Surreally: A Painter Attempts to Assassinate a Pope
And then we take a trip down the rabbit hole
Bolivian surrealist Benjamín Mendoza y Amor Flores probably isn't the first painter who wanted to kill a pope, but he may be the one who came the closest.
On November 27th, 1970, Pope St. Paul VI got off his plane at the Manila International Airport in the Philippines as part of a papal tour that also included Iran, Pakistan, Samoa, Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka. He was the first pope to visit the Philippines.
The usual dignitaries and clergy were present, but one man was not who he seemed to be. Although dressed as priest, Mendoza was, in fact, an aspiring artist. He had lived in various countries, had a few exhibits, and painted some murals, but success had eluded him. An assassination, he thought, was just the thing to boost his career--a kind of surrealist performance art.
Mendoza carried a kris (a dagger with a wavy blade) inscribed with the words "bullets, superstitions, flags, kingdoms, garbage, armies and sh*t." As the pope was greeting people, Mendoza lunged at him with the dagger, striking him once in the chest and twice in the neck. The blows to the neck were ineffective because the pope wore a rigid collar to relieve his cervical spondylosis. Inexplicably, he was also wearing two undershirts that particular day, and the chest wound was light.
A fourth blow was deflected by Archbishop Pasquale Macchi, the pope's secretary. The gigantic American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who stood 6'4" and was built like a linebacker, subdued the attacker. The pope continued with the papal tour and the wounds were not disclosed until after his death.
The artist feigned insanity and claimed at his trial that his goal was to "save mankind from superstition," but later admitted it was a desperate bit for attention. And it worked! Mendoza served 38 months for the attack, then went on to have art exhibits around the world. He said he did it to be famous, and because the pope represented religion, which is superstition. Mendoza was disappointed that he didn't succeed in killing the future saint.
Asked if he would try it again he replied, in halting English, "It's gonna be a pleasure."
Despite this, St. Paul VI forgave him and continued his scheduled appearances, leaving the country on December 5th. It would be his last trip abroad, perhaps for obvious reasons.
Mendoza died in 2014, the same year Paul VI was canonized. At the ceremony, a reliquary containing the pope's bloodstained undershirt from the assassination attempt was unveiled for the first time.
But Wait! There's More!
It would be remiss to pass over Archbishop Marcinkus on this page, since his career had its own oddities. Nicknamed "The Gorilla" for his huge size, +Marcinkus was born in Illinois, and befriended Cardinal Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) while studying in Rome. The connection served him well, as did his fluency in various languages, and he gradually rose in prominence, becoming secretary and then head of the Vatican bank before he turned 50. He would serve in that role for the next 19 years.
Vatican watchers may already see the problem. The Vatican Bank is a snake pit of scandals, and +Marcinkus was not immune from suspicion. He was targeted in various investigations, and the number of scandals that brushed his name only grew over the years until he finally had to step aside. In true curial fashion, this was not to retreat to a life of penance and silence, but to continue on as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State, only retiring the following year.
The year after he saved the pope, communists plotted to kidnap or assassinate him. In 1982, he was present at another papal assassination attempt, when a deranged traditionalist priest attacked Pope St. John Paul II on his trip to Portugal. The pope was visiting Fatima in thanksgiving for surviving being shot the previous year. Fr. Juan María Fernández y Krohn lunged at the pope with a bayonet, shouting "Down with the Pope! Down with the Second Vatican Council!" +Marcinkus, standing nearby, is said to have saved the pope, although accounts vary.
The floridly deranged attacker, who had been expelled from the FSSPX after accusing them of not being rad-trad enough, was excommunicated latae sententiae under canon 1370 as a "person who uses physical force against the Roman Pontiff." He claimed he did it to save the church. He was subsequently arrested for arson (found not guilty) and attempting to breach security to reach the kings of Spain and Belgium during a state visit. He liked to pass out anti-semitic literature so, naturally, he started a blog.
But back to Archbishop Marcinkus, who was eventually embroiled in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. This lint-trap of Vatican money scandals has everything: the controversial Masonic Lodge called "P2" (Propaganda Due), organized crime, CIA funding of the Solidarity movement and the Contras, the murder of banker Gerard Soisson (part of the "Clearstream Affair"), persistent (and false) rumors of yet another papal assassination, and the death of bank chairman Roberto Calvi, found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London. Calvi, who was close to +Marcinkus, was initially thought to be a suicide, but is now widely considered a murder.
Nothing formally connected +Marcinkus directly to any of this, but his name often crops up in conspiracy circles, and he is thus believed by some to have assassinated Pope John Paul I (who was not, in fact, assassinated).
Paul VI gave +Marcinkus the chalice he used in Philippines, engraved with his papal seal and the words “Chalice used by Pope Paul VI in ordination in Manila November 28, 1970. Gift of Paul VI to Paul C. Marcinkus by Paul VI.” It is currently at Mundelein Seminary.
The life of Archbishop Marcinkus had myriad intersections with assassinations and murders, and characters based upon him appear in everything from mob movies to TV shows and plays, but +Marcinko died peacefully in Sun City, Arizona while serving as a simple parish priest.
The Vatican Bank remains a scandalous mess.
