Pope John Paul I conspiracy theories Pope John Paul I conspiracy theories Pope John Paul I died suddenly in September 1978, 33 days after his election. Following contradictory reports about the circumstances of his death and apparent anomalies about the issuing of the death certificate and other procedures, several conspiracy theories have gained currency. Many of these concern the serious corruption in the Vatican Bank (Istituto per le Opere Religiose), possibly linked to Freemasonry, which is forbidden by church law. None of the claims have been substantiated. Discrepancies in the Vatican's account of the events surrounding John Paul I's death – its inaccurate statements about who
History of the papacy Pope Pius IX into the Tiber river on July 13, 1881. The pope even considered moving the papacy to Trieste or Salzburg, two cities under Austrian control, an idea which the Austrian monarch Franz Josef I gently rejected. His encyclicals changed Church positions on relations with temporal authorities, and, in the 1891 encyclical "Rerum novarum" addressed for the first time social inequality and social justice issues with Papal authority. He was greatly influenced by Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, a German bishop who openly propagated siding with the suffering working classes Since Leo XIII, Papal teachings expand on the right and