In The Godfather: Part III, a shady deal between the Mafia and the Vatican leads to the murder of the pope. Was this based on a true story? Possibly. On the morning of September 29, 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead, sitting up in his bed, after only 33 days in office. Although Vatican officials claimed the 65-year-old pope died of a heart attack, there was never an autopsy, and at the time, the Vatican definitely had ties to organized crime. Sure enough, in 1982, Vatican Bank president Father Paul Marcinkus resigned from his post after a series of scandals exposed the bank’s ties to the Mafia. Eventually, the bank had to repay more than $200 million to its creditors. But Marcinkus was never indicted of a crime, and though he was suspected of being involved in several mysterious deaths, including Pope John Paul I’s, Marcinkus successfully claimed diplomatic immunity in the United States and retired to Arizona in 1990, and died there 16 years later.
While priests can absolve a sin as serious as murder (according to the Church), there are five specific sins that require absolution from the Apostolic Penitentiary. This secretive tribunal has met off and on for the past 830 years, but in January 2009, for the first time ever, its members held a press conference to discuss their work.
Three of the five sins they contemplate can only be committed by the clergy. If you’re a priest who breaks the seal of confession, a priest who offers confession to his own sexual partners, or a man who has directly participated in an abortion and wants to become a priest, then your case must go before the tribunal to receive absolution. The other two sins can be committed by anyone.
The first, desecrating the Eucharist, is particularly bad because Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ. Messing with them is like messing with Jesus. And then, there’s the sin of attempting to assassinate the pope. That one’s pretty self-explanatory.
The most fascinating aspect of the Vatican is the archives. Some say the Vatican’s secret archives haven’t been truly secret since Pope Leo XIII first allowed scholars to visit in 1881. Today, it’s even more accessible. Outsiders are free to examine the correspondences of every pope for the past 1,000 years, although there is one catch: Guests have to know exactly what they’re looking for. With 52 miles of shelves in the archives, the librarians prohibit browsing.
The most famous existing letter is probably Henry VIII’s request that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon be annulled, which Pope Clement VII denied. Henry divorced Catherine anyway and married Anne Boleyn (and four other women), leading to Rome’s break with the Church of England. The archives also contain an abundance of red ribbons, which were used to bind 85 petitions from English clergyman and aristocrats.
Virtually all Roman Catholic conspiracy theories connect to the Vatican’s Secret Archives. The archives are housed in a section of the Vatican Library, adjacent to the Vatican Museum, at the northern boundary of Vatican City. The Archives have their own website, operated by the Vatican, which states that the documents housed inside pertain to such boring matters as papal expenditure accounts, state correspondence, individual correspondence, including original letters written by Michelangelo Buonarroti to Pope Julius II and other Catholic authorities.
The conspiracy theory, however, is interested in more mysterious matters. Given that the Archives are estimated to house 53 miles of books, there are sure to be some intriguing finds inside. But why would an institution as powerful as the Roman Catholic Church feel the need to keep these documents secret? Are they afraid of what might happen if the public should learn of certain information? That is what the conspiracy theorists believe.
Some of the more broadly sweeping theories claim documentation of the Jesus bloodline; secular historical proof of Jesus’s existence, in the form of correspondence between Saint Paul and Emperor Nero; secular historical proof via the same correspondence that Jesus did not exist; contemporary depictions of Jesus (that is to say, formal portraits of Jesus made by people who actually saw and depicted him in real life, whereas the earliest known depictions of Jesus, which clearly intended to represent him directly, date from the late 2nd Century AD).
This line of the theory can go on ad infinitum, and has accused the Church of hiding proof in the Archives of the existence of various Biblical relics, either the relics themselves, or reliable documentation as to their whereabouts, including the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the True Cross, the truth about the Shroud of Turin, and many others.
Absolutely no one is allowed into the Archives, not even Cardinals. It is not well explained, on the Archives’ website, whether the Pope is allowed to go in or not. Anyone who wants to see a document from the Archives must ask in advance, and thus, must know in advance if such a document even exists. The only four people on earth known to have access to the Archives are Cardinals Raffaele Farina (the Archivist, or Librarian), Jorge Maria Mejia and Luigi Poggi (Archivists Emeriti), and Prefect of the Secret Archives Sergio Pagano. There is only one entrance into the Archives: from the main library, go by way of Porta Angelica, through Porta di Santa Anna. The Vatican Swiss Guard patrols this entrance at all times. It should be noted that contrary to the beliefs of those who hold to this theory, the documents in the Vatican archives which relate to Popes who reigned 75 years earlier are made available to the public. This most recently happened in 2006 when Pope Benedict XVI gave permission for the viewing of all documents relating to the reign of Pope Pius XI. This theory is likely to gain in popularity with the release of yet another film based on the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.
Ouroboros 