A Thief in the Night: The Mysterious Death of Pope John Paul I

Rating:
Summary: The Vatican most reluctantly lets the truth be told.
Review: With all the furor concerning "Hitler's Pope" by Cornwell, I wondered how he had obtained access to the expurgated-by-Jebbie files on Pius XII? With some difficulty, Amazon located an out-of-print copy of Cornwell's earlier debunking of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Year of Three Popes, when Papa Luciani, John Paul I, died after a pontificate of only thirty-three days. When I received my virgin copy of "Thief" still sealed in clear plastic, I knew I was in for a treat: The front and back cover blurbs waxed enthusiastic with atta-boys from Graham Greene "The Power and the Glory," Andrew Greeley "The Tablet," and Malachi Martin "The Jesuits." I was not disappointed: Cornwell weaves a tale worthy of G.K. Chesterton "Father Brown." Cornwell's forensic investigation is more compelling than that of Tad Szulc's work of fiction which is also "based on real events, facts, and persons: the attempt to assassinate John Paul II on May 13, 1981, its aftermath, and the secret investigation conducted subsequently at the behest of the Holy See." ["To Kill the Pope" was released in 2000, "Thief in the Night" in 1989.]

This is truly "an exhaustive and impressive study" as Cornwell narrows in on what really happened to the author of "Letters to Pinnochio," which I found most revealing of the Patriarch of Milan. Cornwell gives a most telling picture of Archbishop Paul Casmir "Chink" Marcinkus, the Walter Jenkins/Bebe Rebozo "bagman" of the Vatican Bank, who was able to provide $250 million from the Vatican pension funds to reimburse the machinations of the Calvi/Banco Ambrosiano debacle. Cornwell's in depth portrayals of Papa Luciani's two secretaries, Bishop John Magee and Don Diego Lorenzi and what they did when they found Luciani dead and unattended validates Garry Wills' "Papal Lies" thesis: functionaries in the Vatican lie from force of habit, rather than from malice or personal gain.

Yet there is malice afoot: "[Cardinal/secretary of state Jean] Villot's miscalculation of [Luciani]'s administrative capacities, his poor state of health, was disasterous and surely culpable." Luciani insisted that "he had usurped the papal chair he sat in. 'The Foreign Pope [John Paul II] is coming to take my place.' " And Karol Wojtyla sat opposite Luciani in the Conclave that selected Luciani to follow Montini.

To tell more, would destroy the suspence of Cornwell's story, yet one can say that Luciani was not poisoned, despite centuries of papal murders, that Luciani did not committ suicide, although he certainly lost his will to live, and welcomed death. Whether Luciani abandoned the medicines that would have prolonged his life seems still open.

Based on this "marvelous and compelling investigation" one understands why John Paul II has nothing to fear from the publication of "Hitler's Pope." John Paul II personally made "Thief in the Night" possible, and opened up for Cornwell, the Pandora's box of Pacelli's racism and probable anti-Semitism. John Paul II is to be commended in following John XXIII's dictat: to "open the windows of the Vatican" and let sunlight cleanse Rome of its "Papal Lies" by the Curia-crats who know better how to be a Pope than Pacelli, Roncalli, Montini, Luciani, or Wojtyla, e.g. Tisserant, Ottavani, Villot and Ratzinger.