Within the opening pages of In God’s Name I publicly thanked a great many people who had provided me with assistance in a variety of ways during the research for that book. In doing so I was merely repeating a lifelong habit. After naming these individuals I wrote the following:
‘Among those I cannot thank publicly are the people resident within Vatican City who contacted me and initiated my investigation of the events surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I, Albino Luciani. The fact that men and women living within the heart of the Roman Catholic Church cannot speak openly and be identified is an eloquent comment on the state of affairs within the Vatican.’
The hunt by the Curial hierarchy after the book was published was not confined to anonymous informants. The Vatican also went after some of those I had publicly thanked. Precisely how many suffered I do not know but among their number was Father Bartolomeo Sorge SJ, the editor of Civilta Cattolica, described by Vaticanologist Peter Hebblethwaite as ‘a man of impeccable orthodoxy and at the same time an influential figure on the Christian Democratic scene’. He was dispatched from Rome to Palermo. Father Romeo Panciroli had been the long-serving Vatican Press Officer at the time of my research. Less than six months after the initial publication of In God’s Name he was replaced by Navarro-Valls. Panciroli was sent to Africa. One of Navarro-Valls’ first acts was to remove the vital tessera or press card from Phillip Willan. Phillip, a freelance journalist, had acted as one of my primary researchers and interpreters. A journalist in Rome without Vatican accreditation is in for a very lean time. He had presumably been found to be guilty by association. The fact that I alone was responsible for what was written counted as nothing. He was frozen out for the best part of two decades.
During Spring 1998, a new Vatican manual was published with Papal approval. In it there is a warning to all Vatican staff that ‘disclosing pontifical secrets is punishable by instant dismissal’. In light of the above, I have concluded that the overwhelming number of those who so kindly assisted me must remain unidentified. Within the book a number of non-Vatican sources are identified and a bibliography gives the reader an indication of written sources.
Some time in the near future, Pope John Paul II will be beatified. Soon after that event he will be canonised. In life much was claimed for Karol Wojtyla; in death the acclamation has reached such levels that early sainthood cannot be far away for the Pope from ‘the far country’.
What was once the fifth step towards beatification, the nomination of a promotor fidei – in popular language the ‘devil’s advocate’, an individual whose duty it was ‘to point out any flaw or weak points in the evidence adduced, and raise all kind of objections’ – has been abolished. It was revoked by John Paul II. I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation that justifies the abolition. Does the biblical injunction ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ no longer have a place within Christianity in the twenty-first century?
When the beatification process involves a figure as controversial as the late Pope, a rigorous investigation which lays open every facet of Karol Wojtyla’s entire life is paramount. Demonstrably the current rush to sainthood does not envisage exhaustive enquiry. Wojtyla’s lectures and writings in the 1950s on Marxism and Communism in which he spoke and wrote very positively on both Marxism and Liberation Theology are not, as of late 2006, going to be considered. How deeply the extravagant claims that have been made for Pope John Paul II – his fight against the Nazis and subsequently against the Communist regime . . . his creation of Solidarity . . . his achievement in overthrowing European Communism – how deeply these and other acclaimed aspects of the Wojtyla Papacy will be investigated has yet to be established. Before the end of January 2006, the Vatican had received over two million letters concerning ‘the life and virtues of Pope John Paul II’.
Speaking to a gathering of Catholic journalists in the Vatican in December 2002 Karol Wojtyla remarked:
‘What does it mean for a Catholic to be a professional journalist? A journalist must have the courage to search for and tell the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable or not considered politically correct . . .’