Murder by the Grace of God
The CIA and Pope John Paul I
by
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Though supported by over 500 press references, this book does not read in dry narrative: Thirty-three days into his papacy, the youngest pope to die in four hundred years and the only pope in the two-thousand year history of the Church whose death was unwitnessed was found dead in his bed... At 7:30AM September 29, 1978 Vatican Radio announced, “Pope John Paul died just before midnight last evening of myocardial infarction to the heart. He was discovered by his secretary Magee at six-thirty this morning who went to look for the Pope when he failed to show up for his morning chapel service... He was sitting up in his daytime clothes with the light on wearing his glasses reading the ‘Imitation of Christ which book remained upright in his hands by the grace of God.” …...The Italian Medical Society criticized the release, “It is irresponsible for any doctor to infer myocardial infarction without autopsy in the case of an unwitnessed death, particularly one who has no history of heart disease.” …...The embalmers told ANSA—Italy’s most reliable wire service—that papers were in his hands and not a book. They also said they were picked up by a Vatican car at five-thirty, an hour before the release said the body was found. In addition, they were told by Swiss Guards a nun had discovered the Pope. It was their opinion he had not been dead for much more than an hour or two as it was a chilly morning and the windows were open and the body was warm. …... The nun Vincenza told reporters she routinely delivered coffee at four-thirty each morning. When she first knocked there was no answer. She waited a minute or so and knocked again. She knew he was up and about, as it was his rule to set his alarm clock for a few minutes after 4 o’clock in the event he overslept. If he was still sleeping, the alarm would be ringing loud enough to wake the dead. At least, that is what she thought. This meant to her, he had risen at his usual time of four and had completed first task of each day—turned off the alarm. It was obvious the Pope was still in the bathroom. She opened the door and entered the room intending to leave the tray on his nightstand. The light was on. He was sitting up in bed in his daytime clothes reading papers held upright in his hands. She greeted him, “Good morning.” He resembled a mime deeply involved in his reading. It was not unusual for him, once dressed for the day, to be sitting in bed reading when she delivered coffee. Vincenza, who had served him for twenty years, had come to know this man as a jovial one, always smiling, often laughing and, at times, joking. At first she thought it was a joke. Actually, she knew it was a joke. He was wearing his glasses. Though nearsighted and he required them to walk across the room, he did not require them to read. That is, he did not require them to read in private. Yet, someone not close to him would think he required them to read because he always wore them when reading from the pulpit to allow him to view his audience. She approached the bed, “Please don’t joke with me, Albino.” As she placed the tray on the stand she realized something was wrong…... Her testimony confirmed that of the embalmers—he was holding papers and not a book. More importantly, he had been discovered dead shortly after four-thirty and not at six-thirty… That the alarm clock should have rung and did not ring raised eyebrows of the Agatha Christie mystery buff. The Pope had turned it off or someone else who knew his practice had turned it off. Otherwise it would have been ringing when the nun was at the door. …... Lina Petri spent a half-hour in the room alone with her dead uncle. She told reporters, “It was as if he was smiling at me. His face showed no sign of suffering. There was something strange. He was wearing his daytime clothes. Why would he not be wearing his pajamas if reading in bed? The sleeves were all torn. Why should they be torn like that? I wondered...”........ So we have some puzzles here: Why didn’t he pull the bell cord that hung a whisker from his right shoulder? Who turned the light on which was not on all night? Who turned the alarm clock off which did not ring? Who dressed him up in his daytime clothes? Who tore his sleeves? Who took the time to destroy all nine copies of his Will? Who placed the spectacles on the nose of the man who did not need them to read? ……There is one fact on which to build our case: the only circumstance of his death agreed to by all witnesses including the Vatican release, the nun who found him, his secretaries, the embalmers and all others brought to his room: “The bed lamp was on and he was sitting up in his daytime clothes wearing his glasses reading papers held upright in his hands.” This leaves us with the inconsistency he could have remained in a sitting-up position with notes still clutched upright in his hands if he had suffered a massive heart attack. Only the most gullible accepted the Vatican’s hypothesis “...by the grace of God.” Yet, it is from these few bits we must begin our work. From these few observations, employing the analysis and deduction techniques which lifted Sherlock Holmes to the top of his game, we will prove this good man was murdered and why. ….. “Here is the proof how John Paul I and those around him fell victim to twentieth century capitalism as it was jointly embraced by the Vatican and the United States.” T. Francis Elliott, London Times
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About the Book
In 1978, driven by Paul VI’s encyclicals Populorum Progressio and Liberation Theology, there were two fronts on which the CIA was confronted by communism as a free democratic society, Italy and Central America. If Italy fell to communism, all of Europe would surely follow. If Central America fell to communism, all of Latin America would surely follow. It was in these parts of the world communism was raising its ugly head as the will of the people that was so very dangerous to the United States and its capitalistic allies. Henry Kissinger sounded the alarm, “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 is the number one threat to its national security.” ……. On the afternoon of March 13, 1978, fourteen men sat around a table in a sidewalk café in a mountain village in northern Italy. In casual clothes they went unnoticed though one was the reigning Pontiff and another Aldo Moro. Included were Italian cardinals who had been behind the rise of the Communist Party in the polls in Italy. The others were cardinals of impoverished parts of the world. Together they comprised the core of the Marxist movement in the Church. They left at four o’clock and Aldo reserved the table for next year….. On March 13, 1979, Cardinals Benelli and Felici decided not to travel to Vittorio Veneto that day. After all, all the others were dead. They, themselves—unaware of their impending doom—were, too, as good as dead.
About the Author
Biographer of John Paul I, George Lucien Gregoire was born in New England and completed his undergraduate and graduate work in Massachusetts schools and has served on boards of universities and secondary schools. Gregoire spent much of his military service as a Pentagon officer in the Arctic Circle in connection with espionage activities up over the top during the Cold War. He spent his professional career as an officer of American and European corporations and was an American industrialist operating in Central America dealing with the same banks the Vatican was involved with when the Vatican bank scandal and the revolution of the poor he speaks of in this book took place. Gregoire was a NATO Intelligence officer when he made the acquaintance of John Paul in the sixties when the Pope—a bishop of a mountain province in northern Italy—was leading the priest-worker movement which eventually gave rise to the Communist Party in the polls……About John Paul I: When elected—based on the few bits which had reached outside Italy—he was tabbed ‘a moderate with an open mind to change doctrine in those cases it places unfair restraints on the lives of innocent people.’ Like the time he ordered his priests to melt down their golden chalices and other implements of idol worship to build an orphanage, to the times he had been caught baptizing born-out-of-wedlock children, to the times he had been caught officiating at funerals of the remarried, to the times he ordered hospitals to admit partners of homosexuals into intensive care units, to the times he defied the ban on contraception, to his courageous defense of the first artificially inseminated child just a month before his election, to the time as Pope he declared “God is more our Mother than She is our Father.”