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This episode includes discussions of death and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health and suicide, visit Spotify.com slash resources. On Easter Sunday, 2025, an estimated 50,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, hoping to get a glance of Pope Francis.
He hadn't appeared in front of a crowd that large since being hospitalized for bronchitis and pneumonia earlier in the year. But this was the final day of Holy Week. He cast aside any worry for his own health and delivered an Easter blessing before taking to the square in his Popemobile. Then, on Monday, news broke that he had passed away that morning at the age of 88.
Just hours later, the Vatican reported on Pope Francis's cause of death, a stroke followed by a coma and heart failure. In fact, they released a good deal of information on his final hours. Perhaps that's because Pope Francis was widely considered an honest and direct leader. Or maybe they've learned that secrecy surrounding the death of a pope can feed into conspiracy theories.
Because in 1978, John Paul I died under mysterious circumstances just 33 days after becoming the Pope. And to this day, rumors persist that his death wasn't what it seemed. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast.
I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. And we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.
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In late August 1978, the world awaited news from the Sistine Chapel. There, 111 cardinals were ready to vote for the next pope. This meeting was shrouded in complete secrecy, but here was one main rumor that circulated about the process.
As the story goes, Cardinal Jaime Sinn believed 65-year-old Italian Cardinal Albino Luciani was the top choice. At one point, Sinn even assured Luciani saying "you will be the new pope." And Sinn apparently wasn't the only one. Many of his colleagues seemed to agree.
After four voting rounds, Luciani amassed an overwhelming majority, about 90 out of 111 votes. The cardinals had made their choice. Albino Luciani was the new pope. But as they celebrated, Luciani didn't appear happy. Instead, he seemed overwhelmed. When asked if he formally accepted the position, he hesitated before agreeing.
Then, Luchani reluctantly named himself Pope John Paul I. According to the rumor, soon after the election, Haimei-Sin visited the new pontiff. The Holy Father supposedly admitted to him, "You were a prophet, but my reign will be a short one." If there's any truth to the story, Pope John Paul I was right.
And when he died just 33 days into his papacy, many believed foul play was involved. To get to the heart of this theory, we have to go back to 1922, when a 10-year-old Luciani decided he wanted to be a man of God.
That year, during the observance of Lent, his Italian mountain village had a visitor, a friar from a devout Catholic group called the Capuchin Franciscans. They lived a lot like monks and traveled to poor areas to help feed and care for those living below the poverty line. From a very young age, Luciani wanted to help the less fortunate.
Now, he watched in amazement as the friar preached the Lenten sermons to the community. It was at that moment he realized he wanted to become a priest. His mother, a devout Roman Catholic, suggested he attend a minor seminary. Before long, Luciani was deeply immersed in his studies and on his way to joining the priesthood. He earned a reputation for being a well-liked, modest man.
Even the church's leadership noticed this, which helped him ascend the ranks quickly. In 1958, Luciani was ordained as a bishop. And when the Patriarch of Venice died in 1969, then Pope Paul VI called on Luciani to replace him. Patriarchs are a special type of archbishop handpicked by the Pope.
The Patriarch of Venice, in particular, was in charge of nine dioceses in northwestern Italy. In other words, this was a massive promotion. It's said that Luciani's bishops were loyal and enjoyed working with him. Together they collaborated on humanitarian work, which benefited many of the locals, especially the underprivileged. They relied on funds from the Catholic Bank of Veneto to support the diocese.
Clergy even called Veneto the priest's bank because the financial institution did them many favors. But this wasn't just out of the goodness of their hearts. Veneto was close to the Vatican's personal bank, the Institute for the Works of Religion, which held a majority share in the Veneto Bank. In mid-1972, the Catholic Bank of Veneto became a special focus for Luciani
All because the Vatican Bank's president, American Bishop Paul Marcinkus, sold a majority of their shares in the Veneto Bank to someone else. And the new owner was not a saintly man. He was a financial mogul named Roberto Calvi. Calvi was the general manager of Italy's biggest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano.
He was a wealthy loner who was extremely private about his life and his business dealings. Now, with the Veneto shares in his hands, the men of God would financially be at his whim. The bank could hinder the clergy's religious work. Needless to say, the Venetian priests and bishops were extremely upset. They had to do something.
They hoped Pope Paul VI would fire Marcinkus for selling off the Veneto shares. But they couldn't just march into the Vatican and make those demands. They needed to abide by the Catholic hierarchy. The only person who seemingly could communicate that to the pontiff was their archbishop and patriarch, Albino Luciani.
So, one day in 1972, the region's bishop spoke to Luciani at his office in Venice's St. Mark's Square, laying out their demands. He did his best to calm the bishops, promising he'd find out more about the partnership between Marsinkas and Calvi. Luciani learned that Pope Paul VI was very close to Marsinkas.
The Holy Father had been loyal to him ever since the bishop saved him from a knife attack in the Philippines two years prior. So, Luchani couldn't just ask him to fire Marsinkis over the Calvi sail simply because it made his bishops angry.
he needed to find evidence of a real conspiracy. According to author David Yallop, he began by visiting his good friend, Bishop Giovanni Benelli in Rome. Benelli was a secretariat of state assistant who was known for his wit and sharpness.
Close to the inner workings of the Holy See, Benelli was also privy to many of the Pope's secrets, which he reportedly had no problem spilling under the right circumstances. Over coffee one day, Luciani asked Benelli if he knew why the Vatican had sold off the
As Yallop reported, the bishop claimed the Catholic Bank of Veneto sale was part of a scheme coordinated by Calvi and Marcinkus. Calvi supposedly paid Marcinkus around $45 million for those Veneto bank shares, which allegedly helped line his own pockets.
It's not entirely clear why Calvi wanted the shares, but his main goal always seemed to be making more money for himself. In another seemingly separate deal, the Vatican Bank purchased shares of Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi's bank,
Officially, the Vatican owned 1.8%, but authorities later found out it may have been much more. According to Yallop, this revelation baffled Luciani. He returned to Venice feeling disappointed and told his bishops there was nothing he could do to fix the situation.
Rumors spread that he held a grudge against Marsinkas, although years later, Marsinkas himself denied this. So, Luciani continued his work for the diocese. Then on September 16th, 1972, he hosted a very important visitor in Venice, Pope Paul VI. The pontiff even stayed with Luciani and the two led mass together.
In press photos of the historic event, Pope Paul VI is seen gesturing to the crowd with his arms outstretched. It's unclear what the Pope and Patriarch discussed in private during that visit, or if Calvi's banking scheme ever came up at all. Either way, Luciani seemed to move on, and soon moved up in the Catholic Church.
Six months later, in March 1973, the Pope offered 60-year-old Luciani the role of cardinal. In Catholicism, the Pope chooses cardinals to assist him, but they're also responsible for electing new pontiffs. With his newly minted title, Luciani supposedly entertained another familiar guest in Venice that May...
the Secretariat of State Assistant, Bishop Giovanni Benelli. This time, Luciani didn't pry any further into the Vatican's affairs, but according to Yallop, Benelli was about to spill more secrets. Cardinal Albino Luciani, who would later become Pope John Paul I, reportedly sat down with Bishop Giovanni Benelli again in 1973.
According to author David Yallop, on this occasion, Benelli talked about another financial scandal that may have involved Bishop Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank. The story went something like this. Back in the United States, FBI officials specializing in organized crime and racketeering had paid a visit to Marcinkus' office.
They were investigating $14.5 million worth of counterfeit bonds that had been produced by the New York mafia and delivered to Rome. They were afraid their final destination might be the Vatican.
And they believed Marcinkus allegedly had something to do with it. Both Marcinkus and the Vatican Bank operated under tight secrecy, so it was hard to infiltrate and gather documents. Eventually, the U.S. Justice Department determined there wasn't enough evidence to charge him or anyone else with the crime. They had to put the case to bed.
But everything changed five years later in the summer of 1978. On August 6th, Pope Paul VI died of complications from a heart attack. A few weeks later, on August 26th, the voting body of Catholic cardinals assembled to choose the next pope. This gathering is referred to as the papal conclave, and the process is veiled in secrecy.
But we do know a few things. According to the Wall Street Journal, cardinals couldn't campaign to become pope
Instead, other cardinals in the conclave discussed and voted until a two-thirds majority was reached. The papal conclave considered several candidates to take the role of pope, including Benelli, who'd recently been promoted to cardinal. As Pope Paul VI's protege and close friend, he seemed like a natural choice. But there was just one problem.
At 57 years old, many considered Benelli too young to become pontiff. Historically, most popes were age 60 and above. So the papal conclave instead chose between 65-year-old Ducani and four other candidates. In the first round, the votes were split evenly.
But by round three, Luciani was the clear frontrunner. According to Time magazine, the cardinals wanted to elect a humble man who got along with everyone. Luciani best fit that description. On the first day of the papal conclave, he won the fourth round with roughly 90 out of 111 votes. Luciani was stunned.
The cardinals had chosen him as the new pope. When an official asked if he accepted the honor, Luciani sat in silence, tense and hesitating. Finally, he accepted and said, quote, May God forgive you for what you have done in my regard. It's not entirely clear what Luciani meant by that, but maybe he knew something.
Everyone else didn't. He chose the name Pope John Paul I in honor of the two holy fathers who helped him ascend the church's ranks, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. That same day, the Vatican announced Luciani's papacy and his new name to the crowd outside St. Peter's Square. Everyone cheered as they welcomed the new pontiff.
Unlike many of his predecessors, Pope John Paul I retained his modest and humble nature even as the head of the Catholic Church. Instead of a traditional coronation ceremony, he held an inauguration similar to American presidents. He didn't have time for glamorous perks as the Catholic Church's supreme pontiff,
He was now the leader of Vatican City, which is technically a small country of its own. That meant he could make all the personnel changes he wanted, which included replacing the Vatican Bank president. But first, the new pope concerned himself with helping the world at large. On Italian radio, he announced his six-point plan for the Vatican city.
It included promoting church unity, preaching the gospel, revising some laws, and helping the poor. He didn't get very far into his agenda. On Thursday, September 28th, 1978, the Pope woke to a typical day. He prayed and led mass in the morning. Then he retired to his apartment for the remainder of the afternoon. The facts after this are fuzzy, but here's what we know for sure.
Around 7 p.m., the Pope appeared to have chest pains but didn't want to call a doctor. Instead, he had a few meetings, ate dinner, and went to his bedroom around 9.30 p.m. The next morning at 5.10 a.m., the Vatican nuns left the pontiff's coffee outside his apartment, per usual.
Only, he never came out to drink it. They knew something was amiss. According to Stefania Falasca, vice president of the John Paul I Vatican Foundation, a Sister Vincenza knocked on his bedroom door, but there was no answer. She then sent for help. However, there's conflicting information that comes from the Vatican.
They publicly claimed the pontiff's secretary, John McGee, went into the room that morning and made the discovery himself. Whoever it was, they found Pope John Paul I sitting up in bed with his eyes closed. At first, it looked like he'd fallen asleep reading, but when they touched his hands, they were ice cold. They rushed to inform the senior staff around 5.25 a.m.
Later that day, McGee announced to the world that Pope John Paul I was dead. He'd spent just 33 days in office. Needless to say, the Catholic community was shaken. In this clip from a 1978 interview, Bishop John Taylor remembers the Pope fondly. What came across was great humanity, humor, a warmth, and a sharp intelligence.
And later I saw the extraordinary communication that he had with ordinary people, with a crowd. He was going to be a people's pope, I think.
A reporter from UK-based Independent Television News also asked Archbishop Donald Coggin for his reaction. Well, naturally enough, it was one of great shock for he'd been in his office so short a time and none of us knew that he was at all ill. The Vatican Health Service's Dr. Renato Buzanetti later estimated the Pope's death was due to a heart attack.
But some Italians doubted the fact that he died of natural causes and questioned why no autopsy had been performed. Conspiracy theories gradually emerged, suggesting that the Pope might have known too much, that his investigation into the sale of shares between the Vatican Bank and Banco Ambrosiano had made him a target.
and that Marcinkus, Calvi, an Italian secret society, and the Mafia all conspired to kill Pope John Paul I. After Pope John Paul I's papacy was cut short in 1978, the Vatican publicly responded to questions and concerns about the cause of his death,
They insisted that multiple doctors working for the Vatican were certain this was a heart attack. But not all members of the public were so sure. Especially since, according to one Italian newspaper, the Pope had no known medical history of heart problems. There was also suspicion surrounding the Holy See's decision to forego an autopsy.
To this, the Vatican responded, "Doctors felt certain that such a procedure wouldn't reveal any more information." Apparently, these attempts to clarify the situation couldn't put a stop to the conspiracy theory that Pope John Paul I's death wasn't natural.
But before we dive in, it's important to understand the historical climate that allowed this theory to form. Throughout the 1970s, tensions between the far left and the far right political factions in Italy escalated into terrorism. It was a tumultuous period Italians refer to as the Years of Lead. Each side of this political movement resorted to violence.
bombing trains and banks, sometimes even killing officials in broad daylight. In March of 1978, a neo-fascist group kidnapped and murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in cold blood. Afterward, Italy was abuzz with conspiracies about Aldo Moro's murder.
Since politics and religion were deeply intertwined, the same thing happened when Pope John Paul I died in September of that year. Italians questioned everything, and suspected foul play was involved. It didn't help that there were so many discrepancies in the story, specifically pertaining to who found Pope John Paul I the morning after he died.
Then, in 1978, another scandal made headlines. Banco Ambrosiano's top shareholder, the Bank of Italy, published a report that Ambrosiano was headed for a crash due to mismanagement and corruption. The police were now looking closely at the bank's owner, Roberto Calvi.
In 1981, authorities found evidence of his financial schemes and convicted him of illegal currency dealings. He was sentenced to four years in prison, but he appealed it and eventually got released while waiting for a new trial. Except Calvi wasn't out of the woods yet. His investors soon learned that Banco Ambrosiano had more debts than it could pay for.
It resulted in an even bigger scandal that implicated the Vatican and tangentially involved Pope John Paul I. In June of 1982, Banco Ambrosiano finally collapsed with over $1.4 billion in debt, and Calvi had no way to pay it back. The next day,
Calvi was discovered hanging from scaffolding with pieces of bricks and an assortment of national currencies in his pocket. The authorities said he died by suicide, but many believed Calvi had been murdered. Calvi was notorious for his shady dealings, but one of the biggest was the deal he had struck with the Vatican Bank President Paul Marcinkus.
Marcinkus was on Banco Ambrosiano's Board of Overseas Operations. His job description wasn't entirely clear, but through it, Marcinkus and Calvi became close personal friends. They supposedly even took a lavish vacation together to the Bahamas. Apparently, their partnership was the reason why the Vatican bought a small portion of Calvi's bank to begin with. Only,
Calvi never told the Vatican Bank that he was taking their money to lend to holding companies in Latin America and the Caribbean. Supposedly, he felt this was the way to increase Banco Ambrosiano's stock price. But it failed. Because Calvi was so shady and guarded, it's hard to say exactly how his machinations worked.
We aren't even sure how much Vatican funds were tied up in this scheme since Calvi made the money untraceable. However, Marcinkus denied he ever knew about the company's establishment. But this got people wondering how deep did Calvi's scheming go and who else got caught in the crosshairs? Among those questioning was author David Yallop. Yallop was a true crime writer who seemed to have an obsession with the Vatican.
In 1984, he alleged Pope John Paul I was killed in his book In God's Name, an investigation into the murder of Pope John Paul I. Naturally, it stirred up controversy, and the book ended up on the New York Times bestseller list for 15 straight weeks. Yallop claimed that in the 1960s, as Pope John Paul I was climbing the ranks of the Catholic Church,
Roberto Calvi was joining an Italian secret society called Propaganda Due, or P2. P2 was an extremely clandestine faction of Italian Freemasons. Supposedly, they were staunch far-right wing believers who wanted to make Italy fascist again.
During the Years of Lead, the group organized terrorist bombings and was involved in political scandals. P2's list of members was secret, but Yallop believed that Roberto Calvi, as well as another banker named Michele Sindona were among its members. Together, the two magnates strategized to make as much money as possible through shady deals.
Yallop claimed they made illegal deposits, created fake foreign companies, and regularly manipulated the Italian stock market. But their scheme allegedly reached new heights in 1971. That year, Pope Paul VI appointed American Bishop Paul Marcinkus as president of the Vatican Bank, and Sindona happened to be close friends with Marcinkus.
Yallop claims Sindona introduced Marcinkus to Calvi in a meeting later that year, and Marcinkus agreed to participate in their corrupt enterprises, especially if it would financially benefit him as well. Before long, the Vatican Bank had made the controversial purchase of several shares of Banco Ambrosiano.
Now, thanks to Marcinkus, the Vatican had connections to other questionable groups as well, such as P2 and the American Mafia, who ran the counterfeit bond scheme we mentioned earlier. But these men weren't untouchable.
In 1972, the Patriarch of Venice, Albino Luciani, learned about the shady banking deal. According to Yallop, Marcinkus, Calvi, and Sindona believed Luciani would seek revenge against them one day. And that moment seemed to come six years later when Luciani became Pope John Paul I. According to Yallop, Marcinkus thought the new pope was suspicious of him.
And if he lost his powerful position as Vatican Bank President, he'd lose access to the Pope's finances, which were crucial to Calvi's schemes and his efforts to line his own pockets. But if the Pope died, Marcinkus could keep his job, and Calvi and Sindona's schemes could continue. Which is why Yallop concluded one of these men could have killed the Pope with poison.
Yallop suggested this would have been quite easy. He believed the Vatican wasn't well guarded, meaning any of these men could have gotten in. In fact, Yallop even tested this theory himself. He claimed that one evening he breached the walls of the Vatican deliberately carrying a suitcase that looked like a bomb. Apparently, he made it past the perimeter...
without anyone noticing him. But there were many flaws in the rest of Yallop's so-called investigation. He lacked specificity when it came to fleshing out the facts. New York Times journalist Paul Hoffman pointed out that Yallop's sources were either nameless or dead. And as we just heard, he had rather unconventional methods for researching his story.
That's because he wasn't a traditional investigative journalist. He was a writer for British TV shows like the BBC soap opera EastEnders, and he was later fired from the TV series for pitching egregiously violent storylines. His work even seemed to annoy the Vatican itself. According to the New York Times, the Vatican said, quote,
It is shocking and deplorable that anyone could so much as think, let alone publish, theories of this kind. Five years later, in 1989, an award-winning journalist named John Cornwell published a book called "A Thief in the Night: Life and Death in the Vatican." Cornwell cited all of his sources and interviewed many key figures, including Marcinkus, who denied all fraud allegations.
In another chapter, Cornwell talked to Don Diego Lorenzi, who was Pope John Paul I's Italian secretary. Lorenzi disputed Yallop's claim that Vatican security could be easily breached. Plus, Lorenzi recalled the Pope didn't have any visitors the night he died.
He said, quote, "There are only two entrances to the papal apartments, and they are guarded both day and night." Unless, of course, someone managed to jump from St. Peter's Square straight into his bedroom. As for the poisoning, Cornwell spoke to an impartial expert, vascular surgeon and Yale professor Dr. C. Francis Rowe, who didn't think it was possible.
Rowe pointed out that if Pope John Paul I ingested a toxin, there would be obvious evidence of the trauma. However, when the staff found his body, it seemed as though he had died reading peacefully. Dr. Buzanetti, who theorized the Pope's leading cause of death, agreed. He didn't think it was remotely possible that the pontiff was poisoned. No one even alerted him that the Pope might have been in pain that night.
While Cornwell's books seem to fully debunk Yallop's theory,
The conspiracy theories lived on for over three decades. As of this recording, Pope John Paul I is in the process of canonization to achieve Catholic sainthood. There are three steps before he can fully be canonized. First, he must be considered venerable, then blessed before becoming a saint. Pope John Paul I posthumously achieved the first step in 2017,
Five years later, in 2022, the late Pope Francis moved his predecessor one step closer to sainthood to the second stage, blessed. In his sermon, the Holy Father focused on Pope John Paul I's humble, upbeat nature, pushing aside any wild conspiracies from the previous decades. He said, quote, "'How beautiful is a church with a happy, serene, and smiling face,'
that never closes doors, never hardens hearts, never complains or harbors resentments, isn't angry, does not look dour or suffer nostalgia for the past. Thank you for watching Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at TheConspiracyPod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts.
Amongst the many sources we used, we found A Thief of the Night, Life and Death in the Vatican by John Cornwell, The September Pope by Stefania Falasca, and In God's Name by David Yallop, extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth.
This episode was written by Mallory Cara, edited by Wendelin Sabrozo, Lori Gottlieb, and Miki Taylor. Researched by Bradley Klein, fact-checked by Kevin Johnson and Lori Siegel, engineering by Sam Amezcua, and video editing and sound design by Ryan Contra. I'm your host, Carter Roy.