In God's Name (29 page)

*
1 The ordinary Section of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA) and the extraordinary Section of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, again usually abbreviated to APSA. 2 The Governorship of the Vatican City State. 3 The Prefecture for Economic Affairs. 4 St Peter’s Workshop. 5 Propaganda Fide.

†
I.e. income-producing assets. The Vatican makes a distinction between productive and non-productive wealth, an example of the latter being the Vatican art treasures.

*
Carboni secretly tape-recorded this and many other conversations with Calvi between October 1981 and May 1982.

The Thirty-three Days

When Albino Luciani threw open the windows of the Papal Apartments within twenty-four hours of his election, the gesture personified his entire Papacy. Fresh air and sunlight rushed into a Roman Catholic Church which had grown increasingly dark and sombre during the last years of Paul VI.

Luciani, the man whose self-description during his Venice days had been, ‘I am just a poor man accustomed to small things and silence’, now found himself obliged to confront the Vatican grandeur and the Curial babble. The son of a bricklayer was now Supreme Head of a religion whose founder was the son of a carpenter.

Many of the Vatican experts who had failed even to consider the possibility of Luciani’s election hailed him as ‘The Unknown Pope’. He had been well enough known by ninety-nine cardinals to be entrusted with the Church’s future, this man without any diplomatic training or Curial experience. The considerable number of Curial cardinals had been rejected. In essence the entire Curia had been rejected in favour of a quiet, humble man who promptly announced that he wished to be called Pastor rather than Pontiff. Luciani’s aspirations quickly became clear: total revolution. He was intent on taking the Church back to its origins, back to the simplicity, honesty, ideals and aspirations of Jesus Christ. Others before him had had the same dream only to have the reality of the world as perceived by their advisers impinge upon the dream. How could this small, unassuming man accomplish even the beginnings of the transformation, both material and spiritual, that would be required?

In electing Albino Luciani, his fellow cardinals had made a number
of profound statements about what they wanted and what they did not want. Clearly they did not want a reactionary Pope who might make his mark upon the world with dazzling examples of incomprehensible intellectualism. It would seem they had sought to make an impact on the world by electing a man whose goodness, wisdom and exemplary humility would be manifest to all. In the event that was what they got. A shepherd intent upon pastoral care.

His new name was considered a bit of a mouthful by the Romans and they quickly abbreviated it to the more intimate ‘Gianpaolo’, a corruption the Pope happily accepted and used to sign letters, only to have them returned by Secretary of State Villot for correction to the formal title. One such letter written in his own hand was to thank the Augustinians for their hospitality during his stay before the Conclave. This simple act was typical of the man. Two days after being elected Pope to over eight hundred million Catholics Luciani made time to thank his former hosts.

Another letter, written on the same day, struck a more sombre note. Writing to an Italian priest whose work he admired, Luciani revealed his awareness of the burden that was now uniquely his. ‘I don’t know how I could have accepted. The day after I already regretted it, but by then it was too late.’ One of his first acts upon entering the Papal Apartments had been to phone his homeland in the north. He spoke to an astonished Monsignor Ducoli, a long-time friend and working associate, now Bishop of Belluno. He told the Bishop he was ‘lonely for my people’. Later he spoke to his brother Edoardo, ‘Now look what’s happened to me.’ These acts were private; others of a more public nature caught the world’s imagination.

To begin with there was his smile. With just that facial expression of joy he touched many. It was impossible not to warm to the man, and as one warmed the feeling was good. Paul VI with his agonizing had turned people off in millions. Albino Luciani dramatically reversed the trend. He recaptured world interest in the Papacy. When the world listened to what was behind the smile the interest quickened. His smile cannot be found in any book that claims to make its reader a better Christian but it effectively caught the joy that this man had discovered in Christianity. What Luciani demonstrated in a manner and to a degree never before seen from a Pope, any Pope, was the ability to communicate, whether directly or through radio, Press and television. It was an undreamed-of asset to the Roman Catholic Church.

Luciani was an object lesson in how to win the battle for mankind’s heart, mind and soul. For the first time in living memory a Pope was
talking to his people in a manner and a style they could understand. The sigh of relief from the faithful was almost audible. The murmurs of delight continued through the Indian summer of 1978. Luciani began to take the Church on the long walk back to the Gospel.

The public rapidly judged this charismatic man a huge success. Vatican observers simply did not know what to make of him. Many had given instant and learned opinions about the choice of Papal name, they had talked of ‘symbolic continuity’. Luciani had unwittingly demolished all of that on the first Sunday with, ‘John made me a bishop, Paul made me a cardinal’. Not much symbolic continuity there. The experts wrote speculative articles about what the new Pope might or might not do on a range of issues. A large amount of that speculation was rendered superfluous by one comment in Pope John Paul’s very first speech when he had stated, ‘As the Second Vatican Council, to whose teachings I wish to commit my total ministry, as priest, as teacher, as pastor . . .’ There was no need to speculate; all they had to do was to refer to the various conclusions of the Council.

Luciani, speaking to a packed St Peter’s Square on Sunday September 10th, talked of God and said, ‘He is our Father; even more he is our Mother’. The Italian Vatican experts, in particular, were beside themselves. In a country noted for its macho image to suggest that God was a woman was deemed by some to be confirmation of the end of the world. There were many anxious debates about this fourth member of the Trinity until Luciani gently pointed out that he had been quoting Isaiah. The male-dominated Mother Church relaxed.

Earlier, on September 6th, during a General Audience, members of the Papal entourage, fussing around the Holy Father in a manner reminiscent of irritating flies around a horse, publicly displayed embarrassment as Luciani held over 15,000 people spellbound. Entering almost at a trot into the Nervi Hall, which was filled to overflowing, he talked about the soul. There was nothing remarkable in that. What was unusual was the manner and the style.

Once a man went to buy a new motor car from the agent. The salesman gave him some advice. ‘Look, it’s an excellent car, make sure you treat it correctly. Premium petrol in the tank, the best oil in the engine.’ The customer replied, ‘Oh no, I can’t stand the smell of petrol or oil. Fill the tank with champagne, which I like very much and I’ll oil the joints with jam.’ The salesman shrugged, ‘Do what you like: but don’t come and complain if you end up in a ditch with your car.’

The Lord did something similar with us: he gave us this body, animated by an intelligent soul, a good will. He said, ‘This machine is a good one, but treat it well.’

While the Vatican elite shuddered at such profanity Albino Luciani knew full well that his words were being carried around the earth. Scatter enough seed, some will grow. He had been presented with the most powerful pulpit on earth. His use of the gift was deeply impressive. Many within the Church talk
ad nauseam
of the ‘Good News of the Gospel’, while giving the impression that they are informing the listeners of unmitigated disasters. When Luciani talked of the Good News, it was clear from his whole demeanour that the news was very good indeed.

Several times he brought a young boy out of the choir to share the microphone with him, to help him work not only the audience inside the Nervi Hall but the wider audience outside. Other world leaders were adepts at picking up the young and kissing them. Here was a man who actually talked to them and even more remarkably listened and responded to what they had to say.

He quoted Mark Twain, Jules Verne and the Italian poet Trilussa. He talked of Pinocchio. Having already compared the soul to a car he now drew an analogy between prayer and soap. ‘Prayer well used, would be a marvellous soap, capable of making us all saints. We are not all saints because we have not used this soap enough.’ The Curia, particularly certain bishops and cardinals, winced. The public listened.

A few days after his election he faced over one thousand members of the world’s Press and, gently chiding them for concentrating excessively on Conclave trivia rather than on its true significance, he acknowledged that theirs was not a new problem by recalling the advice an Italian editor had given to his reporters: ‘Remember, the public does not want to know what Napoleon III said to William of Prussia. It wants to know whether he wore beige or red trousers and whether he smoked a cigar.’

Luciani obviously felt at home with the reporters. He was a man who more than once in his life had remarked that if he had not become a priest he would have become a journalist. His two books and numerous articles indicate a talent that could have held its own with many of the listening correspondents. Recalling the late Cardinal Mercier’s observations that if the Apostle Paul were alive today he would have been a journalist, the new Pope showed a keen awareness of the importance of the various news media by enlarging on the
Apostle’s possible modern role: ‘Not only a journalist. Possibly Head of Reuters. Not only Head of Reuters, I think he would have also asked for airtime on Italian television and NBC.’

The correspondents loved it. The Curia were less amused. All the above remarks to the reporters were censored out of the official records of the speech. What remains for posterity is a drab, unctuous, prepared speech, written by Vatican officials – though in fact the Pope had continually departed from it – mute, inaccurate testimony to the wit and personality of Albino Luciani. This Vatican censorship of the Pope became a constant feature during September 1978.

Illustrissimi,
the collection of his letters to the famous, had been available in book form in Italy since 1976. It had proved to be highly successful. Now with its author the leader of 800 million Roman Catholics, the commercial potential was not lost on the publishing world. High-powered executives began appearing at the office of
Il Messaggero di San Antonio
in Padua. The Catholic monthly was sitting on the proverbial gold mine, less author’s royalties. For the author, the real pay-off was that the ideas and observations in the letters would be read by a world-wide audience. The fact that they would be read only because he had now become Pope mattered not one jot to Luciani. More seed was being scattered. More would grow.

One of the truly delightful results that became apparent in the days following the August Conclave was that as long as Luciani was in charge, Vatican interpreters, watchers, experts and seers had all been made redundant. What was needed was verbatim reporting. Given that, the new Pope’s intentions were very clear.

On August 28th the beginning of his Papal revolution was announced. It took the form of a Vatican statement that there was to be no coronation, that the new Pope refused to be crowned. There would be no
sedia gestatoria,
the chair used to carry the Pope, no tiara encrusted with emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. No ostrich feathers, no six-hour ceremony. In short the ritual with which the Church demonstrated that it still lusted after temporal power was abolished. Albino Luciani had been obliged to engage in long, tedious argument with the Vatican traditionalists before his wishes prevailed. Luciani, who never once used the royal ‘we’, the monarchical first person plural, was determined that the royal Papacy with its appurtenances of worldly grandeur should be replaced by a Church which resembled the concepts of its founder. The ‘coronation’ became a simple Mass. The absurdity of a swaying Pontiff reminiscent of a Caliph from the Arabian Nights was supplanted by a supreme Pastor
quietly walking up the steps of the altar. With that gesture Luciani abolished a thousand years of history and moved the Church a little farther back down the road towards Jesus Christ.