Pope John Paul I (October 17, 1912 – September 28, 1978)

The sudden demise of Pope John Paul I is one of the most mysterious of deaths in the 20th century. It has always been rumoured to be a murder by poisoning.

In his book When the Bullet Hits the Bone published in 2019, Anthony Raimondi, a nephew of Lucky Luciano, says he helped his cousin Archbishop Paul Marcinkus kill the pope by putting valium in his tea to knock him out, then poisoning him with cyanide. The reason given was that John Paul had allegedly threatened to expose “a massive stock fraud run by Vatican insiders”. Raimondi says that plans were made to also assassinate John Paul II had the latter decided to expose the fraud. Raimondi says that “If they take [the pope’s body] and do any type of testing, they will still find traces of the poison in his system.”

Pope John Paul I Conspiracy Theories

But does the ‘death’ chart prove that rumour to be true?

It’s an impressive chart by anyone’s standards. All the planets and lights are below the horizon and the bucket starts with Jupiter @ 4° Leo and ends with Neptune @ 15° Sagittarius. The handle is the Midheaven @ 2° Pisces. It is also the apex of a Yod formed from an inconjunct with Jupiter, on one side, and an inconjunct with the Sun/Mercury conjunction, on the other. The Ascendant is 27° Gemini.

So, just to be clear, I am in ‘two minds’ about the proof. If the Moon and Saturn hadn’t been in opposition to the Midheaven, this might have been an ‘open-and-shut’ case. The trines from Mars @ 6° Scorpio and the Ascendant (to the Midheaven) keep nagging at me to look for more clues. By rights, Mars in Scorpio is enough to suggest that the rumour is true. It also turns out that Neptune is actually transiting Pope John Paul I’s natal 12th house, conjunct his natal Ascendant @ 19° Sagittarius:

And the ‘fatal’ Ascendant is only 2° from his natal Pluto. (Please note that there were two inconjuncts in his natal chart: Mercury Inconjunct Mars; and Uranus Inconjunct Pluto.) Hmm.