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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Right book, wrong edition, June 18, 2008
This review is from: Murder In The Vatican: The Revolutionary Life Of John Paul And The CIA, Opus Dei And The 1978 Murders (Paperback)
I have read several editions of this book. The 2010 complete edition Murder in the Vatican: The CIA and the Bolshevik Pontiff is basically the same as this 2008 partial edition plus several additional chapters on the Vatican bank murders and the 33-day Pope's intent to support the revolutionaries against the coalition of ruling juntas and the United States in Central America.
As for me, I happened to have been a young seminarian in the Vatican the night the Pope died. As we gathered in the cafeteria, having witnessed a vibrant driving fireball of a man the day before, the assumption was murder and our conversations focused on the two Opus Dei bishops `Murder in the Vatican' implicates in the crime. Both these bishops were made cardinals and promoted past 300 others who outranked them to two of the most powerful positions in the Church shortly after the death of John Paul I.
The author proves that Opus Dei was involved in a conspiracy with factions in the CIA and British Intelligence which carried out the murders of John Paul and a dozen of his closest friends in the fall of 1978. T. Francis Elliott (New York Times) is on the mark, "A monumental work of twentieth century capitalism as it was jointly embraced by the Vatican and the United States and those caught up in it. Top-shelf Vatican-CIA intrigue."
Yet, the legacy of this man is his life and not his death. Particularly enjoyable to me is the recounting of the author's conversations with John Paul when the latter was Bishop of Vittorio Veneto. In recording his many recollections of his struggles as an impoverished child, as a rebellious seminarian, and as an outspoken priest and bishop, Gregoire has preserved for the world an important part of history - something the present rulers in Rome would rather be forgotten. The reason why the Vatican has never commissioned a biography be written of the 33-day pope. The opening line of the `Preface' is clear. "For those of us who knew him, who remember him, I bring nothing new. But for those of us who have allowed the Church's misrepresentations of what he was all about, who have allowed Rome's falsehoods to distort his legacy, I bring a treasure trove of yesterday."
So, yes, I remember him. He was all that you say he was and much more. My hope for a more just Church and a better world died with him.
The first part of `Murder in the Vatican' is the only existing record of this good man's life. The second part is a fast paced action packed thriller of true crime.
Howard Greene (Times) probably said it best, "Like `The Davinci Code', `Murder in the Vatican' will infuriate the devout and other believers in the supernatural. But, unlike Brown, Gregoire has the proof!"
Avoid this 2008 and earlier editions of this book, you will get only get part of the book. Get the 2010 edition on the following link:
Again I strongly reccommend the complete edition: Murder in the Vatican: The CIA and the Bolshevik Pontiff
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Little frozen bodies in a cart, August 12, 2008
This review is from: Murder In The Vatican: The Revolutionary Life Of John Paul And The CIA, Opus Dei And The 1978 Murders (Paperback)
Gregoire does a riveting job in proving it was John Paul's obsession to do away with poverty in the world that cost him his life. He didn't have to go to Africa or China to see it, as he was surrounded by it when he was growing up; the plight of two million bastards - born-out-of-wedlock children condemned by the Church - something which Gregoire brutally portrays - their frozen bodies being collected each morning by a cart. ". . . Only the creaking of the wheels and an occasional thud of a frozen tot broke the quiet of the dawn."
". . . Each time their tiny frozen bodies would pass by in the cart, every priest, nun and brainwashed Christian thought it to be right. The only hint of compassion now and then, 'They are better off dead.' Everyone thought there was something holy about it. After all, it was written in their Holy Bible, these were the worst of children - BASTARDS. . . That is, everyone except Piccolo, the little boy Albino Luciani. He thought it was wrong. He didn't care whether or not it was written in a book. In fact, he knew it was wrong. And he knew it was wrong because his revolutionary socialist atheist anticlerical father had told him it was wrong. . . "
It was this which drove him for twenty years as a bishop to be a rampaging locomotive running about the Vatican, the courts and Parliament of Italy demanding basic human rights for out-of-wedlock children, women, homosexuals, the remarried and the poor; things that must have infuriated right wing elements inside and outside the Church. Particularly, when he made it the central theme of his acceptance speech as recorded in `Murder in the Vatican':
Associated Press, September 29, 1978, Vatican City, Just thirty-three days into his pontificate, Pope John Paul died last evening... Vibrant and on the job to the end, he was sixty-five... the only Pope in history whose death was unwitnessed... On hearing the news, Cardinal Benelli of Florence called for an autopsy... Born of a social revolutionary atheist father who had placed him in a seminary at the age of eleven with the commission to bring change to the Church... What would have been John Paul's papacy is perhaps best defined by the central message of his acceptance speech in the Sistine Chapel, August 27, 1978, "... We must rise up the courage within us and set aside the prejudices that have been built into us by our Christian forefathers and together we will muster the strength to lift those restraints that have been unfairly placed upon the everyday lives of so many innocent people by doctrine... for God-given human life is infinitely more precious than is man-made doctrine..."
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It will rile them up, September 2, 2008
This review is from: Murder In The Vatican: The Revolutionary Life Of John Paul And The CIA, Opus Dei And The 1978 Murders (Paperback)
A God for Lions: World Religions Simplified
The author of this book claims the 33-day Pope (Albino Luciani) often riled up homosexuals encouraging them to stand up for their rights. For example, the author quotes Luciani's letter to Figaro originally published in the NY Times and republished in John Paul's best seller 'Illustrissimi'. I checked 'Illustrissimi' and sure enough the letter was there, word for word.
"Dear Figaro,
Well then, who and what are you my dear Figaro?
A variety of dress? A mixture of feminine and masculine?
Of Orient and Occident?
Poor Figaro, against all these nobles with their coats of arms, these bewigged bourgeois, who themselves do every trespass.
They are no better, perhaps worse, than you. Barber, marriage broker, adviser of pseudo diplomats, yes, ladies and gentlemen, whatever you like.
They demand that you alone be honest in this world of cheats and rogues. Do not accept what they say, my dear Figaro, for you, too, are a citizen.
But, sadly, perhaps, your only solution is in revolution!
Your magical friend,
Albino."
I was drawn to this book by a review in the Globe, "Like the 'DaVinci Code', 'Murder in the Vatican' will infuriate devout Christians and other believers in ghosts and the supernatural. Yet, unlike Brown, Gregoire has the proof."
Look for low grades from enraged nuns.
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