Pope John Paul I conspiracy theories John Paul I, he mysteriously dies. In "The Company: A Novel of the CIA" by Robert Littell, Pope John Paul I is murdered by a KGB hired killer. 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
Reformation Papacy or Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church. Lutherans, Reformed, Anabaptists, and Methodists all included references to the Papacy as the Antichrist in their confessions of faith: Smalcald Articles, Article four (1537) Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1537) Westminster Confession (1646) The Catholic Church did not mount an organized and deliberate response to the Protestant Reformation until the election (1534) of Pope Paul III, who placed the papacy itself at the head of a movement for churchwide reform. Pope Paul III established a reform commission, appointed several leading reformers to the College of Cardinals, initiated reform