THE STRANGE DEATH OF A POPE
 "JOHN PAUL I WAS ASSASSINATED"

"FROM THE INGESTION OF A VERY STRONG DOSE OF A VASODILATOR." "HE THOUGHT ABOUT MAKING IMPORTANT CHANGES IN THE VATICAN CURIA." "THE NOTES THAT HE HAD IN HIS HAND WHEN THEY FOUND HIM DEAD HAD THE NAMES OF THE NEW POSITIONS."  THE PRIEST JESUS LOPEZ HAS WRITTEN A CONTROVERSIAL BOOK THAT IS TIMELY BECAUSE SEPTEMBER 29 MARKS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF HE WHO WAS HEAD OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR ONLY 31 DAYS.  

JOSÉ MANUEL VIDAL, 14 / 09 / 2003

“It is necessary to purify the temple and to throw out the merchants."  This is the theological key that has moved Jesús López Sáez, a priest from Avila, prestigious catechist and founder of the Ayala Community, to delve into the scabrous history of the death of John Paul I. After 25 years of deep research, his conclusions are frightening and ruin the official thesis.  The Roman Curia, with John Paul II at the head, always maintained that the death of Pope Luciani was one of a sick man, not able to assume the tremendous weight of the tiara.  López Sáez maintains, however, that the death of the short-lived Pope (he was only 31 days in the pontifical solio) was a murder orchestrated by some members of the Curia, the Mafia and Masonry; the murder of a Pope in good health and so capable of governing the Church that he was thinking about giving a 180-degree turn to the Vatican, its money and the Roman Curia.
With the official explanation, Rome closed the case.  But, still today, in all Christianity an air of mystery and suspicion continues.  The wound was falsely closed. In fact, after his death numerous bishops and even some cardinals requested from Rome an investigation in depth.  Jesús López belongs to this minority sector that wants "to wash" the stained image of a pontificate that could be revolutionary in the Church. To do justice to the smiling Pope and, on this opportunity, to purify the temple of the Curia and to help the Church recover the evangelical splendour.  With good contacts as much in Spain as abroad, with the aid of bishops and cardinal friends, Jesús López shaped his first findings in his book: Se pedirá cuenta (They will be charged) (Publishing Origins), published 12 years after the mysterious end of Juan Pablo I.
By then Fr. López Sáez had already tried to dive into the clouded history of Pope Luciani’s death, because: "This generation will be charged with the blood of its prophets." But the orders in the Church were clear and determinant:  "No ecclesiastic can remove ashes of Pope Luciani and the clergymen must respond with the official truth to many questions of the faithful anywhere in the world”.  But Fr. Jesús did not give up and, from then, he continued visiting archives, consulting sources and direct protagonists of those events that, with the age and the time, began to speak.

«EL DIA DE LA CUENTA»

The fruit of years of work is a new book: El dial de la cent (A Time of Reckoning), in which he shapes his definitive conclusions.  But the Church does not like one of its more prestigious priests to affirm that a Pope was assassinated and denounce scheming of the Curia, "authentic cave of thieves", he says.  And he had pressures of all kind: sentimental, with letters from his friends; like the one of the present nuncio in Croatia, the Spanish Francisco Javier Lozano, imploring him not to publish a book that "can do so much harm to the Church of Christ".  He warned him that he is not one to be sitting on an accuser’s bench against the Holy See.  And with emotional blackmails:  "I would give anything for you to have seen the face of pain of the "Church authority” (John Paul II), when months ago I presented him a brief summary of your manuscript. That authority is used to suffer by calumnies, by acts of infidelity, even by point-blank gunfire on 13 of May.”
To the emotional pressures follow the canonical ones. The former Bishop of Avila, Adolfo González Montes, threatens him in writing to retire the ministerial licenses from him (prohibition to celebrate the sacraments).  But Fr. Jesús does not yield.  And he remembers what St. Catherine of Siena said:  "The ministers of God that do not denounce the evils of the Church are bad shepherds.  They do not have a watchdog, the watchdog of the conscience, or it does not bark at them."  And he has a watchdog, which does not stop barking.  And because he insisted on going his own way, they threw him out of the Episcopal Conference, where he worked in the catechesis commission.  And perhaps he could lose the opportunity to obtain a mitre and the solemn recognition of the Community of Ayala, founded by him.  Now he has had to publish his book privately.  Even so, by word of mouth and from hand to hand, he has sold more than 2,000 copies. 

Along with the deluge of criticisms, were some congratulations.  Like the one of Bishop Casaldáliga: "All your material is important for History and for the purification of the Church." Also, the enigmatic letter of Eduardo Luciani, brother of the late Pope.  Although without pronouncing on the matter, he leaves in the air a shade of doubt on the fate of his brother. 

COMMERCIAL EDITION 

Like the good priest that he is, Jesús López feels his heart divided before the conclusions of his investigation.  "But in conscience I cannot be silent and, although I don’t live in fear, I know that they can do me a lot of harm.  But...  As it says in the Acts of the Apostles: "We have to obey God before men." Even then, López Sáenz is thinking about a commercial edition of his book to send to the bookstores. "So that people know and the merchants leave the temple."

"This morning, September 29, 1978, about five thirty a.m. the private secretary of the Pope, having not found the Holy Father in the chapel, as usual, looked for to him in his room and found him dead in bed, with the light on, as if he is still reading. Dr.Renato Buzzonetti, who went immediately, has stated his death probably happened towards 23 hours of the previous day, an acute infarct of myocardium is the cause."  Thus said the official statement of the Vatican.  A version full of falsehood, according to López Sáenz. Among others: "An unfounded diagnosis (acute infarct of myocardium and, in addition, instantaneous), given by a doctor who did not know Luciani as a patient, without carrying out (officially) an autopsy, and a manipulated information on the finding of the corpse and the circumstances of the death.

WHO KILLED THE POPE?

Today it is verified that John Paul I was in good health.  His personal doctor, Dr. Da Ros confirms it: "The Pope has never spent 24 hours in bed, nor a morning or an afternoon in bed, he has never had a headache or a fever that forced to him to stay in bed.  He enjoyed good health; no problem of diet, ate everything put in front of him, he had no cholesterol or diabetes problems; he had only low blood pressure". A little low pressure is, for many doctors, "a life insurance."

Also everyone knows that John Paul did not die from a stroke, because "there was no struggle with death." By now the Vatican itself has recognized that the first person that found him was not Msgr. Magee, his secretary, but Sister Vincenza, the nun who took care of him.  According to the story of this sister, "the Pope was seated in bed, with his glasses on, some sheets of paper in his hands. He had his head tipped towards the right and a leg stretched on the bed. He had a trace of a smile."

What did he have in his hands?  "Evidently he did not have the Kempis, as the Vatican said, a too heavy book to be maintained between the fingers.  The notes that he had were notes on the two hours conversation that the Pope had had with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot, the previous afternoon", says López Sáenz. At that time, the Pope had advanced to his number two the important changes that he planned for the Curia. And that was the detonating of his death.

Which was the weapon of the crime?  "Although the Vatican denies it, an autopsy was done on John Paul I and through it one knew that he had died from the ingestion of a very strong dose of a vasodilator. It is a medicine absolutely not indicated for one whom has low blood pressure as the Pope had. That fits with the way in which the corpse was found: There was no struggle against death, as corresponds to one caused by a depressant substance and during deep sleep ", explains Fr. Jesús.

  He was either obliged take the medication, which was not prescribed to him by his personal doctor, as the doctor himself admits, or it was injected into him. The mystic Erika, in a book by the famous theologian and later cardinal Urs von Balthasar, affirms that she had a revelation in which she saw someone injecting the medicine to the Pope. And John Paul II grants to Von Balthasar the birreta knowing that, in addition, Erika herself says in the book that: "The Holy Father knows and believes it" [that his predecessor was assassinated].

On the other hand the ex- French ambassador Roger Peyrefitte, author of The red soutane, asserts that the one who gave the Pope the lethal injection was the mafioso Brucciato – who later died in an assault on Robert Rossone, vice-president of the Ambrosian Bank – accompanied by two monsignors of the Curia.  According to López Sáez, "nobody knows exactly who killed the Pope.  Everything points to the Masonic Lodge P2. One cannot hold a particular person responsible, although there are those who point a finger at the former president of the IOR (Vatican Bank), Monsignor Marcinckus, and the former Secretary of State, the Frenchman Cardinal Villot cardinal."

In any case, according to López, the matter is "a death provoked at the opportune moment." For what reason?  The papers that the dead Pope has in his hand contained the new organizational chart of the Curia and the Italian Church: resignation of Villot and the archbishop of Milan, Monsignor Colombo; transfer of Casaroli to Milan; Benelli, new Secretary of State;  Poletti, vicar of Rome, to Florence, and Felici, new vicar of Rome ".  John Paul I, hours before had shown the organizational chart to Villot and he said to him:  "You are free to decide and I will obey.  But you should know that these changes would suppose a betrayal to the inheritance received from Paul VI." And John Paul I answered him: "No Pope governs to perpetuity."

It is verified that Luciani was a Pope who "was in the way of  prophecy". That is to say, "a Pope who does not want to be Chief of State, who does not want escorts or soldiers, that what he wants is a deep renovation of the Church and, in addition, to govern with the bishops.  A Pope of the poor who wants to promote in the Vatican a great institution of charity, to take in those in Rome without a shelter", says Fr. López Sáez.

In the end, they kill the Pope because he wants to review the structure of the Curia, to publish several encyclicals (on the collegiate structures or women in the Church), to dismiss the president of the IOR, to reform the Vatican bank and to face openly the Masonry and the Mafia that do what they want in the Roman Curia. According to López Sáez, "The determinant was the subject of the IOR, because the Curia tries to avoid the bankruptcy of the Ambrosian and the decision of the Pope was going to precipitate it.  They wanted a Pope who avoided that bankruptcy."

But, although they got rid of John Paul I, his successor, John Paul II, could not avoid the bankruptcy of the Ambrosian and, furthermore he dismissed his president, Monsignor Marcinckus. "The difference is that John Paul I wants to throw out the merchants of the temple, while John Paul II expels some (masons) but then falls into the arms of the Opus Dei. The Opus was the institution that was the winner and the one that profited most from Pope Wojtyla’ s pontificate: a personal prelature, a saint, and the control of the power in Rome.

In any case, Pope Luciani knows that he is going to face powerful enemies.  In several occasions he affirms, according to Fr. López Sáez, that his pontificate will be short and that he already knows the name of his successor. Sometimes, he calls him "the foreigner" and others, "the one that was seated in front of me in the conclave."  That is to say, Wojtyla.  Why did John Paul I know already before dying and before the conclave, the name of his successor?  "Because John Paul II was the candidate of Cardinal Villot and the Curia, eager for them to return to power.  Not in vain, the curiales said: "We have lost three conclaves (the one of John XXIII, the one of Paul VI and the one of John Paul I), but not the fourth."

Fr. López Sáez believes, like Erika the mystic that "the Pope knows".  Moreover, he thinks that his last poetic work, Roman Tríptic, is a veiled answer to his book that he sent to the Pope with acknowledgment of the Secretariat of State.  For that reason, in three simple sheets, John Paul II speaks of the Sistine Chapel and the next conclave. "It is a way of responding to me and to the cardinals who are going to be in the next conclave.  He comes to say "there is something"... and if he responds it is so that the electing cardinals consider it, choose in accordance to it and repair the historical injustice that has been committed with Pope Luciani."

That is one of the things that most hurts the founder of the Community of Ayala. "John Paul I was not a weak and indecisive Pope as they paint him from the Vatican. What is at stake are not only the cause and the circumstances of his death, but also his figure and his testimony."  In fact, at this moment there are two court cases opened around Pope Luciani. First is a civil one, reopened in Rome by public prosecutor Pietro Saviotti.  "I have sent to the public prosecutor all my data and documents.  I hope that the truth is clarified and justice be implemented," says López Sáez.

The second case is the beatification of Juan Pablo I. Fr. López Sáez is opposed to this kind of process: "Pope Luciani does not need miracles to be a saint. It is necessary to beatify John Paul I as a martyr, after a deep investigation of his death and to recover his distorted image."

 
"El día de la cuenta" (The Day of Reckoning) by Jesús López Sáez, cannot be acquired for public sale. If you desire to contact with the author: www.comayala.es

THE PRIEST WHO DEMANDS EXPLANATIONS FROM WOJTYLA

Jesús López Sáez is one of the best Spanish specialists in catechism teaching of adults. He was born at Aldeaseca (Avila), April 12, 1944, he has degrees in Philosophy and Letters, Theology and Psychology.  After studying in Salamanca, Rome and Madrid, he becomes part of a group of Añastro, seat of the Episcopal Conference, and was nominated responsible for catechesis of adults of the National Secretariat. In 1973 he founded in the parish church Cristo de la Salud (Ayala street,12), the community that takes the name of the street.  There, with a group Christians “dissatisfied” with conventional Christianity", he searches "in the experience of the first Christian communities to live today the renovation of a Church that, being old and sterile, could return to be fertile". From nine founders, the group has become a movement of around 2,000 people whose objective is "to promote the listening to the Word of God in regard to personal, social, and ecclesiastical matters, at the same time that groups of catechumenal and communitarian inspiration are being created".  All are together around the founder. "He will never be alone either in this or in anything. The community responds to him completely," says firmly the vice-president of the association, Jesús Martín.  With the investigation of what happened 25 years ago, they claim, in opinion of Martín, "to recover the figure of martyred John Paul I ".  In fact, in the hall in which they meet there is a painted picture of that Pope.  And two big maps.  One of Spain and another one of the world.  In both, indicated with red and blue thumbtacks, the one hundred groups of the community of Ayala.  In Madrid, Segovia or the Canary Islands, but also in Cuba, the U.S.A., Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Japan, Iran or Taiwan. They are distant from neo-conservative movements that hold the power in the Church. They are the community of Fr. Jesús López, the priest who "demands explanations from John Paul II."