Episode 562: Firing Line - Malachi Martin - Mission of the Pope

Taped on September 6, 1978. There's a frisson, in retrospect, in learning that the new pope being discussed on this show is not John Paul II but his predecessor, John Paul I, who would die just a month after his election. But for now, Malachi Martin gives us a breathless and detail-filled account of why Pope Paul VI had sought to appease the Communists ("because he was persuaded that he couldn't stop the advent of Communist parties ... [either in Europe or in Latin America] and hence his idea was, 'Let's survive by making friends'"), what the election of Albino Luciani as John Paul I portended, and how the conclave that elected him actually proceeded ("And Wyszynski, this Pole whom the Romans have always referred to contemptuously as 'Our Holy Father of Central Europe,' he sort of steamrolls over everybody. Having dealt with Gomulka and Gierek in the Stalinist period in Poland, he's a strong man. He and Wojtyla of Krakow and a man called Josef Hoffner, a strong arrogant German cardinal--I'm sure his arrogance stems from his desire for the Kingdom of God, but that's his reputation--and Ratzinger and then the four Spanish cardinals ... came in and said, 'No way. We won't accept your candidate or the policy'").