"Enough, the fake news lasted too long: Albino Luciani died of a heart attack ".
With these words Stefania Falasca, vice-postulator of the cause of beatification of Pope John Paul I , scheduled for September 4, took a position to definitively silence the rumors that still surround the death of the Venetian pontiff, elected by the conclave on August 26, 1978 and who died. a month later , on September 28th.
"The time of fantasies is over," Falasca said during a press conference at the Vatican. Reference, as mentioned, to the conspiracy rumors and legends that have always surrounded the very short pontificate of the successor of Paul VI, who was succeeded by Karol Wojtyla, who chose the name of John Paul II.
Voices also fueled by books and journalistic inquiries. In 1984, for example, David Yallop published a volume, entitled "In the name of God" , where it was hypothesized that Luciani died of poisoning.
Four years later, however, Giovanni Minoli's program “Mixer” broadcast on Rai 2 an episode entitled “The strange death of Pope Luciani”.
In between, and in the following years, sharp contrasts between John Paul I and the IOR over the methods of managing Vatican finances were especially highlighted. One wondered why an autopsy was never performed. And it came to fear a murder to get rid of a potentially inconvenient pontiff willing to carry out reforms capable of undermining the status quo of the Church.
A few days after her beatification, the vice-postulator Falasca decided, as mentioned, to intervene once and for all to chase away all shadows.
"The autopsy was not performed because it is performed when the death is not clear and in that case it was sudden death which in forensic medicine is always natural death" , added Falasca, explaining that in any case the rules on autopsy were introduced in the Vatican. later, in 1983, by John Paul II.
The evening before - continues the vice-postulator - Pope Luciani had had an episode, a pain in the chest, which "he mistook for an intercostal pain due to the rheumatism he was suffering from". There was a communication problem on the part of the Vatican because they did not immediately say that it was two nuns who first entered the papal apartment and found him dead on the bed. But beyond this - concludes Falasca - "the papers restore the historical truth" also on the death of the Pontiff from Belluno about whom so much has been written in the past.
(Unioneonline / lf)
