[ the actual title of this page:]





Did 65 year-old,

Albino Luciani,

the healthy ultra-liberal

Pope John Paul the First ,

really die of "natural" causes in 1978,

just 33 days into his papacy ?

The controversial death of Pope John Paul I

Pope John Paul died just before midnight, (which proved to be WRONG) of a blood clot to the heart. (which doesn't square with other evidence) He was discovered by his secretary John Magee (which proved to be WRONG) about six-thirty this morning (which proved to be WRONG) when he went to look for the Pope (which proved to be WRONG) when he failed to show up for his morning chapel service. (which proved to be WRONG) He was found to be in a sitting up position and wearing his daytime clothes (Accurate) and the bed lamp was on. (which conflicts with Vatican police testimony) John Paul died while he was reading the Imitation of Christ (which proved to be WRONG) which book was still held upright in his hands (which was true of OTHER documents). Father Magee, on realizing the Pope was dead, summoned Cardinal Villot (Accurate) who performed the last rites of the Church. (which proved to be WRONG).

By six-thirty, the body had already been embalmed, giving rise to a rumor that the Pope had been poisoned. It was commonly known that this was a practice of the Mafia when slow arsenic poisoning was the instrument of murder. Embalming the body shortly after death erases the obvious signs of poisoning. It was for this reason that it was illegal in Italy to embalm a body until twenty-four hours after death. But Italian law did not apply within Vatican walls.

It should be pointed out that if arsenic were indeed the instrument of death, being an element, it would not have broken down over time and would be present in the Pope's cadaver, specifically in his fingernails and hair, even today.

Dr. Buzzanetti, the doctor who pronounced him dead, said the cause of death was a heart attack. This supposition seemed to be confirmed by the statement to reporters by John Magee that the Pope had complained of chest pains at lunch. However, when reporters questioned several others that had been present at the lunch, none of them could recall such an incident, the Pontiff was laughing and in good spirits. When all this conflicting testimony was questioned by the press, the Vatican finally issued a verbal corrective statement to the press that in the confusion following the Pope's death some errors had been made in its original release. Because the Vatican had been caught in what appeared to be a combination of lies, rumors of foul play continued to spread throughout Europe.

On the third day following the Pope's death, all those who had shared the Papal apartment with the Pope were reassigned to unknown locations in Europe. This enraged reporters, as it made the primary witnesses to the circumstances surrounding the Pope's death unavailable. Every newspaper in Italy questioned the Vatican's action in this respect. If it had nothing to hide, then why exile the only known witnesses to the circumstances surrounding the Pope's death? In an attempt to bring an end to the rumors, the Vatican finally responded with a corrected release to the press:

"The Pope's secretary and the nuns who cared for the papal apartment were particularly saddened by the Pope's passing and were placed on sabbatical leave to help them get through this difficult period. We wish to correct our statement that the Pope held The Imitation of Christ in his hands at the time of his death. This was a communications error. The Pope at the time of his death was reviewing some old notes that he had written when he had been Bishop of Vittorio Veneto. That he was able to retain them upright in his hands in the midst of a massive heart attack is due to the grace of God."

We wish to correct our original release that it was the Pope's secretary John Magee who had discovered the Pope's body. It was the Pope's secretary who first realized that he was dead. (a true correction!)

The Pope was first discovered by the nun who delivered the Pope 's breakfast at the usual time. When the Pope did not respond she summoned John Magee as she sensed something was wrong. (a true correction!)

It is Canon Law that an autopsy cannot he performed on a pope 's body. (an erroneous "correction")

It is immaterial whether a nun or his secretary found His Holiness. (an erroneous "correction")

It is also immaterial when he was found dead. (an erroneous "correction")

And it is also immaterial when he actually died. (an erroneous "correction")

All that is material is that he was found dead." (an erroneous "correction")

(Although the word "correction" originally meant "to make correct", all it means in many cases now is an attempt to restate a prior mistake or lie in order to make it at least appear less erroneous.)

The Vatican letter simply raised more questions. It made no sense that Magee and three of the nuns would have been so saddened by the Pope's death that they were placed on sabbatical, as they had known him only a month. And, if anything was "immaterial" or irrelevant in this situation, it was citing this provision of Canon Law, because that canon contains the exception that one would expect, " unless there is suspicion of murder ", which is why an autopsy was performed on Pius VIII in 1829, why it should have been performed on John Paul I, and should be performed by independent and trustworthy medical personnel as soon as the arrangements can be made.

Why ?

Why has the Vatican promoted the idea that this Pope's death was a natural outcome of his life-long poor health, when the very opposite is true? his last physical examination six months before his tragic death, which was released to the press at the request of his family, "had detected nothing other than a man of extraordinarily good health." contrary to the Vatican's claim that he had "low blood pressure", the reading at his last complete physical (above) was 121 / 78, and six days earlier was 118 / 80, as close to perfect as one could hope! the Vatican claim that he suffered from severe respiratory illnesses all his life, even going so far as to claim that as a child he had been confined to a sanatorium for a year with tuberculosis, and spent most adult life in and out of sanatoria, including being confined for most of 1947 in the hospital in Belluno with severe viral pneumonia . the Vatican claimed that he had suffered six heart attacks earlier in life and that John Paul died of a heart attack. Yet the Luciani family and his own personal physician in Venice contradicted this claim as did every cardiologist and the hospitals interviewed by the press in the entire Venice metropolitan area where John Paul had been stationed for the 20 years prior to his election to the papacy. There is no evidence to support these claims. On the contrary, When he became a bishop in 1958 at the age of forty-six, he included on his official coat of arms the six Dolomite Mountain peaks for which he held the climbing speed record. In the years to follow, he would add a number of the tallest and most difficult peaks of the Italian Alps to his achievements. And you don't need to be a mountain climber yourself to know that it's not something that people with bad hearts and bad lungs are likely to engage in, let alone to excel at! ( For more on the above outline, read pp. 127 -142 of "Murder in the Vatican" ) In addition to the above,

there are other problems with

the official death by

natural causes theory : When popes take office, they are required to file their last will and testament with the Vatican. What can explain the disappearance of the Vatican copy and the theft of the copy from the pope's attorney's office? Why did Vatican officials collect all of the personal papers and records from the dioceses where he had been a bishop and priest and hide them somewhere in the Vatican, when it is known that his last will was that they stay in those places and be made public? Why does this pope's tombstone at the Vatican have nothing but his name? (The least that every other pope's stone has is name and dates of papacy.) Why is there no official biography of Pope John Paul the First? Why has the Vatican tried to portray Pope John Paul the First as a traditionalist, after hiding as much of his actual ideology, when the record the Vatican has not been able to hide shows that he was anything but a traditionalist?

Catholic liberal leaders

lose "world war on poverty"

In mid March of the year 1978, 33 of the world's leading Roman Catholic liberals met to plan a serious world-wide war on poverty, a war which the conservative and/or capitalist leaders of the world would have considered a "communist" - as opposed to a "Christian" - endeavor. Within twelve months an incredible number of those leaders had been eliminated , the few survivors were put on notice, the very brief interval during which the Roman Catholic church had liberal leadership was over, as was the war on poverty, the drive for reform and opening of the Vatican's bank dealings.

The death toll of the highest ranking Liberals

in the Roman Catholic Church at the time : Date of Death : Liberal Church-leaders : Method of Death Aug. 6, 1978 Pope Paul VI consistent with poisoning Aug. 11, 1978 Cardinal Yu Pin,

primate of China consistent with poisoning Aug. 17, 1978 Cardinal Giovanni Benelli,

Archbishop of Florence &

Paul VI's Undersecretary of State attempt on life Sept. 5, 1978 Nikodim, the Orthodox

Metropolitan of Leningrad consistent with poisoning Sept. 11, 1978 Cardinal Valerian Gracias,

primate of India consistent with poisoning Aug. & Sept. 1978 Cardinal Leon Suenens,

Archbishop of Brussels attempts on his life Sept. 29, 1978 (Albino Luciani) John Paul I consistent with poisoning Oct. 14, 1978 Cardinal Boleshaw Filipiak

of Gniezno, Poland consistent with poisoning Nov. 27, 1978 Cardinal Trinh-Khue, primate

of Korea, Vietnam & Cambodia deep secret Jan. 29, 1979 Cardinal Delargey,

Archbishop of Wellington consistent with poisoning March 13, 1979 Cardinal Jean Villot,

Paul VI's Secretary of State consistent with poisoning March of 1982 Cardinal Felici,

the Vatican's chief counsel consistent with poisoning

Most of the cardinals above were either potential liberal popes, or at least electors of such a pope. At the very same time that the above intrigue and crimes were occurring behind the walls of Vatican city, similar crimes were occurring outside those walls in the rest of Italy. But in sharp contrast to the way the suspicious ecclesiastical deaths above were ignored and the criminals allowed to literally "get away with murder", Italy's civil society and media did its best to uncover what its political terrorists and murderers were up to, as I show on my political assassinations page, and to prosecute them.

In addition to all of the high-ranking churchmen and politicians above, the deaths of lesser figures at the time are worth noting.

What do you think are the chances of a thirty-old falling from a 6th floor balcony to his death accidentally? That is what happened to the brother of the pope's valet, Lorenzi Calo, resulting in the apartment closest to the pope being vacant on the night of Sept. 28th, 1978, the night of the pope's untimely death, because Lorenzi was attending to his brother's funeral arrangements some distance from Rome?

And what do you think are the chances of Albino Luciani's long time personal assistant, friend and theological ally, being killed accidentally by a hit-and-run driver (whom the police were never able to track down)?

One week after the publication of the Yallup book in 1984, one of the most important witnesses to Pope John Paul's death, Sister Vincenza, was found dead in her bed. Since her testimony pointed to foul play, it's a real shame that her untimely death prevented her version of events from being checked out further.

Why is it that the murder of popes

and cardinals doesn't bother

conservative Catholics, so long

as the victims are liberals ?

After centuries in control of the Roman Catholic Church, the conservatives who were accustomed to having their own way in the Vatican, didn't take kindly to handing over the reins of power even briefly to the three liberal popes below:

The 20 year "Liberal Interlude"

In 1978, however, all hell broke loose at the Vatican. That year began with the moderately liberal Paul VI, at the helm, followed in August by the much more liberal John Paul I, who was replaced just 44 days later by the ultra-conservative John Paul II.

When popes and cardinals were dying like flies in the Vatican during the "changing of the guard" in 1978, when the leadership of the Catholic Church was taken back by the "right wing", the official explanation was usually "natural causes", but the symptoms were anything but usual or natural .

Was the death of Pope Paul VI on Aug. 6th, 1978 natural ?

The former Cardinal Giovanni Montini, Archbishop of Milan, was the first cardinal appointed by Pope John XXIII and was his handpicked successor. Were it not for the massive shadow cast by John XXIII, Paul VI might be viewed as one of the greatest popes in centuries, for it was he who actually made the Second Vatican Council a reality and brought John's reforms to fruition over the obstacles mounted by the conservative Roman Curia against his every effort.

He died at the Castel Gandolfo under even more mysterious and conflicting circumstances than did his successor John Paul. The Italian media did its best to investigate and question the circumstances of his death but could only go so far in penetrating the secrecy of the "sovereign state" of Vatican City. Relatively few liberals considered Paul VI one of their own, especially after he rejected the liberal conclusions reached by the commission on birth-control which he himself had created, and instead published his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, reiterating the church's conservative position on that most contentious issue. But Paul VI seems to have become more and more liberal over the years, especially when it came to the power he had as pope to shape the college of Cardinals, which is what determines who becomes the next pope (unless you believe that the Holy Spirit was responsible for some of the most despicable human beings ever being elected to the papacy!) "Because of a peculiar pungent odor, which emanated from his body, he (Pope Paul VI) lay in state for the first day at the Castel Gandolfo (an extension of the Vatican, in the country away from Rome). Despite the fact that mourners were kept at a distance, it was quite obvious to them that a strong odor was emanating from the body. After a second embalming he smelled like flowers and he was moved to St. Peter's where he lay in state for three additional days. When the embalmers were questioned as to why the odor had been so pungent on the first day and had changed to that of a rose garden on the second day, they told the press that in order to save time (at the first embalming) they had been told not to drain the body of blood and remove certain internal organs which are normally removed in an embalming. In order to prepare the Pope for the second showing they had injected the body with perfume. Failure to remove the blood and organs is suggestive of cover up of arsenic poisoning as this was a practice often followed by the Mafia as to leave neither blood nor tissue available (i.e. outside of the grave) to assay for the presence of poisoning." (Another indication of poisoning was the report of a nun responsible for emptying the pope's bedpan that "There had been nothing but blood in the pan for a week." - telltale evidence of the final stages of arsenic poisoning not heart trouble.-) P. 309 Was the death of Cardinal Paul Yu Pin Archbishop of Taiwan on August 15, 1978 natural ?

"Pope Paul VI's last official act came the day before he died. Realizing death was imminent and knowing that Luciani carried a marginal number of votes, Paul elevated Cardinal Yu Pin to 'Grand Chancellor of Eastern Affairs', making him the ranking and most influential cardinal in the Eastern Hemisphere. ( London Times 9 Aug 78 ) One can only surmise that Paul's motive, knowing that Luciani controlled a very marginal number of votes to win the upcoming election, was to increase Yu Pin's influence in the conclave and thereby lock up the election for his chosen successor. One can only wonder why else was this appointment so important that Paul, on the day before he died, lapsing in and out of a coma and barely able to speak, would make such an effort. Just 9 days after Paul VI's death, Yu Pin keeled over at Paul's funeral. According to the Vatican, the Cardinal, bereaved by Paul 's death, had suffered a heart attack (despite having had no history of heart disease), and asked not to be moved to a hospital. Suspecting he had been poisoned, the press called for an autopsy, but as had been its policy in other unexplained deaths, the Vatican rejected that request, even though it would have been required by law anywhere else in Italy. On the very same day of his death his body was embalmed and shipped in a sealed coffin to Taipei (China) for interment. It was apparent that his absence in the upcoming election removed his liberal influence on the votes of the far eastern cardinals, the reason Paul had elevated him to the most powerful position in the Eastern Hemisphere. "The day before Paul VI's funeral, Belgium radio announced that Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens, the Primate of Belgium, had been killed by a falling section of an aging building facade in Brussels. The radio report, which was based on eyewitnesses of the event, was premature.'' (Le Soir Brussels 10 Aug 78) It had, in fact, been a visiting French bishop that had been killed. It had been that the incident had occurred near the cardinal's palace and that the bishop had been wearing black garb topped off with a red zucchetto that caused witnesses to mistake him for the cardinal. Of course, if this was true, that witnesses on the ground made such a misjudgment, then it would have been likely that anyone on the roof of the building (aiming for the Cardinal) would have made the same mistake. Suenens, of course, being the recognized leader of liberalism in the Catholic world at the time would be one of the most influential cardinals in the upcoming conclave. . . A week before the conclave was to begin . . . Cardinal Suenens (again) barely escaped death when a small section of a frieze fell from a Vatican building narrowly missing him and his secretary by inches. (' L'Osservatore Romano', 22 Aug 78 & La Stampa 25 Aug 78) Was the death of Metropolitan Nikodim on Sept. 5th, 1978, just 3 weeks after Cardinal Cardinal Paul Yu Pin's death, natural ?

Although not a Roman Catholic churchman, this Orthodox leader of Leningrad was an extremely liberal Russian prelate who may have been a KGB subversive agent code name 'Adamant' and a believer that Christ's dictate of a redistribution of wealth society could be successfully incorporated into modern civilization, despite the fact that the attempt to do so in Russia had failed. He was a close friend and ally of Albino Luciani. Early in the thirty-three day pontificate of John Paul I, on Sept. 5, 1978 ( just 29 days after Paul VI's death), this 49 year old champion marathon runner fell dead at the Pope's feet. Rumors surfaced that he had been poisoned by a cup of coffee that may have been intended for his host, the pope. His body was returned to Leningrad the same day, with no autopsy ever being performed. Was the death of Pope John Paul the First ( formerly Cardinal Albino Luciani, Archbishop of Venice) on Sept. 29, 1978, at age 65, natural?

He was the first bishop appointed by John XXIII and a close advisor of this Pope during his reign. It was Luciani's influence on John XXIII that caused this Pope to shed his conservative cloak of eighty years and bring change to the Church. Luciani developed the seminary at Vittorio Veneto from utter obscurity to one of the most recognized schools of theology in the world. Paul VI named him Patriarch of Venice in December 1969 and groomed him to become his successor, which he did as Pope John Paul I on August 26 1978. A revolutionary prelate, whose pontificate spanned only 33 days, the press caught the Vatican in a series of lies and/or inconsistencies concerning the circumstances of this pope's death ( just 44 days after Paul VI's death), that gave rise to rumors of foul play). Was the death of one of Pope John Paul's closest confidants on Sept. 30, 1978 natural ?

A seminary instructor at Vittorio Veneto and for a time secretary to Albino Luciani when he was the bishop there this young priest, who happened to be the closest friend of Lucien Gregoire (the author of Murder in the Vatican ), was run down by a car – mafia style – outside the Vatican walls just a few hours after his boss's death. The hit and run driver was never apprehended (probably because he was professional enough to know precisely how to use such a deadly weapon and not get caught). Was the death of Cardinal Filipiak, Archbishop of Gniezno and Polish arch rival of Cardinal Carol Wojtyla on August 15, 1978, the day before John Paul II's election, natural ? Was the death of Cardinal Reginald Delargey on Jan. 29, 1979, just four months after John Paul I, natural?

Although the official cause of his death at age 65 was supposedly cancer, the authors of that story also stated that "In the first conclave Delargey had wasted away to practically skin and bones. . . it was obvious he was in the final stages of cancer. . . attendees were surprised when he showed up alive at the second conclave." However, does this man with the pope in the photograph to your left, taken a month later, look like a man "in the final stages of cancer"? Since his death was consistent with poisoning, should we trust the official version of his death? Was the death of Cardinal Jean Villot on March 9, 1979 natural?

This French bishop was made a cardinal by Paul VI and made his Secretary of State when, midway in his pontificate, upon the death of the conservative he had inherited upon his election. Just a few months after the deaths of Paul VI and John Paul, Cardinal Villot, Paul's longtime friend and closest confidant, also died, under almost identical circumstances as had Paul. He too, jaundiced and skin flaking, had developed swollen feet that had been diagnosed to be the onset of arthritis. He, too, was taken for his last ride to Castel Gandolfo. He, too, was popping cough drops. When his brother showed up unexpectedly at the papal retreat and saw that Villot was seriously ill, he ordered him moved to a Rome hospital, after which stay he was returned to his Vatican apartment. Although the hospital had cleared up a serious bladder infection, a few days later, on March 9, 1979, his blood pressure suddenly dropped and similar to Paul, he went into severe respiratory failure and then lingered for a few hours before dying. As had been true in John Paul's case, it was Dr. Buzzanetti ( the official Vatican physician,) who pronounced him dead "due to myocardial infarction." "Again, as in the case of the " two popes, there was an immediate embalming without the conventional draining of blood or removal of organs, the most telltale evidence of cover-up of arsenic poisoning. Altogether we have three primates of the Church, Paul VI, John Paul I and Jean Villot who today rest in their tombs with their blood supply and their internal organs. This gives us the supposition that all three corpses retain traces of arsenic in their fingernails and hair today." P. 321 Was the death of Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, Archbishop of Florence, on Oct. 26, 1984 natural?

As Undersecretary of State under Paul VI, he had been was one of the most powerful men in the Church and was considered one of the most likely successors of Paul VI. Cardinal Benelli was in the midst of lining up opposition in the College of Cardinals to block the ratification of the Opus Dei Prelature and had also been the most outspoken cardinal calling for an autopsy in the death of John Paul I when he himself met his demise. Just a month before his death he had made a remark to the press that insinuated Vatican involvement in the murder of Roberto Calvi. (see below) In 1982, in guarded condition in a Florence hospital, an order came from the Vatican to remove Benelli from life support equipment and return him to his mansion, where he died two hours later. When doctors criticized the order, the Vatican claimed that Benelli himself had requested he be moved. His personal physician, however, told the press, "That would have been quite a trick as, although the patient was expected to recover, at the time the decision was made to remove him from the hospital, he was comatose." ( See Terri Schiavo below). Although the attempts on his life hardly were, the death of Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens at age 91 may have been natural.

This Archbishop of Brussels was the backbone of Catholic liberalism during the last half of' the twentieth century. He was the genius and main force behind Vatican II, the council that brought major reform to the Church in 1963. He led the lobbying in the election conclaves that won the papacy for both Paul VI and John Paul I. Cardinal Suenens came within inches of dying just days before the conclave would elect the next pope (9 days after Paul VI's death), when a small section of frieze fell from a building and came very close to killing him and his secretary. What an amazing coincidence that just a few weeks earlier, on a side walk near the Cardinal's residence in Brussels, the very same type of "accident" had killed a visiting French bishop. From a rooftop it would have been hard to distinguish between that bishop and Cardinal Suenens. In fact, Belgium Radio had initially reported that it was the Cardinal who had been killed.

The next year, almost immediately after he had criticized the newly elected conservative Pope John Paul II for having used monies deposited by Mother Teresa in the Vatican Bank (supposedly for the benefit of the poor) to build a luxurious swimming pool for his personal pleasure, the Pope removed Suenens as Primate of Belgium and forced him into retirement. When Suenens died in 1996, his unexpected death was under identical circumstances to those of Pope John Paul I, "sitting up reading a book, which book was still clutched upright in his hands. . . Active to his last day, the retired Archbishop of Mechelen - Brussels and Primate of Belgium was making plans to travel to far away John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio for a symposium in his honor. Was the death of Cardinal Violardo, Paul VI's 'voice' in Italian Parliament and friend of Aldo Moro natural ? He was found dead under a stairway in a darkened corner of the Vatican bank on the same day Moro was kidnapped, (later to be killed). Was the death of Cardinal Felici, Prefect Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's chief counsel, in March of 1982, natural ? He was in the midst of investigating Opus Dei' involvement in the Vatican bank scandal when he dropped dead a few minutes after drinking wine in the consecration of the Mass. Did the 1998 murders of Alois Estermann, Commander of the Swiss Guard, of his wife and his alleged young lover, Corporal Cedric Tornay, in the Commander's Vatican apartment, have anything to do with any or all of the above? Estermann was known to be the closest confidant of John Paul II, the author presents compelling evidence that Estermann was the guard assigned to the post closest to John Paul I the night he died natural ?

The above is a quick overview. For a closer view of how unbelievable the official Vatican version of the deaths of all of these outstanding leaders of the church has been, order the book, and while you are waiting for the book, ponder these . . .

Concluding Questions :

"In that two popes, John Paul I, who had been the first bishop appointed by John XXIII, and Paul VI, who had been the first cardinal appointed by John XXIII, neither of whom had a history of heart disease, died within a month of each other, certainly would be of unusual circumstance and coincidence. That they both started to take naps which were not their custom in the period immediately preceding death could be coincidence. That they both had some swelling of the feet that had been diagnosed as the onset of arthritis could also be coincidence. That they both died of heart failure is reasonable, as there are many toxins that precipitate cardiac-arrest. But, that they both died of heart attacks due to natural causes, when neither had a history of heart disease, defies the imagination. Yet, lacking autopsy, I have no evidence to support the supposition that there was, indeed, foul play in either death; just these things which I have pointed out in the forgoing which are entirely a matter of public record.

There is also the remarkable coincidence that the cochairmen of the progressive movement in Italy, Aldo Moro outside the Church, and Paul within the Church, also died within a couple of months of each other. There was the extraordinary circumstance that they both, at the very same time just two years earlier, had made a complete about-face in the way they were going about their business. They both died on the very eve of the attainment of their political objectives, one of outright murder and the other of unexplained mysterious circumstances. Had either survived, or had Paul's successor John Paul survived, the progressive movement would go on within both Italy and the Church and throughout the world. The loss of the three of them at the very same time had brought the movement to a screeching halt. p. 320.

I'm no great believer in the prophecies of Nostradamus, but if I were, I'd be likely to believe that he had to have been thinking of Pope John Paul I, when he wrote in Century 10, Quatrain 12:

"The one elected Pope will be mocked by his electors,

This enterprising and prudent person will suddenly be reduced in silence,

They cause him to die because of his too great goodness and mildness.

Stricken by fear, they will lead him to his death in the night."

the conservative leaders of

the Catholic Church who

returned to power after 1978 :

Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa. Under John XXIII and Paul VI, he was the leader of right wing extremists in the field. It was he who made the remark upon the passing of John XXIII, "It will take the Church four hundred years to recover from John's pontificate." Bishop Caprio: One of two bishops having access to John Paul the night he died; promoted to the 3rd most powerful position in the Church by John Paul II.. As treasurer of the Vatican bank, he handled the technicalities of the bank scandal transactions to Nicaragua. Bishop Agostino Casaroli, the other of two bishops having access to John Paul the night he died, had been a Vatican Foreign Minister under Pope Paul VI. He was of the Gambino family, the most powerful Mafia family in Italy, and a close friend of Cardinal Wojtyla of Poland. Not long after Karol Wojtyla became pope, John Paul II catapulted Casaroli past three hundred others who outranked him to make him the second most powerful cleric in the Church, Cardinal Secretary of State. Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, Dean of the College of Cardinals. He was a resident of the Papal Palace the night John Paul died. An influential member of the Curia, he was a close friend of Cardinal Siri and Bishop Casaroli, co-leaders of the far right in the Church. He was of the Mafia family of the same name. (Google "Confalonieri, Mafia") Cardinal Wojtyla In his first organizational move upon becoming pope, John Paul II

changed the reporting status of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, President of the Vatican Bank, directly to himself. An unexplained deficit of a few million dollars occurred during his watch and was uncovered by an audit that had been ordered by his predecessor, the first John Paul. Under John Paul II, Marcinkus masterminded what later became known as "The Great Vatican Bank Scandal" which brought Italy to financial ruin. $1.4 billion, which had been raised by Roberto Calvi from unsuspecting European investors and deposited in the Vatican Bank (which holds money that is supposed to dedicated to "good works") was transferred by John Paul II shortly after he became pope to a mysterious conglomerate in Panama. Despite years of Italian court proceedings and investigations, no one was ever able to learn what happened to that immense fortune. Yet, all of this happened the year after the suspicious deaths of Popes Paul VI and John Paul I, and there is little evidence to connect these two very troublesome events. Shortly after the incident, Pope John Paul II paid $241 million in cash to the European investors who had lost many times more than that amount and swept the scandal under the rug once and for all.

A leading candidate for the red hat, Archbishop Marcinkus was forced into exile not long after he made a comment to the press, "I keep telling John Paul (II) 'If we keep sweeping things under the rug we will eventually trip over it.' " Eventually he returned to the U.S.A. and retired to Arizona, but early in February, 2006, a court in Rome which was trying five members of the mafia for the murder of Roberto Calvi filed papers in a federal court in Phoenix, AZ in an effort to extradite Marcinkus. Two weeks later, the Archdiocese of Phoenix announced that Marcinkus had been found dead in his house, but it has never released the cause of his death. I'm no great believer in the prophecies of Nostradamus, but if I were, I'd be likely to believe that he had to have been thinking of Pope John Paul I, when he wrote in Century 10, Quatrain 12:

"The one elected Pope will be mocked by his electors,

This enterprising and prudent person will suddenly be reduced to silence,

They cause him to die because of his too great goodness and mildness.

Stricken by fear, they will lead him to his death in the night." assassination during that same period

of liberals in other parts of Italy : While much of the above was going on inside the walls of Vatican City, all of these other important Italians were also being assassinated just outside of those walls, in and about Rome . The following is a list of murders and other serious crimes in the political world that were recognized for what they were and were investigated and prosecuted by the media and by civil society, in contrast to similar crimes that were occurring at the same period in and around the Vatican. May 17, 1978 :Aldo Moro, who was the political leader of the Christian Democratic Party during the reign of Paul VI and one time Prime Minister of Italy, and whose liberal ideas dominated much of the thinking of the Italian population, which at the time was almost entirely Roman Catholic, was assassinated that year gangland style. A bitter enemy of right wing extremists in the Vatican, he was the lifelong acquaintance and one of Paul VI's closest of friends and allies. July 10, 1978: An incorruptible magistrate, Vittorio Occorsio, who was investigating the connection between a neo-Fascist movement known as the National Vanguard and the illegal P2, was murdered with a burst of machine gun fire. July 11, 1979: Fearless and honorable Giorgio Ambrosoli, the Governor of the Bank of Italy, who was appointed liquidator of (Racketeer) Sindona's Banca Privata Italiana by the Treasury Ministry. In 1978 he uncovered irrefutable evidence of the Vatican Bank's complicity in many of Sindona's criminal conspiracies, including Sindona's illegal kick-back payment to Calvi of 6.5 million dollars, shared fifty-fifty with Bishop Marcinkus who was in charge of the bank at the time. . . Ambrosoli went ahead with his evidence in court and sacrificed his life for truth and justice. A few hours after giving evidence against Sindona in court and a day before he was due to sign the record of his testimony, he was shot dead by a professional killer with four bullets. Sindona was later charged with his murder. July 21, 1979: Boris Giuliano, head of CID of Palermo who discovered cheques and other documents which indicated that Sindona had been recycling the proceeds from heroin sales to his Amincor Bank in Switzerland through the Vatican Bank was shot dead with six bullets. His position in the Palermo police force was taken over by a member of (the ultra-RightWing) P2, Giuseppe Impallomeni. In early January 1979, Judge Emilio Alessandrini, well known as the judge that could not be bought, ordered Lt. Colonel Cresta, the commander of the Milan tax police to send his men into Banco Ambrosiano to check point by point the many criminal irregularities in the 500 page summary report prepared for him by the Bank of Italy. On 21st January, L'Espresso reported on the market rumors going around the city that Calvi and the entire board of directors were about to be arrested. On 29th January, the fearless and incorruptible judge was shot dead by five gunmen. March 20, 1979: Murder of Carmine Pecorelli, a renowned investigative journalist who was about to publish 'The Role of the CIA and Italian Intelligence in the Moro Murder' and articles exposing the membership and dealings of "P2" -- a powerful group of Freemasons whose membership was involved in Vatican financial dealings, and whose founder, Lucio Gelli, was deeply connected with Roberto Calvi. when assassinated. His office and the manuscript were destroyed by fire. July 11, 1979: Murder of Giorgio Ambrosioli following his testimony concerning Michele Sindona's financial dealings with Calvi and other Vatican interests, the activities of P2 and its members among powerful government and business circles, and the connections between Calvi, Sindona, and Bishop Paul Marcinkus of the Vatican Bank. July 13, 1979: Murder of Lt. Col. Antonio Varisco, head of the Rome security service, who was investigating the activities and membership of P2 and had spoken with Giorgio Ambrosioli two days before Ambrosioli's death. July 21, 1979: Murder of Boris Guilano, the Palermo police deputy superintendent and head of Palermo CID. Guilano had spoken with Giorgio Ambrosioli two days before Ambrosioli's death concerning Sindona's laundering of Mafia money through the Vatican Bank into Switzerland. February 2, 1980: The Vatican withdraws at the last moment its agreement that Cardinals Guiseppe Caprio and Sergio Guerri and Bishop Paul Marcinkus will provide videotaped depositions on behalf of Michele Sindona in his trial in the US on charges of fraud, conspiracy and misappropriation of funds in connection with the collapse of Franklin National Bank.

May 13, 1980: Michele Sindona attempts suicide in jail.

June 13, 1980: Michele Sindona sentenced to 25 years.

July 8, 1980: Roberto Calvi attempts suicide while in jail on charges of fraud, etc. Later released on bail and reconfirmed as chairman of Banco Ambrosiano.

September 1, 1981: The Vatican Bank, apparently at the request of Roberto Calvi, issues "letters of comfort" acknowledging its controlling interest in, and assuming responsibility for, a more than 1 billion dollar debt of a number of banks controlled by Calvi.

January 12, 1981: A group of shareholders in Banco Ambrosiano send a letter to John Paul II outlining the connections between the Vatican Bank, Roberto Calvi, P2 and the Mafia. The letter is never acknowledged. April 27, 1982: Attempted murder of Roberto Rosone, general manager and deputy chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, who was trying to "clean up" the bank's operation. He had earlier pleaded with the Bank of Italy to approve the removal of Calvi. Roberto Calvi was the President of the Banco Ambrosiano and the mastermind of what came to be known as "The Great Vatican Bank Scandal". On June 17, 1982, a week after he had made a statement to the press that inferred that he was being blackmailed by someone high up in the Vatican, his body was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London, with bricks in his coat pockets.

Calvi's widow, blamed the Vatican for her husband's death. She was recorded as saying, "The Vatican had my husband killed to hide the bankruptcy of the Vatican Bank". On the same day Roberto Calvi was found swinging from Blackfriars Bridge in London, June 17, his secretary and closest confidant, Teresa (Graziella) Corrocher, was found splattered across the sidewalk which fronted the Milan office building in which she worked. There was an unsigned suicide note, that anybody could have typed, in her typewriter.

A few days later, a 1.3 billion dollar "hole" was discovered at their bank. October 2, 1982: Giuseppe Dellacha, Calvi's assistant who was in charge of the Vatican Bank account, the man most likely to have carried out the technicalities of the deposits to the Vatican Bank. A few months later, his body was found at the same spot as Ms. Corrocher's, this time without a suicide note. March 23, 1986: Michele Sindona found dead of poisoning in the Italian jail to which he had been extradited on charges of ordering the murder of Giorgio Ambrosioli (1979) and possibly Pope John Paul I (1978)."

[ mostly from http://taoshengphilosopherscafe.blogspot.com/2006/06/roberto-calvi-suicide-or-murder-p2-was.html ]

assassination during that same period

of liberals in other parts of the world :

And even further away from the Vatican, here is what was happening to people related to the struggles within the Vatican:

Archbishop Romero denounced what he characterized as the persecution of his Church: "In less than three years, more than fifty priests have been attacked, threatened and slandered. Six of them are martyrs, having been assassinated; various others have been tortured, and others expelled from the country. Religious women have also been the object of persecution."

Catholic priests assassinated in El Salvador during Oscar Romero's archbishopric (1977 - 1980): Rutilio Grande, S.J. - assassinated March 12, 1977

Alfonso Navarro - assassinated May 11, 1977

Ernesto Barrera - assassinated November 28, 1978

Octavio Ortiz - assassinated January 20, 1979

Rafael Palacios - assassinated June 20, 1979

Napoleón Macías - assassinated August 4, 1979

Archbishop Romero himself was killed by a shot to the heart on March 24, 1980 following a sermon where he called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God's higher order and to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights.

In Chile, in Sept., 1973, a coup led by ultra-conservative General Pinochet toppled the leftist President Salvador Alliende, who committed suicide rather than allow himself to fall into the hands of his enemies. In 2009 the courts in Chile concluded that Eduardo Frei, who had been the liberal president who had preceeded Alliende, did not die of natural causes as had been believed for decades. It has now been determined that the real cause of Frei's death in 1982 when he had become one of the leading critics of President Pinochet's conservative military dictatorship, was poisoning by injections. ["Jurist" research]

Orlando Letelier, a Socialist activist, who had been sent by leftist President Alliende as ambassador from Chile to the U.S. in 1971, was killed by car bomb in Washington, D.C. in Sept. 1973..

Wikipedia article on Letelier|.

Wikipedia article on Letelier|. In May of 1981, the first democratically elected president of Ecuador in modern times, Jaime Roldós, who had dared to challenge the exploitation of his country by the U.S. oil companies was killed in a fiery helicopter crash that most people viewed as a political assassination. He was replaced by a right wing dictator friend of the U.S. oil interests.

In July of 1981, another even more powerful friend of the poor, President Omar Torrijos was killed in a similar plane crash, which most people viewed as the work of the CIA of the U.S.A., on behalf of other U.S. companies. He, too, was replaced by a right wing dictator friend of U.S. business interests.

Isn't this exactly

what jesus predicted ?

Jesus was hated and condemned and killed, not by atheists, but by clerics, bible scholars, i.e by supposedly pious folk who thought they knew God well. They felt compelled to use whatever means possible to silence this blaspheming revolutionary Jesus from Nazareth in order to protect GOD. And Jesus prepared those who would follow his example and preach what he preached to expect the same treatment :

{ according to John 16:1--4 }



I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues (or "churches"). Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me . But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them."

"If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world -- therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'Servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you ; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me . If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause'."

"And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

If conservatives are more moral and religious than liberals, as so many of them believe, then why is it that it always seems to be liberal leaders who meet violent death at the hands of conservatives, rather than the other way around : Jesus of Nazareth, Abe Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, John and Bobby Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King, Archbishop Oscar Romero? This pattern of conservatives murdering liberals is so widespread and long-standing that I've created a separate web page to track it, at liberalvsconservativemartyrs.html

And what about all the suspicious deaths of liberal activists like Senator Paul Wellstone, Liberalism Resurgent activist Steve Kangas?

Some of the views for which Pope John Paul I may have given his life : Pope John XXIII often referred to Albino Luciani as the "Einstein of the Roman Catholic Church. " Luciani, first attracted Einstein's own attention when he wrote an article at age 13 which reached all of Europe. Einstein once said of him, "Luciani thinks of things today, as the rest of us will think of them a thousand years from now. " ( as a Bishop and then Archbishop and later Cardinal and Patriarch in northern Italy in the 1960's and 70's, Albino Luciani) "did much to encourage single persons to adopt parentless children. It was his lobbying in the Italian Parliament that made it legal for single persons to adopt children in Italy. When an opposition member of the assembly challenged his proposal: "But, that would make it legal for homosexuals to adopt children," Luciani responded, "The desire to parent children is a basic human need . . . Until the day comes that we can guarantee basic human rights and dignity to the tiniest minority, we cannot truthfully call ourselves a democracy. " Yet, his adversary objected, `But homosexuals have a record of splitting up after the `honeymoon' is over and this would cause children to lose either one or both parents." Luciani responded: "There are two major forces involved in making for long term loving relationships and regardless of what Rome might believe, sex is not one of them. As a matter-of- fact, sex is most often a declining force in many relationships. It often has very little to do with the long term survival of a union. The longevity of a relationship of two people who parent children that is so important to protecting the rights of children until they reach adulthood depends not on sex, but rather on the two major forces that create long term relationships, love and companionship. When one considers the latter, the homosexual has a great advantage. Two people of the same sex who fall in love with each other make much better companions of each other because they are more likely to share common interests. It is for this reason that children parented by homosexual couples are less likely to undergo the trauma of arguments in marriage and of divorce. " His opponent had still another objection: "Nevertheless, homosexuals are pedophiles. This will put children in great danger."

"To begin with," Luciani responded, "homosexuality has nothing to do with pedophilia; one is sexual orientation and the other is sexual perversion. Yet, in that most cases of pedophilia involve incest, we must consider the question. If our objective is to prevent pedophilia in adoption then the only logical action is to permit only homosexuals to adopt children who are only of the opposite sex. This would reduce incest to zero. If we permit heterosexual couples to adopt children, then children would be at risk. "

Within a few years of the passage of that measure, more than a half-million children, who had previously been confined to the streets, were provided loving and economic support by single parents. Some of these were homosexual couples, in which case one of the parents had adopted the child, as it remained illegal for two people of the same sex to adopt the same child. Very little is known of Luciani's involvement with homosexual parents other than a few short notes written in connection with his orphanages, "We have found that homosexual couples will take handicapped and less than healthy and attractive children. Most importantly, they will take bastards. Heterosexual couples, on the other hand, go for the cutest babies as if they were shopping for a puppy in a pet shop. "

There is another note written in diary format, "Dear Mama, I have for many years counseled a young couple. They have great sexual attraction for each other, yet, beyond that they have nothing in common. I have yet to be in their presence when they have not been arguing between themselves or yelling at their children. In addition, they both suffer from a serious ongoing drug and alcohol addiction problem for which neither one has ever sought counsel. Both children, having been bombarded during their growing-up years by the incompatibility of their parents, are now confined to institutions. In that I sanctioned this marriage, I must live the rest of my days with this on my conscience. Last week, this same couple came to me on a matter of such great urgency that I had to cancel another appointment. They told me of a neighbor - one of the new single parents in Italy - who was a homosexual. As a matter-of-fact, another man has been living with him for many years. I have known of this queer relationship for sometime. Both men are contributing members of the community and spend much of their free time helping out in the parish orphanage. Their two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, are the envy of all who are privileged to experience them. One night as they were leaving, I noticed tears in their eyes. They told me, it grieves them that they cannot take all of the children home with them. Mama, it is this experience, more that any other, that has caused me to understand the qualifications of a good parent. There is something terribly wrong with a society that thinks that one's sex is what makes one a good parent. " Just three months before his death, Pope Paul VI permitted Cardinal Luciani to address the Vatican cardinals on the possibility that the Church might encourage homosexuals to enter into long term loving relationships as they represented the only population group that was large enough and willing to provide economic and emotional support to millions of children who otherwise would be aborted by women too young or too poor to support them. Luciani argued that the Church's traditional position exiled homosexuals from society, forcing many of them into lives of loneliness and despair. He argued the Church's position was one of prejudice, as medical science had proved that sexual orientation cannot be changed and the Bible's condemnation of homosexual acts was scant compared to its vast condemnation of heterosexual acts.

"We have made of sex the greatest of sins, whereas in itself it is nothing more than human nature and not a sin at all." page 68

"The desire to parent children is a basic human need . . . Until we can guarantee basic human rights to the tiniest minority we cannot truthfully call ourselves a democracy." page 56

"Never be afraid to stand up for what is right, whether your adversary be your parent, your peer, your teacher, your politician, your preacher, or even your God." page 48

So spoke Albino Luciani (who was John XXIII first choice as a Bishop (in 1958), made a Cardinal in 1975 and groomed to be his successor by Paul VI). At the conclusion of the session, Luciani had been unable to convince no more than a handful of his audience that the matter should even so much as be discussed. He thanked Paul for having given him the opportunity. He then turned to the Vatican cardinals and told them, "The day is not far off when we will have to answer to these people who through the years have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose human dignity has been offended, their identity denied and their liberty oppressed. What is more, we will have to answer to the God who created them. "

Forty years before the world's psychiatric and medical communities came to the same conclusion, Luciani reasoned that sexual orientation could not be changed by therapy, that the ability to fall in love is a basic instinct. Yet, as the psychiatric community tells us today, Luciani found that unlike sexual orientation, sexual behavior could be conditioned by therapy or other circumstances. He reasoned that there are two forces that drive a sexual act, love and lust. He knew when two people are in love, love tends to drive the sexual act and that when two people are not in love, lust tends to drive the act. He understood then what we are coming to know now; a homosexual male, for example, can be conditioned to have sex with a woman only by changing the motivating factor from one of love to one of lust. It is because he felt strongly that God's children not be products of lust; he opposed this type of experimentation. Luciani's intermediate thesis "Strategy of a Strange War", written when he was an advanced student in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, was based on this subject. As a young seminarian in Belluno he had done much work in the local prison and had found that heterosexual men who were confined for long periods of time did engage in homosexual acts. But he also found "No matter how long the practice went on, a heterosexual male could never fall in love with another male, that lust and not love was the driving force behind such behavior, that when a heterosexual male would have a long term intimate relationship with another male in prison he might grow to like him and even develop great affection for him, but he would never be able to fall in love with him. " pp. 58-59

"Obviously," you may say. But remember; Luciani was thinking these thoughts some eighty years ago! What follows is a paraphrase of what the future Pope John Paul told the author Lucien Gregoire and his lifelong friend, Jack, who was at the time Bishop Luciani's personal assistant: Keep in mind that religion is a business that sells miracles and an afterlife in exchange for dollars. . . Numerous studies have shown that children who grow up outside of organized religion are better members of society as they grow up without prejudices. It is that my father was an atheist that made him a true follower of Christ. "Take Albert Schweitzer, for example, perhaps the most brilliant of all of us, who proved as a matter of historical fact in his twenty year search for the truth, The Quest for the historical Jesus. He concludes Christ never lived, that is, a man who performed the thirty-five miracles attributed to Christ never lived." "It makes no difference whether or not Christ ever lived. What is important of any man, even one who claimed to be God, is not so much His life on earth but is what He left behind; like Einstein, like Lincoln, like Edison and all the others. What is important of Christ's life is not His link to the Old Testament and not His life on earth, not even His death. All that is important is what He left behind, ' Love thy Neighbor as thyself " and ' Sell all that thou hast and give the proceeds to the poor. "'

>A Letter to the Book's Author : Anyone who can read the following without shedding a tear should get some kind of award:

"Dear Mr. Gregoire,

My name is Tommy. I read your Murder in the Vatican. I was born with one eye and had a wrinkled face so nobody wanted me. I think I scared them. Then one day when I was five years old my father showed up and took me home. I remember the kids used to laugh at me in the playground. Then my fathers sold everything they had including the house and I spent a long time in the hospital and the doctors and nurses made me look good. We have still many bills to pay. But now I am quite a ladies man at school. I hit my first home run last summer and this year I am going to hit forty more. My parents love me. That is, they used to love me. Now only one of them loves me. Because the other one is dead. He gave his life trying to win freedom for Iraq. He died on my fourteenth birthday. I noticed in your book that General Patton said some words over the grave of another soldier who like my father was gay and gave his life to save some Italian school children. As you know I wont be getting any benefits from the army or from social security to pay for my education or my medical bills because my parents did not have the freedom to marry and I was adopted by the father that is still with me. I didn't even get his purple heart or bronze star. The army gave them to his parents who hated him and sold them in a tag sale. I would have liked to have them. My father tells me not to feel bitter because according to the last census there are more than a million children in gay families and they are in the some boat. But, of course, I am not listed with them because of the don't ask don't tell policy. My father says that there are also over fifteen million other children in single parent families, many like me who are of gay parents who are not counted in the census because they are fearful of losing their jobs too. So we are talking about a lot of children here, million s of them, not just me. Both my father and I are sure that your book will be a best seller, I want to ask you a favor. I want to ask you when you are on Larry King Live, could you please read my letter. I think it might help people to understand our problem. I was planning on being a baseball player. But your book has made me change my mind. Instead I am going to study hard and I am going to become president. Well, maybe not president, but I am going to help other people like me." The quotes on this web site are from

this extraordinary book :

The Vatican Murders ,

The Life and death of John Paul I,

by Lucien Gregoire. Improvements were made to the earlier version above, and the book was republished in 2013, with the cover at the right :



To see the author's own website, go to

http://www.johnpaul1.org.



There was a play that ran in London from 2003 through at least 2007 based on the book written by a New York lawyer, Roger Crane The Last Confession. a chronological list

of 15 popesgenerally believed

to have been murdered : John VIII (872-882) - poisoned and clubbed to death Adrian III (884-885)- allegedly poisoned Stephen VI (896-897) - strangled Leo V (903) - murdered John X (914-928) - smothered with pillow Stephen VII/(VIII) (928-931) - allegedly murdered Stephen VIII/(IX) (939-942) - mutilated John XII (955-964) - allegedly murdered by cuckolded husband Benedict VI (973-974) - strangled John XIV (983-984) - starved Gregory V (996-999) - poisoned Sergius IV (1009-1012) - allegedly murdered Clement II (1046-1047) - poisoned Damasus II (1048) - allegedly murdered Boniface VIII (1294-1303) - tortured to death "Holy See" ? Isn't it amusing how English-speaking Catholic churchmen insist on translating the Latin "Sancta Sedes " into the meaningless "Holy See ", instead of the correct , but silly–sounding "Holy Seat "?

papal throne Terri Schiavo's death was

the Vatican's idea of "murder". While Vatican officials have been unable to perceive the deaths of all of these popes and cardinals as instances of murder pure and simple, they had no hesitation in accusing U.S. officials of cold blooded "murder" in the case of the hopelessly brain-dead Terri Schiavo. Rome, Mar. 31 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has called the death of disabled woman Terri Schiavo a "murder" and "arbitrarily hastened." Joaquin Navarro-Valls, spokesman for the Holy See, said of Schiavo's death on Thursday due to court-ordered starvation and dehydration, "nourishing a person can never be regarded as extraordinary therapy." Cardinal Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care, told the I.Media news agency that the death of the American woman qualifies as "murder" and "euthanasia." Terri Schiavo, 41, died in Florida on Thursday, 13 days after the court-ordered withdrawal of a feeding tube. She had suffered a heart attack in 1990, which caused severe brain damage. Last October, her husband Michael had obtained authorization from the courts to disconnect his wife, which was finally done on March 18.