“In the corner to the other side of the window is a sitting area—a sixteenth century sofa and matching chairs share an overly ornate coffee table. On a side table is a white antique Italian phone.
“The bed is dominated by a bronze headboard. At its top center is a solid gold crucifix flanked on either side by threatening feline gargoyles which protect the Pope from evil spirits while he sleeps. The papal bed is outfitted with new mattresses as each changing of the pope takes place, yet, the headboard has remained the focal point of the room since the nineteenth century when elevators made possible the move of the papal residence to this building.
“A red velvet bell cord hanging just above the pillows is wired to the guard’s desk at the entrance to the corridor which leads to the chambers. If pulled it would ring loud enough to wake the dead.
“At one time, this was the Pope’s only contact with the outside world when he was sequestered in his own little corner of the world. But, as I have already pointed out, in the middle of the twentieth century modern technology stepped in.
The strange set of circumstances that caused three men to sleep in the great bed in the Papal Apartment in the fall of 1978
“Nightstands flank either side of the bed.
“The one on the left serves as a communication center—a row of buttons drive an intercom. There are buttons to the guard, to his secretary’s offices and bedrooms, to the valet’s rooms and one that rings in both the kitchen and bedroom of the mother nun. Another is wired to the Secretary of State’s office and bedroom.
“One more. A red button—the one reserved for emergencies. It activates a flashing red light in the corridor outside his quarters and buzzes at the guard station at the entrance to the Papal Apartment.”
This is the bedroom as it was the night of John Paul’s death. There was an electronic unit which allowed him access to six people—his secretaries, his valet, the nun who ran his household, his secretary of state and the guard who sat at a desk just eighty feet from where the Pope sat up in his bed reading his papers.2
Only five of these were in the Papal Palace on the night John Paul died as the valet was away in connection with a death in his family. Yet, not one of the other five heard a ring.
Then there was the bell cord—rarely used. Yet, had he pulled it, everyone in the building would have heard it ring.
Pope Villot
Marcinkus also took me on a tour of the second and third floors of the palace. As we passed Jean Villot’s quarters he told me at one time a proposal was made to move the Secretary of State’s quarters to a more remote part of Vatican City, particularly, in that Villot was both Secretary of State and Cardinal Camerlengo.
The term of the Secretary of State comes to an end when a Pope dies. Yet, upon a Pope’s death he forms a commission in overseeing the election of a new pope together with the Cardinal Camerlengo.
During the interim period, although their primary duty is to guide the conclave, the two have the full authority and responsibility of a pope. If an election were to stalemate for months, together they would have the power—should the need arise—to make changes to doctrine. This includes the authority to change the rules of election.
Jean Villot was only one of two cardinals to ever jointly hold both the Cardinal Secretary of State and Cardinal Camerlengo positions demonstrating the extreme confidence Paul had in him.1 Technically, Villot reigned as Pope five days longer than John Paul as he was the interim Pope between Paul VI and John Paul and again between the two John Pauls—thirty-eight days in all.
Following the assassination attempt on John Paul II in 1981, the Secretary of State’s rooms were relocated elsewhere. Today, for security purposes, where a pope sleeps is not public knowledge. Yet, the assumption is he still sleeps in the corner bedroom.3
The bathrooms on the lower floors were bathe in gold, among them the Raphael Bathroom with trappings worth a king’s ransom.
I had lunch with Paul in a garden restaurant. I told him of the great white wine Jack and I had enjoyed that afternoon at the village wedge café in Vittorio Veneto. He told me he had been there too. “As we priests change wine into the blood of Christ, so, too, does the little wedge café turn common wine into the blood of gods.”
As we walked back to his office, he told me I now knew more about the layout of the Papal Palace than the CIA and KGB combined. That was the last time I saw him.
Those inside the palace
On the night of John Paul’s death, besides the Pope there were six people in the Papal Apartment—the perpetual guard at its entrance, the mother nun together with the three nuns who slept along the San Damasus Courtyard side of the building and the Pope’s secretary Lorenzi who was sleeping in the secretaries’ office while his attic rooms were being painted. The only private rooms unoccupied were those of the valet who was away on funeral leave.
Other than these, anyone gaining access to the Pope’s bedroom, whether one came up the stairs or elevator or the fire escape through the chapel or down the attic stairs would have to pass by the guard.
On the floor below were sleeping three prelates of Mafia families: Carlo Confalonieri, Agostino Casaroli and Giovanni Caprio.4 There was a fourth, the French cardinal, Jean Villot.
John Magee was in his attic room up over the pope’s bedroom accessible only by stairs in full view of the guard who sat at a desk at the entrance to the apartment. Three additional nuns were sleeping in rooms in the attic on the San Damasus side of the building.
This gives us another falsehood in the corrected Vatican release of October 10, 1978, “We wish to correct our statement it was the Pope’s secretary Magee who discovered the Pope’s body. The Pope was first discovered by the nun who delivered his coffee at the usual time. When she sensed something wrong she summoned Magee…’
In order for the nun to summon Magee—who she barely knew—she would have to pass by Lorenzi who she had lived with for two years and by the guard in a time of emergency—a Swiss guard, in addition to being a human fighting machine is a paramedic.
Those outside the palace
Could anyone outside the palace gain access to the bedroom?
For my knowledge of the interior of the palace I must draw entirely upon my visit forty years ago, as they certainly wouldn’t let me in there today. Yet, my recollection of its exterior is much more recent. When I first suspected murder a few years ago, I scoured the possibilities as forty years ago there was no need for possibilities. I took one of those helicopter tours over Vatican City.
As the helicopter passed over the rear of the building I struck on what I thought was much more than just a possibility. I slipped the pilot twenty dollars and asked him if he could make a closer pass. He told me he would not go closer but that he would go around once again. He pointed to two guards who were stationed atop the roof of the service building that adjoined the rear of the palace.
He told me the tripods outside the shack were not telescopes. They could take down a helicopter in seconds. He was right. As we made the pass both guards moved toward the tripods. I asked him if they had been there when the Pope died. They were added after the assassination attempt on John Paul II.
When we came out over the side of the building I noticed a row of iron fixtures running from the ground at the rear corner of the building to the fourth floor. There were a few more that ran along the top floor to the Pope’s bedroom. A similar row of fixtures ran along the sides of the second and third floors of the building.
At one time a catwalk extended from these windows to a fire escape which ran down the rear of the building. They had been painted to blend in with the building. Yet, they were there.
I had to be certain the fire escape was not there in 1978.
The cards in the souvenir shops had only recent photographs of the building, so for a day or so I toured bookshops in Rome. Finally, in a little shop on the Via Pomezia I found an old picture book of the palace dated 1963, the year Paul was elected. Although one would have to loo
k for it in order to see it, as it blended into the building, the catwalk ran right up to the Pope’s bedroom window.
They had been retained it as a secondary means of escape when the service building had been added. This made sense as the corridor running through the apartment was a dead-end and smoke coming from its entrance would block one reaching the exit in the chapel.
I had a momentary rush of adrenaline and despair. If the catwalk had been there the night John Paul died, anyone had the opportunity to commit the evil deed. Luckily, I found other pictures dated in the early seventies. The fire escape was gone. We can eliminate it as a means of access. Yet, one must still consider the roof.
The roof of the building adjoins the roof of San Damascus and its roof adjoins the roof of the next building and so forth.
Anyone gaining access via the roof would have had to pass by the guard. Yet, the roof slants outward toward the perimeter of the building at an angle not that sharp a man could have moved about it without risk of falling off. It is possible for someone to have climbed down to the edge of the roof and to have thrown something into the Pope’s window—a distance of thirty feet. Yet, it is not reasonable to believe one could have done this as the roof over the Pope’s rooms is in full view of the square, we will resolve this as we go along.
Regardless, we can conclude for now only six people had direct access to John Paul the night he died—the mother nun Vincenza, the three nuns, the Pope’s secretary Lorenzi and the apartment guard.
Eight others would have had to somehow elude the guard—Casaroli, Caprio, Confalonieri, Villot on the floor below and John Magee and the three nuns sleeping in the attic above.
The valet, as we have said, was away on funeral leave.
1 Cardinal Pacelli (Pius XII) also held both titles
2 At the time, there was an identical electronic console in the Pope’s private library.
3 During the death watch of John Paul II in 2005 world television focused on a lighted window second from the right. There was no light on in the room in which John Paul had been found dead. This would suggest the bedroom in which the pope now sleeps is today on the San Damasus side of the building—formerly a nun’s quarters—out of direct line of fire from the square and surrounding buildings.
4 Casaroli and Caprio were cousins in the Gambino family. Confalonieri was of the Mafia family of his name. In 1990, when Casaroli and Caprio retired, John Paul II severed the Vatican’s relationship with the Mafia. The reason no cardinal has ever officiated at a Mafia family funeral since.
Photo caricature three popes in bed is by Ben Vogelsang – author’s property
Photo Papal Apartment Shutterstock photo
Diagram of the Papal Palace is the property of the author
Chapter 25
Testament to Murder
“Hickory Dickory Dock…”
Agatha Christie
I have promised some scenarios as to what caused three men to sleep in the great bed in the Papal Apartment in the fall of nineteen hundred and seventy-eight. Here they are for you to choose from—all of the possible ways in which the Pope could have died.
To begin with, we must separate the facts, from the probabilities, from the possibilities, from the rumors. That we will do now.
There is one circumstance of his death agreed to by all witnesses including both Vatican releases, the nun who found him, both 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.”1
The embalmers told ANSA, the reputable Italian wire service, when they first viewed the body the papers were upright in his hands and he was wearing his glasses. Yet, when they took possession of the body, the papers and glasses were gone.2
Yet, this is the starting point for any investigation as the position the body was found is the only known circumstance of his death.
There is no heart attack, no matter how massive, which would not have allowed John Paul time to pull the bell cord or press a service button to summon help. Or, for that matter, a heart attack so painless it would have left him sitting up in his bed with his papers still held upright in his hands. Unless, of course, if one accepts the Vatican hypothesis, “…he was able to retain papers upright in his hands in the midst of a massive heart attack by the grace of God.”3
It does not take a world-renowned cardiologist to tell one this. Any imbecile would know it. Yet, most Catholics believe the 33-day Pope died of a heart attack so massive he was unable to pull the cord or press a button, yet, so painless he was able to retain the position he died in sitting up in bed holding his papers upright in his hands.
This tells us something else killed him. Something so sudden he was unable to reach for the cord which hung a few inches from his right shoulder or press an emergency button an arm’s length to his left. So painless he was able to retain papers upright in his hands.
The anatomy of death
How did John Paul die? There are only four ways anyone can die. One dies of natural causes. One commits suicide. One dies of accident. One is murdered. There are no other ways one can die.
Just what are the possibilities in John Paul’s case?
Natural causes
That the Pope did not die of a heart attack does not necessarily mean he could not have died of some other natural cause.
Here we have powerful evidence that points to only one possible natural cause. The position which he was found points to a cause of death both instantaneous and painless—otherwise he would have reacted to the pain and dropped his papers. The only natural cause that can result in instant death without pain is stroke.
There are two kinds of fatal stroke—intra-cerebral and ischemic.
An intra-cerebral stroke or cerebral hemorrhage—bursting of blood vessels—can kill one instantly. Yet, it can be ruled out as it is accompanied by enormous throbbing head pain which would cause him to drop his papers. We can eliminate this as a cause of death.
Conversely, an ischemic stroke—usually blockage of the carotid arteries carrying oxygen to the brain—is painless. Yet, an ischemic stroke is not instantaneous. It graduates through the body from top to bottom. It takes several minutes and often hours to progress.
Early warning signs are dizziness followed by numbness in the face, loss of speech, unable to grasp with either the left or right hand. Even a massive bilateral stroke—infinitely rare—in the first minutes affects only one side of the body, which would have allowed him to sound the alarm with the other side—unless, of course, he had been sleeping. Yet, we know he was awake and reading. He would have had more than enough time to have acted.
What makes stroke a long shot in the Pope’s case is his relatively low blood pressure—as surefire a prevention of both heart attack and stroke that exists.4 Blood viscosity is instrumental to stroke. We do know his viscosity level was at normal levels as it had been tested in his physical exam a few months before. 5
Yet, what nails the lid shut on the supposition the Pope died of stroke is the doctor who pronounced him dead.
Doctor Buzzanetti did not suggest stroke. In the case of an unwitnessed death, it is possible for a doctor to examine the conditions a corpse is found and eliminate stroke as a possibility whereas it is not possible to eliminate ‘myocardial infarction’ or, for that matter, ‘pulmonary embolism’ as a possibility without autopsy.
If the corpse had showed any signs symptomatic of stroke, the doctor certainly would have struck on it. Particularly in that it would have headed off all of the rumors that have surfaced since. But, he did not. So one knows John Paul did not die of stroke.
Even without medical expertise everyone who went to the room knew he had not died of stroke—the reason why stroke has never been a consideration in all the investigations of his mysterious death which have been spent since—he was awake when he died.
Myocardial Infarction vs. Pulmonary Embolism
Here a
gain, as we have done many times before, we must dispel the myths. The first release claimed the Pope died of ‘myocardial infarction to the heart.’ After this was widely disclaimed by the medical profession, the second release did not claim a specific cause. What it did do was claim the Pope had been suffering of ‘swollen feet’ to plant the seed an embolism had killed the Pope.
In 1984, David Yallop published In God’s Name and, in 1987, John Cornwell published A Thief in the Night. These bestsellers still reign today as the premier books of John Paul’s death.
Both these men are reputable world-renowned journalists.
They both interviewed the same witnesses of the Pope’s death. Yet, they came up with entirely different conclusions.
Lorenzi
told Cornwell John Paul had experienced chest pains at 8 o’clock whereas he had never mentioned them to Yallop or to anyone else for nine years.6
Magee
told Cornwell John Paul had experienced a ‘choking’ pain at 4 o’clock whereas he never mentioned it to Yallop or to anyone else for nine years.7
Vincenza’s
witness in Yallop’s book was the most damaging to Cornwell’s conclusion John Paul could have died of natural causes.13 Yet, by providential coincidence she had died in the meantime and was unavailable to Cornwell who discounts her witness in Yallop’s book as ‘delusions of an old nun.’12
Embalmers
the day of the pope’s death, embalmers told ANSA—Italy’s most reliable wire service—they were picked up about 5:30 AM. They changed their story in 1987 for Cornwell saying they were picked up a bit later and performed a light embalming before 11AM.2
Lina Petri
told Cornwell “The manner of his death is consistent with pulmonary embolism…One is not aware of death in embolism…” Though contradictory to the Lorenzi-Magee’s testimony the Pope had experienced ‘pains,’ Cornwell based his conclusion on this hypothesis—John Paul died of pulmonary embolism.8
At the time, a doctor could speculate embolism may have killed him because science did not know what it knows today. Today, one will not find a cardiologist in the world who has known a patient to be unresponsive to the trauma of death in pulmonary embolism.
Murder in the Vatican Page 28