.”6
The Montini family, pestered as to why they were not kept informed of Paul’s deteriorating condition, issued a press release, “Whereas errors in judgment may have been made in connection with Paul’s illness, we take no issue with the will of God.”7
The final vigil
At the time of Paul’s death, there were two dozen people at Castel Gandolfo. At his bedside, were Dr. Fontana, Cardinal Confalonieri and two bishops—Caprio and Casaroli.
Outside in the hall was the Castel Director, Emilio Bonomelli, together with four nuns who cared for the papal residence and two monks who cared for the gardens. A ceremonial guard stood next to Paul’s bedroom door. Elsewhere within the fortress were a half-dozen Swiss Guards and two maintenance workers who had been repairing the kitchen exhaust system that day.8
Caprio had arrived early in the morning just a few hours prior to the presumed heart attack—not unusual as he spent much of his free time at the Castel Gandolfo. An amateur botanist, he cultivated the Holy Land section of the gardens.
Cardinal Villot was not present. He had returned to the Vatican in late July. Yet, Paul’s death came as no surprise to him as he had been summoned to Castel Gandolfo the day before to document Paul’s elevation of Cardinal Yu Pin to Grand Chancellor of Eastern Affairs. He brought back with him Paul’s last official words “We have fought the good battle. Let us finish the run.”9
With the time between the rising and falling of his chest growing more and more apart, Paul died as if falling asleep—the slowing of his breathing broken only by the murmuring of prayers.
Arsenic poisoning
This is about as good a place as any to stop and talk about one of the culprits which weaves its way in and out of this book.
Slow-arsenic poisoning is not limited to mystery writers; it is a favorite of real killers. Available in many household chemicals, it is easily administered. Tasteless and odorless, it is easily concealed in food or drink. All one need do is go to a library and read a book.
More killings go undetected when arsenic is the instrument of murder than any other method. It results in symptoms characteristic of a wide range of natural illnesses and unless a doctor specifically suspects foul play it will go undetected.
For example, in 1970, a jaundiced skin man was admitted to a Chicago hospital complaining of tiredness, thirst, dehydration, sore throat, a pulmonary condition and urinary bloody discharge.
Test after test was done; the physicians were at a loss as to what was wrong with him. At a nursing station, one physician overheard students discussing the case. One, a mystery buff, joked, “Maybe his wife is poisoning him.” The physician tested for arsenic. The results were positive. His wife had been doctoring his coffee.10
Initially there is jaundice, flaking skin, esophagus soreness and a bit of coughing up of bloody mucosa. It progresses slowly to a deteriorating condition accompanied by severe dehydration, swollen extremities and usually culminating in pulmonary oedema.
Toward the end, there is a bloody discharge from the bladder—the most telltale sign of arsenic poisoning in a living person. In the end are convulsions and respiratory collapse. There is a peculiar odor in the corpse not easily erased by conventional embalming.11
The elderly are particularly vulnerable to slow-arsenic poisoning as many of its symptoms are compatible with advanced aging and death will come within a month or so whereas a younger person might survive six months or more with the same undetectable dosage.12 Paul, at eighty, was a sitting duck for murder.
All of the conditions of Paul’s death were symptoms of slow-arsenic poisoning, precisely the symptoms of arsenic poisoning, from the uncharacteristic naps, to the flaky skin, to the sore throat, to the bloody discharge, to the obnoxious odor his body gave off which delayed its viewing in St. Peter’s by a day.
Paul lay in state for a day at the Castel Gandolfo where fans were installed to disperse the odor. After a second embalming he smelled like a flower and was moved to St. Peter’s.13
The embalmers were questioned as to why the odor had been so pungent on the first day and had changed to that of a rose garden on the second day. They told the press that in preparing the Pope for the second viewing they had injected the body with perfume.14
That he developed a severe pulmonary condition when it seemed his body was fighting off the poisoning, a lethal dose may have been added to quicken the process. Yu Pin’s elevation may have caused the perpetuators to speed his demise.
In that no autopsy was performed, no one knows what killed Paul, other than the medical community clearly established it was not a heart attack.
Dig him up
Much has been said to exhume the body of John Paul I. Yet, the circumstances of his death strongly suggest professional killers and lethal injection. With hundreds of toxins to choose from, it makes no sense professional killers would choose one which would survive today to assay of foul play as they would have no guarantee an autopsy would not be performed. Yet, in Paul’s case, which is strongly suggestive of arsenic poisoning, traces of arsenic—an element—would survive in Paul’s hair and fingernails today.
It may be that it was so widely known Paul suffered from swollen feet and died that prompted the Vatican to claim John Paul had complained of swollen feet, something we know today was not true. One will never know
A few weeks later 15
On the other side of the pond in CIA headquarters in McLean Virginia, a bushy eyebrowed man took up the morning edition of The Washington Post and read, September 28, 1978, “At a public audience today John Paul told a worldwide television audience ‘…It is the inalienable right of man to own property. Yet, it is the right of no man to accumulate wealth beyond the necessary while other men starve to death because they have nothin
g…’”
He recalled Paul’s last words at the Moro funeral, “…Take one away and another will rise up to take its place…”
He thought back to Kissinger’s instruction, “Amputate the link and communism will fail.”
He turned and looked up at the wall, “…threats …”
He turned back to the desk, “The ball has shifted again, this time from the frying pan into the fire.”
He opened a book. There was a list of names.
At the top of the list were the words, Aldo Moro.
The name had been struck out and next to it had been written the name, Paul VI.
He took his pen and struck out the name, Paul VI.
Beside it, he wrote the name, John Paul I.
Take particular note of footnote 12—the Fatima murders
1 IL Messaggero 7 Aug 78
2 IL Messaggero 7 Aug 78
3 La Stampa 8 Aug 78
4 La Repubblica 8 Aug 78
5 Rinascita 8 Aug 78
6 Cape Times 12 Aug ’78
7 Leggo 28 Aug 78
8 L’Osservatore Romano 8 Aug 78
9 L’Osservatore Romano 9 Aug 78 Paul’s last words to Cardinal Villot
10 Deadly Doses Serita Stevens Chicago Tribune 17 Jul 70
11 Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine 7th Edition or other medical dictionary approved by the AMA
12 In the Fatima murders discussed in Chapter 9, hospital records show that Jacinta Marto survived a year and doctors were unable to diagnose her condition. A week before she died exploratory surgery of the chest cavity—pulmonary edema—failed to save her life. In that her brother Francisco was never hospitalized, less is known of his illness other than he survived six months. The only reliable record of his illness is his death certificate: “cause of death: cystitis.” Cystitis is a medical term for bladder infection. Jacinta’s death certificate cites ‘urinary poisoning’ as immediate cause of death. Bloody discharge of the bladder is the most telltale sign of arsenic poisoning in a living person.
13 L’Osservatore Romano 8 Aug 78. Also: embalming Paul VI Wikipedia
14 L’Osservatore Romano 7 Aug 78 Yu Pin Wikipedia
15 Closing satire
Chapter 33
The Murder of Cardinal Villot
According to canon law the term of a secretary of state ends when the Pope who appointed him dies.
When John Paul I appointed Villot as secretary of state it was known the choice was transitional. At the time of his untimely death, the newly elected pope was in the process of replacing Villot with Benelli something both these men were looking forward to—Benelli looking forward to taking over management of the Church and Villot looking forward to teaching in the Gregorian University in Rome.
This was apparent as during John Paul’s brief reign Benelli was deeply immersed in supervising the audit of the Vatican bank which at the time operated under the auspices of the Secretary of State. So it was no surprise John Paul retained the French cardinal at his side.
The surprise came when John Paul II rose to power. Instead of replacing Villot who stood for everything he was against, he retained Villot in the most powerful administrative position in the Church. Villot was in excellent health and short of retirement age and Benelli was no longer a part of the equation. Just why did John Paul II install this liberal cog in the conservative wheel of his papacy?
Could it be, if he were to replace Jean Villot with Agostino Casaroli immediately, it would have caused a furor among the two hundred cardinals and archbishops who outranked Casaroli? Could it be, had he replaced him with Casaroli immediately—one of three cardinals of Mafia families who shared the palace with John Paul the night he died—it would have raised suspicions of murder? Could it be, he needed time—not a lot of time, but some time—to ease his friend Casaroli into the job? Could it be, like Paul before him, Cardinal Jean Villot, too, fell victim to slow-arsenic poisoning?
A quiet ride
Regardless, a few months after Paul and John Paul’s deaths, Jean Villot, jaundiced and skin flaking, was loaded into a black Mercedes at the rear gates of the Vatican. He, too, was taken for his last ride to Castel Gandolfo. He, too, was popping cough drops. He, too, would suffer a ‘heart attack.’ Yet, he did not die at Castel Gandolfo.
His brother showed up at the retreat, Realizing Villot seriously ill, he ordered him moved to a Rome hospital, after which stay he was returned to the Vatican. Although the hospital cleared up a serious bladder infection, a few days later his blood pressure dropped and similar to Paul, he went into severe respiratory failure. Like Paul, he lingered for a few hours and died in the Vatican on March 9, 1979.
The strategy of Jean Villot
When one considers foul play in the death of Jean Villot, one is limited to his role in the events surrounding John Paul’s death.
It was he, as interim pope, who released the statement John Paul died before midnight and had been found dead by his secretary John Magee at six-thirty in the morning. Also, John Paul held a book—The Imitation of Christ—upright in his hands.
Whereas, the Pope had undoubtedly died toward four o’clock in the morning and a nun had found him at four-thirty holding notes written on the stationary of Vittorio Veneto upright in his hands.
It had been Villot who summoned the embalmers at five in the morning. One might think he lied about the time of death in order to place time between John Paul’s death and the embalming so as not to arouse suspicions of poisoning. Yet, today, one knows from the embalmers the embalming did not take place until after ten o’clock.
He lied about the time of death and roused the embalmers at such an early hour to arouse suspicion of poisoning—which we know, in retrospect, it did do. That he specifically included in the release he had performed the last rites—something he would have never done had the body been dead for six hours—seems to confirm this.
Villot was one of the most brilliant men in the Church. Six out of six mistakes in a brief release is not characteristic of a brilliant man.
It is obvious he made these ‘mistakes’ intentionally. He knew the press would interview those witnesses of John Paul’s death just as they had interviewed those witnesses of Paul’s death a month earlier. He knew the embalmers would tell the press they had been picked up at five-thirty which would conflict with the Vatican release the Pope had been found at six-thirty. He also knew the mother nun would confirm the discrepancy in time; she would tell the press she had discovered the Pope at four-thirty.
If Villot had not created the confusion that surrounded John Paul’s death there would have been no investigation by reporters and all of the books investigating his death that have been written since would have never been written. This is especially the case, when one considers Villot continued to rile up the press.
He riled up the press by placing Vincenza, Magee and Lorenzi on sabbatical to remove their access—why remove the only witnesses of the Pope’s death if the Vatican had nothing to hide?
What’s more, he issued a corrective release more confusing than the original release causing the press to expand its investigation.
Speculation? Speculation turns to fact when one considers the papers. What Villot did with the papers John Paul held in his hands.
Villot destroyed them and their content has never been released. Content, which if made public would have brought an end to the most prolific rumor—John Paul held in his hands lists of cardinals to be replaced. Had their content been released it would have brought an end to the rumors and the case would have been closed.
Villot knew they were notes written while the Pope had been bishop of Vittorio Veneto. He knew that since they were not a roster of cardinals to be replaced if he were to release them it would have brought an end to the rumors. Yet, he destroyed them. He wanted the rumors to persist.
Villot acted in the way he did, not so much to protect Mother Church, but to create rumors that would trigger an investigation into the Pope’s death—an investigation that
was conducted by just about every reporter in Italy which is instrumental to this book.
As we have said, if one considers Karol Wojtyla and Agostino Casaroli as suspects in John Paul’s murder, it would have to have required three murders, as three men had to die in rapid consecutive order to have allowed him to succeed to the secretary of state position—Paul VI, John Paul and Jean Villot.
In retrospect today, one knows, that is exactly what happened.
There is a word for this: coincidence. There is another word for it: murder.
Chapter 34
The Vatican Bank Murders
In the 1970-80s, there were two fronts on which the CIA and the Vatican were confronted by communism as a free democratic society: Italy and Central America. If Italy fell to communism—a redistribution of wealth society—all of Europe would surely follow. If Central America fell to communism—a redistribution of wealth society—all of Latin America would surely follow.
One is not talking here of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union was never a free democratic society. It was an autocracy. More so, it was never a communist society in the true Marx-Christ sense of the word. It remained, from beginning to end, very much, a rich and poor society.
The communist movements in Italy and Central America for the most part rejected Soviet intervention. Although the Soviets courted revolutionaries in Central America with offers of arms, the insurgents had no intent of getting out from living under one regime, to end up living under another. The political ideology of the Soviet Union was never a formidable threat to the United States as being a tyranny it had the entire free world against it.
It was in those parts of the world communism was raising its ugly head as the will of the people which was so dangerous to the United States. As Kissinger warned “Domination by Moscow is not the issue. Communist control of Italy and Central America is the issue. It would have terrible consequences for the United States and it is the number one threat to its national security…”1
Murder in the Vatican Page 42
