In God's Name

by David Yallop

  In this way, our diplomatic missions to your highest civil authorities, far from being a survival from the past, are a witness to our deep-seated respect for lawful temporal power, and to our lively interest in the humane causes that the temporal power is intended to advance.

  ‘We have no public goods to exchange . . .’ It was a public sentence of death upon Vatican Incorporated. All that remained uncertain was the number of days and months during which it would continue to function. The men of the international money markets of Milan, London, Tokyo, and New York pondered Luciani’s words with interest. If he really meant what he said then clearly there were going to be changes. Those changes would not be confined to the movement of people out of the Vatican Bank and the APSA, but would inevitably include a curtailment of a number of Vatican Incorporated’s activities. For the men in the world’s money markets there were billions to be made if they could correctly guess the direction this new Vatican philosophy would take. Albino Luciani wanted a poor Church for the poor. What did he plan to do with those who had created a wealthy Church? What did he plan to do with the wealth?

  Luciani’s humility was responsible for the birth of several misconceptions. Many observers concluded that this demonstrably holy man was a simple, uncomplicated person who lacked the cultural talents of his predecessor, Paul VI. The reality was that Luciani had a far richer cultivation and a good deal more sophistication than Paul. His gifts were such that this extraordinary man could appear completely plebeian. His was a simplicity that is acquired only by a very few; a simplicity stemming from a deep wisdom.

  One of the peculiarities of this age is that humility and gentleness are inevitably taken to be indications of some form of weakness. Frequently they indicate precisely the opposite, great strength.

  When the new Pope remarked that he had been leafing through the Vatican Year Book to find out who did what, many in the Curia smirked and concluded that he would be a pushover, a man they could control. There were others who knew better.

  Men who had known Albino Luciani over many years watched and waited. They knew the steel within; the strength to take difficult or unpopular decisions. Many spoke to me of these hidden attributes. Monsignor Tiziano Scalzotto, Father Mario Senigaglia, Monsignor Da Rif, Father Bartolomeo Sorge and Father Busa were just five of those who talked of the inner strength of Pope John Paul I. Father Busa observed:

  His mind was as strong, as hard and as sharp as a diamond. That was where his real power was. He understood and had the ability to get to the centre of a problem. He could not be overwhelmed. When everyone was applauding the smiling Pope, I was waiting for him ‘tirare fuori le unghie’, to reveal his claws. He had tremendous power.

  Without an entourage – no Venetian Mafia followed the Milan clique into the Papal Apartments – Albino Luciani would need every scrap of inner strength he could muster if he was to avoid becoming the prisoner of the Vatican Curia.

  In the early days after the August Conclave the Vatican Government machine had not been idle. On Sunday, August 27th, after his noon speech to the crowds, Luciani lunched with Cardinal Jean Villot. As Pope Paul’s Secretary of State since April 1969, Villot had built a reputation for quiet competence. During the run-up to the Conclave Villot, as chamberlain, had virtually functioned as a caretaker Pope aided by his committees of cardinals. Luciani asked Villot to continue as Secretary of State for ‘a little while, until I have found my way’. Villot, 73 years of age, had been hoping that the moment had come when he might retire. In the event Luciani appointed Villot as his Secretary of State and reconfirmed all the Curial heads in their previous positions but the Curia were made aware that this was merely a temporary measure. Ever the prudent man of the mountains, the new Pope preferred to bide his time. ‘Deliberation. Decision. Execution.’ If the Curia wanted to know how their new Pope would act they had merely to read his letter to St Bernard. A great many did. They also did much deeper research on Pope John Paul I. What they discovered caused consternation in many Vatican departments and a deep pleasure of anticipation in others.

  The death of Pope Paul VI brought bubbling to the surface many animosities that existed in the Vatican village. The Roman Curia, the central administrative body of the Church, had been engaging in internecine warfare for many years; only Paul’s expertise had kept the majority of the battles from public view. Now after the rebuff within the Conclave the Curial warfare reached the Papal Apartments. Albino Luciani complained bitterly about the situation to a number of friends who came to see him. ‘I want to learn quickly the trade of Pope but almost no one explains problems and situations in a thorough and detached manner. Most of the time I hear nothing but bad spoken about everything and everyone.’ To another friend from the north he observed: ‘I have noticed two things that appear to be in very short supply in the Vatican. Honesty and a good cup of coffee.’

  There were as many Roman Curial factions as choirboys in the Sistine Chapel Choir. There was the Curia of Pope Paul VI committed to ensuring that the memory of the late Pope was constantly and continually honoured and also that there would be no deviation from the late Pope’s views, opinions and pronouncements.

  There was the Curia which favoured Cardinal Giovanni Benelli and the Curia which wished he was in Hell. Pope Paul VI had made Benelli his Under-Secretary of State, number two to Cardinal Villot. He rapidly became the Pope’s muscle, ensuring that policy was adhered to. Paul had moved him to Florence and promoted him in order to protect him during Paul’s last years. Now his protector was dead but the long knives remained sheathed. Luciani was Pope because of men like Benelli.

  There were Curial factions which favoured or opposed Cardinals Baggio, Felici, and Bertoli. There were Curia factions wanting more central power and control, others wanting less.

  Throughout his life Albino Luciani had avoided visits to the Vatican. He had kept his contact with the Roman Curia to a minimum. As a result, before his election, he probably had fewer Curial enemies than any other cardinal. It was a situation which quickly changed. Here was a Pope who considered ‘mere execution’ as the basic function of the Curia. He believed in greater power-sharing with the bishops throughout the world and planned to decentralize the Vatican structure. By refusing to be crowned he had distressed the traditionalists. Another innovation hardly likely to endear Luciani to the more materially-minded members of the Curia was his instruction that the extra month’s salary paid automatically upon the election of a new Pope should be cut by half.

  Obviously there were many within the 3,000 or so members of the Curia who would loyally serve and love the new Pope; but the way of the world is to ensure that negative forces often predominate. As soon as the result of the election was known the Curia, or certain sections of it swung into action. Within hours a special edition of L’Osservatore Romano was available with a full biography of the new Pope. Vatican Radio was already broadcasting similar details.

  As an example of how to influence the world’s thinking about a hitherto unknown leader, L’Osservatore Romano’s treatment of Albino Luciani is definitive. Because it deliberately portrayed a person who existed only in the reactionary, oppressive mind of whoever wrote the biographical details, this particular edition of L’Osservatore Romano is also an excellent example of why the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper has been compared unfavourably with Pravda. Using the ‘official facts’, many journalists fighting deadlines filed copy which portrayed a man who did not exist. The Economist, to take one of several hundred examples, said of the new Pope, ‘He would not be much at home in the company of Dr Hans Kung.’ Research would have revealed that Luciani and Hans Kung had exchanged very friendly letters as well as sending one another books. Further research would have shown that Luciani had several times quoted Kung favourably in his sermons. Virtually every newspaper and periodical in the world that carried profiles of the new Pope made similar totally erroneous assertions.

  To read the special edition of L’Osservatore Romano is to read of a new Pope
who was even more conservative than Pope Paul VI. The distortion covered a wide range of Luciani’s views but one in particular is highly relevant when considering the life and death of Albino Luciani: birth control.

  The Vatican newspaper described a man who was an intrepid and unquestioning supporter of Humanae Vitae.

  He made a meticulous study of the subject of responsible parenthood and engaged in consultations and talks with medical specialists and theologians. He warned of the grave responsibility of the Church (the ecclesiastical Magisterium) in pronouncing on such a delicate and controversial question.

  That was entirely accurate and truthful. What followed was completely inaccurate.

  With the publication of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae there could be no room for doubt, and the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto was among the first to circulate it, and to insist with those who were perplexed by the document, that its teaching was beyond question.

  When the Curia moves it is a formidable machine. Its efficiency and speed would make other Civil Services breathless. Men from the Roman Curia appeared at the Gregorian College and removed all notes and papers that referred to Luciani’s period of study for his degree. Other members of the Curia went to Venice, Vittorio Veneto, Belluno. Wherever Luciani had been the Curia went. All copies of the Luciani document on birth control were seized and immediately placed in the Vatican’s Secret Archives along with his thesis on Rosmini and a large quantity of other writings. It could be said that the beatification process for Albino Luciani began the day he was elected Pope. It would be equally accurate to observe that the Curial cover-up of the real Albino Luciani began the same day.

  What certain sections of the Curia had realized with a profound shock was that in electing Albino Luciani, the cardinals had given them a man who would not let the issue of birth control rest with Humanae Vitae. Careful study by members of the Curia of what Luciani had actually said, not only to his parishioners in public but to his friends and colleagues in private, quickly established that the new Pope favoured artificial birth control. The inaccurate and false picture L’Osservatore Romano painted of a man who rigorously applied the principles of Humanae Vitae was the opening shot in a counter-attack designed to hem Albino Luciani inside the strictures of his predecessor’s encyclical. It was quickly followed by another blast.

  The Press Agency UPI discovered that Luciani had been in favour of a Vatican ruling which would allow artificial birth control. Italian newspapers also carried stories referring to the Luciani document sent to Pope Paul by Cardinal Urbani of Venice in which the strong recommendation in favour of the contraceptive pill had been made. The Curia speedily located Father Henri de Riedmatten who had been secretary to the Papal Birth Control Commission. He described the reports that Luciani had been opposed to an encyclical that condemned artificial birth control as ‘a fantasy’. Riedmatten also asserted that Luciani had never been a member of the Commission, which was accurate. He then went on to deny that Luciani had ever written a letter or a report on the subject that had been sent to Pope Paul.

  This denial and the manner of it is an example of the duplicity that abounds in the Curia. The Luciani document went to Rome via Cardinal Urbani and therefore had the Cardinal’s imprimatur upon it. To deny that a document existed, actually signed by Luciani, was technically correct. To deny that Luciani on behalf of his fellow bishops in the Veneto region had not forwarded such a document to the Pope via the then Patriarch of Venice was an iniquitous lie.

  Ironically, within the first three weeks of his Papacy, Albino Luciani had already taken the first significant steps towards reversing the Roman Catholic Church’s position on artificial birth control. While those steps were being taken the world’s Press, by courtesy of L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio, and off the record briefings by certain members of the Roman Curia, had already firmly established a completely false image of Luciani’s views.

  During his Papacy Luciani referred to and quoted from a number of the pronouncements and encyclicals that had come from Pope Paul VI. Notably absent was any reference to Humanae Vitae. The defenders of the encyclical had first been alerted to the new Pope’s views when they learned with consternation that the draft acceptance speech, which had been prepared for Paul’s successor by the Secretariat of State’s office, containing glowing references to Humanae Vitae, had had all such references excised by Luciani. The anti birth control element within the Vatican then discovered that in May 1978, Albino Luciani had been invited to attend and speak at an International Congress being held in Milan on June 21st–22nd. The main purpose of the Congress was to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Luciani had let it be known that he would not speak at the Congress and that further he would not attend. Among those who did attend and speak in glowing terms about Humanae Vitae was the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla.

  Now in September, while the world’s Press unquestioningly repeated the lies of L’Osservatore Romano, Albino Luciani was heard in the Papal Apartments talking to his Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot: ‘I will be happy to talk to this United States delegation on the issue. To my mind we cannot leave the situation as it currently stands.’

  The issue was world population. The ‘situation’ was Humanae Vitae. As the conversation progressed Villot heard Pope John Paul I express a view that many others, including his private secretary Father Diego Lorenzi, had heard many times before. Father Lorenzi is only one of a number of people who have been able to quote to me Luciani’s exact words:

  I am aware of the ovulation period in a woman with its range of fertility from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Even if one allows a sperm life of forty-eight hours the maximum time of possible conception is less than four days. In a regular cycle this means four days of fertility and twenty-four days of infertility. How on earth can it be a sin to say instead of twenty-four days, twenty-eight days?

  What had prompted this truly historic conversation had been a tentative approach to the Vatican from the American Embassy in Rome. The American Embassy had been contacted by the State Department in Washington and also by US Congressman James Scheuer. The Congressman headed a House Select Committee on Population and was also Vice-Chairman of the UN fund for population activities, inter-parliamentary working group. The story of the Luciani document to Pope Paul VI on birth control had alerted Scheuer and his Committee to the possibility of change in the Church’s position on birth control. It seemed to Scheuer that it was unlikely that his group would obtain an audience with Luciani so soon in his Papacy but he still considered it worth the effort of putting pressure on the State Department and also, through the Embassy in Rome, on the Vatican. Scheuer was destined to hear some good news.

  Villot, like many of the men who surrounded Luciani, was having considerable difficulty in adjusting to the new Papacy. He had developed over the years a close working relationship with Paul VI. He had grown to admire the Montini style. Now the world-weary 81-year-old Hamlet had been replaced by an optimistic Henry VI who at 65 years of age was a relative stripling.

  The relationship between Luciani and his Secretary of State was an uneasy one. The new Pope found Villot cold and aloof, full of observations about how Paul VI would have approached this problem or what Paul VI would have said about this particular issue. Paul VI was dead but it became apparent that Villot and a significant section of the Curia had not accepted that the Montinian approach to problems had died with him.

  The speech that the new Pope had delivered twenty-four hours after the Conclave had been largely a generalized statement. The real programme began to be formulated only during the early days of September 1978. He was fired with the inspiration of Pope John XXIII’s first 100 days.

  John had been elected Pope on October 28th, 1958. Within the first 100 days he had made a number of crucial senior appointments including filling the post of Secretary of State with Cardinal Domenico Tardini, a post that had been vacant since 1944. Most significant of all had been his decision to call the
Second Vatican Council. That decision was made public on January 25th, 1959, eighty-nine days after his election.

  Now that Albino Luciani was wearing the shoes of the fisherman he determined to follow John’s example of a revolutionary 100 days. At the top of his list of priorities of reform and change were the need to alter radically the Vatican’s relationship with capitalism and the desire to alleviate the very real suffering he had personally witnessed that had stemmed directly from Humanae Vitae.

  According to Cardinal Benelli, Cardinal Felici and other Vatican sources, the austere Villot listened askance as the new Pope elaborated on the problems the encyclical had caused. It was clear from his attitude during my interviews with him that on this issue Felici was heavily in sympathy with Villot.

  Only a few weeks earlier Villot had been extolling the encyclical on the tenth anniversary of its publication. In a letter to Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, Villot reaffirmed Paul’s opposition to artificial contraception. The Secretary of State had stressed how important Paul had considered this teaching to be, that it was ‘according to God’s Law’.

  There was much more in a similar vein. Now, less than two months later, he was obliged to listen to Paul’s successor taking a reverse position. The coffee grew cold as Luciani, rising from his desk, began to pace his study and quietly talk of some of the effects that Humanae Vitae had produced over the past decade.

  The encyclical which had been designed to strengthen Papal authority by denying that there could be any change in the traditional teaching on birth control, had had precisely the opposite effect. The evidence was irrefutable. In Belgium, Holland, Germany, Britain, the United States and in many other countries there had not only been marked opposition to the encyclical, there had also been marked disobedience. The maxim had rapidly become that if one priest did not take a tolerant attitude within the confessional the sinner shopped around for a more liberated priest. Luciani cited examples of that contradiction he knew of personally in the Veneto region.