In God's Name

by David Yallop

  Armed with the Papal edict, Cardinal Baggio quickly made his travel arrangements, packed his suitcase and departed for Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. Arriving at the airport, he was advised that the Pope wished to speak to him before he flew to Chicago.

  Paul had danced yet again, backwards. He told Baggio that the plan for a co-adjutor to strip Cody of power could only proceed if Cody agreed.

  Dismayed, Baggio pleaded with the Pope: ‘But Holy Father, can I insist?’

  ‘No, no, you must not order him. The plan is to go forward only if His Eminence agrees.’

  A very angry and frustrated Cardinal Baggio flew to Chicago.

  Spy networks are a two-way conduit for information and Cardinal Cody had his own sources within the Roman Curia. The element of surprise that Baggio had hoped would catch Cody off balance, had, unbeknown to Baggio, been lost within a day of his crucial meeting with the Pope. Cody was ready and waiting.

  Most men in Cody’s position would subject themselves to a little self-examination, a consideration, perhaps, of events over the years that had led this most sensitive of Popes to the agonizing conclusion that the power Cody wielded must, in the interests of all, be handed to another. Ever considerate of the feelings of the man he wished to replace, the Pope had arranged matters so that Baggio’s stop-over in Chicago would be a secret. Officially he was flying direct to Mexico to finalize arrangements for the Puebla Conference. Such gestures were entirely lost on Cardinal Cody.

  The confrontation took place at the Cardinal’s villa in the grounds of the seminary at Mundelein. Baggio laid out the evidence. He established that, in making gifts of money to Helen Wilson, the Cardinal had certainly intermingled money he was entitled to dispose of with Church funds. In addition, the pension he had awarded his friend was improper. The Vatican investigations had clearly established a wide variety of indiscretions which would certainly bring the Roman Catholic Church into disrepute if they became public knowledge.

  Cody was far from contrite as the confrontation rapidly developed into a shouting match. He began to rant about his massive contributions to Rome; about the vast amounts of money he had poured into the Vatican Bank to be used in Poland; about the gifts of money he had bestowed on the Pope during his ad limina visits (obligatory 5-yearly visits and reports) – not the pitiful few thousand dollars that others brought but hundreds of thousands of dollars. The two Princes of the Church could be heard shouting at each other all over the seminary grounds. Cody was adamant. Another bishop would come in and run his diocese ‘over my dead body’. Eventually, like the stuck needle in a long-playing record, his tongue could only utter continuously in a single phrase: ‘I will not relinquish power in Chicago.’

  Baggio departed, temporarily defeated. A defiant Cody who refused to accept a co-adjutor was in total breach of Canon Law but for it to become public knowledge that the cardinal of one of the most powerful dioceses in the world was openly defying the Pope was, for Pope Paul, unthinkable. The Pope would tolerate Cody to the end of his days rather than face the alternative. For Paul, the days of toleration were few. Within one week of receiving Baggio’s reports the Pope was dead.

  By mid-September, Albino Luciani had studied the Cody file in depth. He met Cardinal Baggio and discussed it. He talked of the implications of the Cody affair with Villot, Benelli, Felici and Casaroli. On September 23rd he had another long meeting with Cardinal Baggio. At the end of it he advised Baggio that he would tell him of his decision within the next few days.

  In Chicago, for the first time in his long turbulent history Cardinal Cody began to feel vulnerable. After the Conclave he had privately been dismissive of this quiet Italian who had followed Paul. ‘It’s going to be more of the same’, Cody had declared to one of his close Curial friends. More of the same was what Cody wanted; it would enable him to go on ruling the roost in Chicago. Now the news from Rome indicated that he had seriously underrated Luciani. As September 1978 drew to an end John Cody became convinced that Luciani would act where Paul had not. Cody’s friends in Rome advised him that whatever course of action this new Pope decided upon, one thing was certain, he would see it through. They cited many examples from Luciani’s life to indicate an unusual inner strength.

  On Luciani’s desk in his study was one of the few personal possessions he treasured. A photograph. Originally it had been contained within a battered old frame. During his time in Venice a grateful parishioner had had the photograph remounted in a new silver frame with semi-precious jewels. The photograph showed his parents against a background of the snow-covered Dolomites. In his mother’s arms was the baby Pia, now a married woman with her own children. During September 1978 his secretaries observed the Pope on a number of occasions lost in thought as he studied the photograph. It was a reminder of happier times, when such men as Cody, Marcinkus, Calvi and the others did not disturb his tranquillity. There had been time for silence and small things then. Now it seemed to Luciani that there was never enough time for such important facets of his life. He was cut off from Canale and even from his family. There were the occasional telephone conversations, with Edoardo, with Pia, but the impromptu visits were now gone for ever. The Vatican machine saw to that. Even Diego Lorenzi attempted to turn Pia away when she telephoned. She had wanted to bring him some little presents, reminders of the north. ‘Leave them at the gate,’ Lorenzi said, ‘The Pope is too busy to see you.’ Luciani overheard this conversation and took the telephone.

  ‘Come and see me. I haven’t got time but come all the same.’

  They lunched together. Uncle Albino was in excellent health and good spirits. As the meal progressed he commented on his new role: ‘Had I known I was going to become Pope one day, I would have studied more.’ Then in a superb understatement he remarked, ‘It’s very hard being Pope.’

  Pia saw just how hard the job could be – made harder by the obduracy of the ever-watchful Curia. Luciani wished to treat Rome as his new parish, to wander through the streets as he had in Venice and his other dioceses. For a Head of State to behave in such a manner presented problems. The Curia flatly declared the idea not only unthinkable, but unworkable. The city would be thrown into constant chaos if the Holy Father went on walkabouts. Luciani abandoned the idea but only for a modified version. He told the Vatican officials that he wished to visit every hospital, church and refuge centre in Rome and gradually work his way round what he regarded as his parish. For a man bent on being a pastoral Pope the reality on his own doorstep presented a powerful challenge.

  Rome has a Catholic population of two-and-a-half million. It should have been producing at least seventy new priests per year. When Luciani became Pope it was producing six. The religious life of Rome was being maintained by enormous importations of clergy from outside. Many parts of the city were, in reality, pagan, with Church attendances of less than 3 per cent of the population. Here, in the heart of the Faith, cynicism abounded.

  The city that was now home to Luciani was also home to the Communist Mayor Carlo Argan – a Communist Mayor in a city whose major industry, religion, is rivalled only by the crime rate. One of the new titles Luciani had acquired was Bishop of Rome, a city that had been without a bishop, in the sense that Milan, Venice, Florence and Naples had a bishop, for over a century. It showed.

  As Pia lunched with the Pope, Don Diego was involved in a loud, lengthy argument with a Curial official who refused even to consider the Papal wish to visit various parts of Rome. Luciani interrupted his conversation with Pia.

  ‘Don Diego. Tell him it must be done. Tell him the Pope wishes it.’

  Lorenzi conveyed the Papal instruction, only to be met with a refusal. He turned to the Pope. ‘They say it can’t be done, Holy Father, because it’s never been done before.’

  Pia sat, fascinated, as the game of Vatican tennis continued. Eventually Luciani apologized to his niece for the interruption and told his secretary he would instruct Villot. Smiling at Pia, he observed: ‘If the Roman Curia permits, your Uncle hopes to
visit the Lebanon before Christmas.’

  He talked at length about that troubled country and his desire to intercede before the powder keg exploded. After lunch, as she was leaving, he insisted on giving her a medal presented to him by the mother of the President of Mexico. A few days later on September 15th he entertained his brother Edoardo to dinner. These two family meetings were destined to be the last Albino Luciani would have.

  As the Papacy of Albino Luciani progressed, the gulf between the Pope and the professional Vatican watchers increased, in direct proportion to the ever closer bonds and relationship between the new Pope and the general public. The bewilderment of the professionals was understandable.

  Confronted with a non-Curial Cardinal, who apparently lacked an international reputation, the experts had concluded that they were observing the first of a new breed of Pope, a man deliberately selected to ensure that there would be a reduction of power, a less significant role for the Papacy. There can be little doubt that Luciani himself saw his role in these reduced terms. The essential problem in this vision of a less significant Papacy was the man himself. The very essence of Albino Luciani, his personality, intellect and extraordinary gifts, meant that the general public promptly gave the new Pope a position of greater importance, held what he had to say as being of deeper significance. The public reaction to Luciani clearly demonstrated a deep need for an enlarged Papal role, exactly the reverse of that intended by many cardinals. The more Luciani was self-dismissive, the more exalted he became for the faithful.

  Many who had known Luciani only in his days in Venice were profoundly surprised by what they considered to be the change in the man. In Vittorio Veneto, Belluno and Canale there was no surprise. This was the real Luciani. The simplicity, the sense of humour, the stress on catechism these were integral elements within the man.

  On September 26th, Luciani could look back with satisfaction on his first month in the new job. It had been a month full of powerful impact. His investigations into corrupt and dishonest practices had thrown the perpetrators into deep fear. His impatience with Curial pomposity had caused outrage. Again and again he had abandoned officially written speeches, publicly complaining: ‘This is too Curial in style.’ Or, ‘This is far too unctuous.’

  His verbatim words were rarely recorded by Vatican Radio or L’Osservatore Romano, but the public heard them and so did the other news media. Borrowing a phrase from St Gregory, the Pope observed that, in electing him, ‘The Emperor has wanted a monkey to become a lion’. Lips tightened within the Vatican as mouths parted in smiles among the public. Here was a ‘monkey’ who during the course of his first month spoke to them in Latin, Italian, French, English, German and Spanish. As Winston Churchill might have remarked, ‘some monkey’.

  On September 7th, during a private audience with Vittore Branca at 8.00 a.m., an hour that caused Curial eyebrows to shoot even higher, his friend Branca expressed concern about the weight of the Papacy. Luciani responded:

  Yes, certainly I am too small for great things. I can only repeat the truth and the call of the Gospel as I did in my little church at home. Basically all men need this, and I am the keeper of souls above all. Between the parish priest at Canale and me there is a difference only in the number of faithful but the task is the same, to remember Christ and his word.

  Later the same day he met all the priests of Rome and, talking to them of the need for meditation, his words had a deeply poignant significance when one considers how little time and space a new Pope has for meditation.

  I was touched at Milan Station to see a porter sleeping blissfully with his head on a bag of coal and his back against a pillar. Trains were whistling as they left and their wheels were screeching as they arrived. Loudspeakers constantly interrupted. People came and went noisily. But he, sleeping on, seemed to say, ‘Do what you must but I need some peace’. We priests must do the same. Around us there is continual movement. People talking, newspapers, radio and TV. With the discipline and moderation of priests we must say, ‘Beyond certain limits you do not exist for me. I am a priest of the Lord. I must have a little silence for my soul. I distance myself from you to be with my God for a while.’

  The Vatican recorded his speeches in the General Audiences when on successive Wednesdays he spoke on Faith, Hope and Charity. Luciani’s pleas that these virtues be shown towards, for example, drug addicts went unrecorded by the Curia who controlled the Vatican media.

  When on September 20th he uttered the memorable phrase that it is wrong to believe ‘Ubi Lenin ibi Jerusalem’ (where Lenin is, there is Jerusalem), the Curia announced that the Pope was rejecting ‘liberation theology’. He was not. Further, Vatican Radio and L’Osservatore Romano neglected to record Luciani’s important qualification, that between the Church and religious salvation, and the world and human salvation, ‘There is some coincidence but we cannot make a perfect equation.’

  By Saturday September 23rd, Luciani’s investigation into Vatican Incorporated was well advanced. Villot, Benelli and others had provided the Pope with reports which Luciani had reflected upon. That day he left the Vatican for the first time, to take possession of his cathedral as Bishop of Rome. He shook hands with Major Argan and they exchanged speeches. After the Mass that followed, with the majority of the Curia present, the Pope touched several times on the inner problems with which he was grappling. Referring to the poor, that section of society closest to Luciani’s heart, he remarked:

  These, the Roman deacon Lawrence said, are the true treasures of the Church. They must be helped, however, by those who can, to have more and to be more, without becoming humiliated and offended by ostentatious riches, by money squandered on futile things and not invested, in so far as is possible, in enterprises of advantage to all.

  Later in the same speech he turned and, looking directly at the gentlemen of the Vatican Bank gathered together, he began to talk of the difficulties of guiding and governing.

  Although already for twenty years I have been Bishop of Vittorio Veneto and at Venice, I admit that I have not yet learned the job well. At Rome I shall put myself in the school of St Gregory the Great who writes ‘[the pastor] should, with compassion, be close to each one who is subject to him: forgetful of his rank he should consider himself on a level with the good subiects, but he should not fear to exercise the rights of his authority against the wicked . . .’

  Without a knowledge of events within the Vatican, the members of the public merely nodded wisely. The Curia knew precisely to what the Pope was alluding. This was in Vatican style an elegant, oblique pronouncement of coming events.

  Changes were in the air and within the Vatican village there was frenetic speculation. Bishop Marcinkus and at least two of his closest associates. Mennini and De Strobel, were going. That was known to be a fact. What exercised Curial minds were the rumours of other replacements.

  When on Sunday, September 25th a private visitor to the Papal Apartments was identified by one sharp-eyed monsignor as Lino Marconato, excitement within the village reached new heights. Marconato was a director of the Banco San Marco. Did his presence in the Papal Apartments indicate that a successor to Banco Ambrosiano had been found already?

  In fact the meeting dealt with far less exotic banking matters. Banco San Marco had been made the official bank of the diocese in Venice by Luciani after he had angrily closed all accounts at Banca Cattolica del Veneto. Now Luciani needed to clear up his personal accounts at San Marco, knowing he would never return to live in the city. Marconato found his soon-to-be former client in the best of health. They chatted happily about Venice as Luciani gave instructions that the money in his Patriarch’s account should be passed on to his successor.

  The preoccupation with the forthcoming changes was intense. In many cities. By many people.

  Another with a direct vested interest in what Luciani might be about to do was Michele Sindona. Sindona’s four-year battle to avoid extradition from the USA to Italy was moving to a climax in September 1978. Earlie
r that year, during May, a Federal judge had ruled that the Sicilian, who had transformed himself into a citizen of Switzerland, should be returned to Milan to face the highly expensive music he had previously orchestrated. In his absence he had been sentenced to three-and-a-half years, but Sindona was fully aware that that particular sentence would seem lenient when the Italian courts had finished with him. Despite Federal investigation, he still remained free of any charges in the United States. The Franklin Bank collapse had been followed by a number of men being arrested on various charges but in September 1978 The Shark remained untouched. His major problem at that time was in Italy.

  Sindona’s million-dollar battery of lawyers had persuaded the courts to withhold activating the extradition until the United States prosecutors had proved that there was well-founded evidence against Sindona with regard to the variety of charges he faced in Milan.

  From May onwards, the prosecutors had been working hard to obtain that evidence. Sindona, helped by the Mafia and his P2 colleagues, had been working equally hard to make that evidence vanish. As September 1978 drew to a close he still had a number of outstanding ‘problems’.

  The first was the evidence given at the extradition proceedings by a witness named Nicola Biase. Biase was a former employee of Sindona and his evidence was deemed to be dangerous. Sindona set about making it ‘safe’. After discussing the problem with the Mafia Gambino family a small contract was put out. It was to be nothing particularly sinister. Biase, his wife, family and lawyer were to have their lives threatened. If they succumbed to the threats and Biase withdrew his evidence, the matter would rest there. If Biase refused to co-operate with the Mafia, then the Gambino family and Sindona planned to ‘review’ the situation. The review did not augur well for the continued good health of Biase. The contract for less than 1,000 dollars would be amended to a more appropriate one. The contract was given to Luigi Ronsisvalle and Bruce McDowall. Ronsisvalle is by profession a hired killer.