In 1998, the Italian priest Luigi Villa (1918-2012), a doctor in Dogmatic Theology and founder of the magazine Chiesa Viva, published what would become his most famous and explosive work: "Paolo VI… beato?" (Paul VI… Beatified?). Sent to every bishop in Italy and translated into more than ten languages, the volume was presented as a true "devil's advocate process" against the beatification cause of Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Paul VI. Villa claimed to have received, as early as 1963, a direct mission from Saint Pio of Pietrelcina – later confirmed by Pope Pius XII – to dedicate his life to fighting Masonic infiltration within the Catholic Church. The book is the result of nearly forty years of research and access to internal and confidential Vatican sources.
👁️ Masonic Initiation and Career Suspicions
According to Villa's investigations, Montini was allegedly initiated into Freemasonry on August 14, 1942, in a Scottish Rite lodge in Milan, receiving the codename "IAORU 72". The main source cited is the list published in 1978 by journalist Mino Pecorelli, which placed Montini at the top of 125 prelates allegedly involved in Masonry. Villa expands this list to 225 names, reproducing photographs and testimonies from former Masons to corroborate the accusation. Furthermore, the author points to a career marked by suspicion, from a youth in Brescia under modernist influence to his "expulsion" from the Secretariat of State by Pius XII in 1954. Villa publishes unpublished letters suggesting the Pope's criticism of Montini's "rebellion", in addition to mentioning controversial contacts with communists in Poland and the alleged handing over of lists of clandestine priests to the USSR.
🏛️ The Council as a Rupture and the New Mass
Villa maintains the thesis that the Second Vatican Council was planned and executed to create a "new" ecumenical and modernist Church, citing Paul VI's own speech regarding the "auto-demolition of the Church" as an involuntary confession of the disaster. The New Mass (Novus Ordo Missae of 1969) is considered in the work as the pontificate's greatest betrayal. The author criticizes the removal of the explicit sacrificial character, the direct influence of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini — accused of being a Freemason with the codename "Buan" — and the introduction of Protestant elements to the detriment of traditional prayers.
📉 Moral Scandals and Occult Symbology
The work is not limited to theology and reproduces testimonies from Vatican diplomats, such as Franco Bellegrandi, and secular press reports regarding Montini's private life. Alleged improper relationships, nocturnal visits recorded by the police, and even blackmail by Licio Gelli's P2 lodge involving compromising photographs are mentioned. In the symbolic field, Villa highlights the public use of Masonic elements, such as the "broken" cross staff used by Paul VI, the use of the liturgical Ephod similar to that of the Jewish High Priest, and the construction of monuments with esoteric symbology, such as the "all-seeing eye," associated with the pontiff.
⚖️ Theological Conclusion and Historical Legacy
From a theological standpoint, Villa invokes Saint Robert Bellarmine to state that a pope who promotes public heresy or permits the destruction of the Faith automatically loses his office. For him, Paul VI would have objectively acted as a "heretical pope," which would prevent his elevation to the altars. The book's impact was significant, managing to delay the beatification process for nearly two decades. Although no cardinal publicly responded to the accusations at the time, the work remains the most cited reference by traditionalists and critics of the Council, standing as a historical document of one of the Church's most convulsive periods, read and debated decades after its publication.
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