Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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According to Yallop, the murder was triggered by the Pope's decision to purge the troubled Vatican Bank and cleanse the church of alleged ties with a clandestine Italian Masonic lodge called Propaganda Due, or P2. In breathless prose, the author surveys his lineup of suspects and their supposed motives. There was the late Jean Cardinal Villot, the Vatican Secretary of State, who Yallop claims had learned he would be replaced and who was upset that John Paul was allegedly considering loosening the church's prohibition on artificial birth control; Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank...
...according to Yallop, "advised, argued and remonstrated, but to no avail." Yallop speculates that the Pope was poisoned, perhaps by someone tampering with a bottle of low-blood-pressure medicine called Effortil that the author says John Paul I kept at his bedside. Yallop insists that inconsistencies in the Vatican's account of the papal death and the absence of an autopsy point to a coverup...
...written several investigative books, including a biography of Fatty Arbuckle, in which he exonerates the comedian of involvement in a starlet's death, spent three years researching In God's Name. Still, the theory is hardly fresh. An even more astounding tale swirled about the Vatican immediately after John Paul I died: that the first attempt to slip the Pope a poisoned cup of tea had gone awry and killed a guest instead. Moreover, there was nothing unusual about the lack of an autopsy after John Paul I's death: autopsies are never performed on Popes...
Perhaps because Opus members are typically reticent about their affiliation and many internal matters of the organization, the movement is constantly knocking down wild, unsubstantiated ru mors about its supposed immense wealth and power. Even within the Vatican, there is disagreement about Opus Dei, al though three top-ranking Cardinals are counted among its strong supporters. One veteran official in Rome says there is "a sharp division" at his congregation (a Vatican Cabinet ministry) between defenders of Opus Dei and doubters. He guesses the doubters are a slight majority...
...events of the past three years have enhanced Opus' stature. In 1981, the Vatican took the first steps toward the canonization of Opus' founder, Spanish Monsignor Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer, who died in 1975. Sainthood would vindicate the movement's creation under "divine inspiration," as the Pope has described it, since Escrivá's personality, words and works are the essence of Opus...