WAS THE POPE MURDERED? (original) (raw)
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- Nov. 5, 1989
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November 5, 1989
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Section 7, Page
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A THIEF IN THE NIGHT The Mysterious Death of Pope John Paul I. By John Cornwell. Illustrated. 366 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster. $21.95.
Nothing about Pope John Paul I's life is so well remembered as his taking leave of it. At 65 years of age, the man born Albino Luciani had, from his post as Archbishop of Venice, made an unexpected entrance onto the center stage of Roman Catholicism. In August 1978, in the shortest of the century's conclaves, he was elected Pope, succeeding Paul VI, the great browed, tortured figure who, it was said, had worn himself out anguishing over his responsibilities. The new Pope arrived like fresh air in a long-sealed room, and he quickly beguiled the curious worldwide audience with his gentle manner and country pastor's smile.
Then, 33 days after being chosen, he stunned the world by unexpectedly dying. With this final gesture he pulled aside the musty curtains of St. Peter's, allowing everyone a tantalizing glimpse of the backstage ecclesiastical machinery - the flats, props and scurrying managers of Vatican life and papal death. Within hours of his being found dead, allegedly sitting up serenely in bed holding a devotional book in his hands, the clerical rumor mills began grinding, churning out tales of murder plots, of the involvement of high-ranking prelates afraid that the new Pope might expose their profitable intrigues, and of their complicated and contradictory cover-up maneuvers.
In ''A Thief in the Night,'' John Cornwell, formerly the editor of the foreign news service of The London Observer, employs his disciplined reportorial skills to unravel the unholy shroud of mysteries and produce a gripping book. Mr. Cornwell, a nonpracticing Catholic who was at first uneasy over the Vatican's invitation to investigate the papal death, finds his way back, at first cautiously, then enthusiastically, into the world of eternal claims and temporal imperfections he thought he had forgotten. The reader accompanies him willingly, engrossed by the adventures that attend Mr. Cornwell's systematic inquiry into, and encounters with, the spectacular cast of characters, as large and satisfying as any ever gathered by Agatha Christie for a stormy night in an English country mansion.
Foremost among these is the former president of the Vatican Bank, the hulking Archbishop Paul Marcinkus of Cicero, Ill., outside of Chicago, who had been put high on the list of potential plotters by David Yallop in his best seller, ''In God's Name.'' Mr. Cornwell observes Archbishop Marcinkus carefully, noting his ''beehive'' head, his dirty fingernails and his soiled clerical collar. He allows the Archbishop, chain-smoking cigarettes and pipe, to comment on his life, his work and the innuendoes concerning his links to the death of John Paul I. Archbishop Marcinkus also speaks volubly about his role, as the author of letters of patronage for the infamous financier Roberto Calvi, in the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, which resulted in a staggering $1.3 billion loss.
After the dust of that scandal had settled and Calvi was found hanging, reportedly in Masonic regalia, from London's Blackfriars Bridge, the Vatican paid $250 million in reparations to the bank's creditors, though denying any responsibility. Archbishop Marcinkus, in a wandering self-revelation so richly textured it would have delighted Dickens, depicts himself as incapable of sinister actions - as an old-fashioned priest, a lover of golf and good times, an arranger of tours and papal audiences, a loyalist ready to take the rap if the institution asks him to do so. In short, a Chicago alderman under the dome of St. Peter's, receiving constituents, doing favors and gruffly delighting in the Vatican's masculine atmosphere.
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