The Octopus at the Vatican

# 14 - the noose

Thursday August 31 – the Vatican

Albino Luciani was a simple man, but with a strong religious experience. Once the initial shock of the election passed, he told himself once you pop, you can't stop. He kept pinching himself, he really was the pope. Why not benefit from it by conveying his favorite beliefs? As he would be heard by the whole world and not only by a half-empty church, he wouldn't hold back.

Giovanni-Paolo 1st was too long for the Italians. They would call him Gianpaolo, which he found so pleasant, he used it for his signature. The State Secretary brought him the papers to ratify, imploring him just to sign them correctly. Which he ended up doing, to make him happy.

He had always been oddly dressed in his public life: priest, bishop, archbishop, cardinal. He was used to this. The color of the cassock didn't change much. Very relaxed, he gave his keynote addresses successfully, press conferences, diplomatic corps addresses, inauguration masses, Saturday Angelus and Wednesday general audience.

But the Curia's apparatchiks were watching. The Holy Father's speeches were censured. Anything published had been filtered by the Curia. If Gianpaolo had been, funny, spontaneous or just himself, it would not be apparent as the written transcriptions were fake. To trap him, the Osservatore Romano published that the pope was against birth control, whereas he supported it. Making this a first symbolic murder.

***

Alessa Lombardi had attended the press conference for journalists from around the world. Like her colleagues, she had been seduced by the spontaneity and simplicity of the new pope. But three days later, intrigued, she wrote in her notebook:

'Strange, Gianpaolo seemed to be for birth control and the Osservatore Romano reports exactly the opposite! Clear it up. Interview this new pope.'

***

The revelations of the pope's nephew required financial reform. How could this be accomplished without unleashing the Octopus? Albino Luciani mixed this topic with others. It was normal to overview the situation. One does it for an apartment. He asked Cardinal State Secretary Villot to carry out audits on religious and financial matters.

Villot was accorded a fortnight to submit his projects. One month for the intermediate audits and three months for the final ones. Villot objected tooth and nail, one excuse after another, le pope remained inflexible.

The news of his determination to reform and get rid of abuses spread at great speed. Licio Gelli had his informers in the Vatican: high prelate members of his P2 lodge. He was very close to Calvi and Marcinkus. This bloody new pope was going to spoil the laundering machine, for sure. It was imperative to stop him before he did more damage. With the good will of the Palermo godfather Giuseppe Calò, their devout followers decided that an unbalanced anti-papist would have it in for him. This rare bird would be easy to find amongst the Mafia grunts. They had promised to obey their bosses once and for all. There was no choice. They just had to organize the operation's details.

Self-assured, Gelli started to gather his networks.

"Your Eminence, they say Giovanni-Paolo 1st suffers from very poor health, poor man. If he came to die, who would you see as a new pope? One never knows. No need to be caught short."

The noose was tightening around Luciani's neck.