EPILOGUE
When I first contacted the author to write
this book, the most important requirement was that he had to mix
fact and fiction. Why? The answer was simple. I knew from my own
experience that that’s the way real life happens. Many historical
truths that we consider authentic are no more than mere fictions.
The set of circumstances surrounding the death of John Paul I is an
example and, believe me, not the only one.
I must confess that the result surprised me
very positively. Fact and fiction did mix adequately. With this
artifice, it wasn’t my intention to ask readers to use their own
means to distinguish fact from fiction. I just wanted them to know
that not everything that has been said with an open smile, or with
a look of deep despair, is the truth.
In these pages the author has created a
character who represents me and honors me. I am grateful to him for
the skill he showed in developing the plot, using me for his own
purpose, as well as mine.
With all the conspiracy theories about the
death of John Paul I that have been generated over the past thirty
years, I’ve enjoyed staying in the shadows, particularly with all
those experts commenting on it as if they were sole proprietors of
the truth.
The institutions were not to blame, but rather
the people who constituted them or worked for them.
I was a member of the P2 Loggia, and as a
human being I am not, nor do I pretend to be, immune to sin or to
making mistakes.
However, don’t fool yourselves. Only God will
be my judge.
—J.C.