Pontiff: The Vatican, the KGB, and the Year of the Three Popes

514 Pages·2014·2.63 MB·English

by  Gordon Thomas

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Pontiff
Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts
CONTENTS
Authors’ Note
Prominent Personae
The Story So Far (I)
The Jackal (II)
Part One: The Last Days (III–XI)
Part Two: Ins’Allah: The Will of God (XII–XXIV)
Part Three: Conspiracy (XXV–XXXII)
The Pope and the Jackal (XXXIII)
The Story Thereafter (XXXIV)
Sources
Notes
Abbreviated Bibliography
The Authors
AUTHORS’ NOTE
This is the true story of three very public figures, a trio of popes ruling during
the most critical time in the recent history of the Roman Catholic Church. It is
also often an account of their very private lives; much of this may surprise and
astonish. To obtain the truth required the cooperation of, and an understanding
with, those who were, and still are, close to the persons and events portrayed.
Our collaborators—for that is what they were, and we acknowledge our debt to
them; indeed, without their unstinted frankness there would be no story—were
motivated by all sorts of reasons to help. Some felt it really was time to look
honestly and realistically behind the mystery and secrecy which is more than a
way of life in the Vatican. Others recognized the importance of examining in
detail the process and decision making which creates popes; they were the ones
who felt the only way to begin to understand that system was to see how popes
actually live as human beings: what motivates them, who tries to influence them,
how they respond to pressures, threats and much else. Our helpers ranged from
cardinals to the personal staff of these popes. They provided detailed information
which they had never before made available. Much of it was intimate data which
showed that the men who attain the most powerful spiritual office on earth are
human to a degree seldom suspected. This then is their story—Paul VI, John
Paul I and John Paul II.
PROMINENT PERSONAE
THE POPES
Paul VI (Giovanni Montini). Old and isolated. Knows he is dying but fears
death, and above all that he may die violently by the hands of the terrorists
he sees all around the Vatican. He has brought the Roman Catholic
Church to a critical crossroads that affects not only the lives of 740 million
believers but the political future of the world.
John Paul I (Albino Luciani). He doesn’t want to be pope but is thrust upon the
Throne of St. Peter to replace Paul. He brings with him from Venice his
trusted housekeeper, Sister Vincenza, and his loyal secretary, Diego
Lorenzi, to the forbidding world of the Vatican. For thirty-three eventful
days he tries to rule and tame the divided factions of the Curia—the
Church’s civil service. He uses Pinocchio and a mysterious herbal elixir to
sustain him. But in a month he has laid out more reforms than anyone
thought possible—and many in the Curia thought undesirable. Then on the
thirty-third day of his pontificate he dies—in circumstances that pave the
way for all that is to follow.
John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla). Charismatic, pragmatic—and always very Polish.
He assumes power at the climax of a short, intense power struggle in that
most secret of places, conclave, the process by which popes are elected.
He sets about moving the Church off that dangerous crossroads where
Paul left it into areas even more dangerous: he returns the papacy to the
very center of the world’s political stage—bringing it into open
confrontation with its old enemy, communism. The result is traumatic. He
becomes the prime target for his opponents in Moscow.
THE ENEMIES
Mehmet Ali Agca. A teenage Turkish fanatic, steeped in Muslim politics,
violently anti-Christian. Recruited by the KGB for the express purpose of
assassinating John Paul II. Trained in Libya and Lebanon by a renegade
former CIA agent, Frank Terpil, for his mission. His fee: 3 million
Deutschmarks for the assassination of the century.
Yuri Andropov. Present position: Head of the Soviet Union. Former head of the
KGB. Ultimately approved the order for Agca to murder the pope.
Teslin Tore. Agca’s KGB controller in the Balkans.
Maurizio Folini. KGB paymaster and another of Agca’s controllers.
And sundry other terrorists.
THE PAPAL ENTOURAGE
Father John Magee. Private secretary to all three popes. Has known all their
secrets, the very private foibles of very public figures. Protective, tough
and very Irish, knows the Vatican power plays and how to exploit them to
his own quiet advantage. A heroic figure, destined to rise to the very top of
the Church. Some say he could even be pope one day.
Father Pasquale Macchi. Paul VI’s senior secretary. His critics say he is pope-
in-residence, the bossy assistant who manipulated the old pontiff. Feared,
if not always respected, Macchi dominates Paul’s pontificate right up until
the moment the pope dies. And then, in one dramatic moment, the
secretary is stripped of authority—sent off, like the humblest of servants,
to find Paul’s Fisherman’s Ring.
Cardinal Jean Villot. Secretary of state of the Vatican. Chain-smoking and long-
suffering. He collects enemies that even his few powerful friends cannot
fend off. And in the end, over the death of John Paul I, he makes a fateful
mistake—one that opens the door for the KGB to strike.
Cardinal Agostino Casaroli. Replaces Villot; known as the Vatican Kissinger
because of his special role in developing Ostpolitik , the Vatican’s attempt
to reach an “understanding” with the Soviet bloc. This leads to conflict
with John Paul II.
Cardinal Franz König. Archbishop of Vienna; intellectual giant, the Church’s
expert on religions and how to handle the threat of communism. An old
friend of John Paul II, König mounts an astonishing campaign inside and
outside conclave to have him elected pope.
Cardinal John Cody. Archbishop of Chicago, the most controversial figure in
the American Church. Money and questions of morality beset him. Yet,
more than any other cardinal, he has an entree to the Vatican, in part
because of his old friend Paul Marcinkus.
Bishop Paul Marcinkus. Vatican banker extraordinary. Financial scandal swirls
around his towering figure. He dismisses it all and says God knows the
truth. And he did John Paul II a favor the pope will never forget—even
though it brought the Church closer to confrontation with Russia.
Michele Sindona. Financier, friend of Paul VI. Currently serving a long term in a
New Jersey penitentiary, the end result of a career of swindling that almost
bankrupted the Vatican.
Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio. The papacy’s “hit-man,” the ruthless prefect of the
Sacred Congregation for Bishops whose most spectacular failure is his
attempt to unseat Cody.
Cardinal Giovanni Benelli. Wheeler-dealer prelate who thinks his moment has
come when John Paul I becomes pope. He promises himself sweet revenge
on his opponents. But before he can strike, he is engulfed in drama.
Cardinal Pericle Felici. Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic
Signature, the papal appellate court. Knows everybody in the Church who
matters. A magnificent manipulator in the name of retaining
traditionalism. Even his friends fear him.
Father Lambert Greenan. English-language editor of the pope’s newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano. Witty, waspish and wise.
Father Sean MacCarthy. Radio Vatican commentator. He cannot quite believe it
when he learns that his colleagues have bugged conclave.
Archbishop Gaetano Alibrandi. Papal nuncio to Ireland. A diplomat with
unusual links to people and places that diplomats normally steer clear of.
But then Alibrandi is no ordinary nuncio.
Father Andrew Greeley. The Church’s critic-in-residence.
And sundry other members of the Sacred College of Cardinals, the Curia
and the Church at large.