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To answer these questions we need to consider what had occurred earlier that year of the interview, i.e. during the spring of 1988. Researchers in Texas headed by Gary Giuffré, determined to track down the true pope, had sent a Vietnamese priest (and refugee), Fr. Peter Tran Van Khoat, on a mission to Italy in search of Cardinal Siri. Unable to find him in Genoa, Fr. Khoat, assisted by friends and other Vietnamese Catholics, managed to locate him in Rome at a convent where he was saying Mass. Under the pretext of needing a signature from Siri, Fr. Khoat managed to meet with the object of his search for about five minutes. What transpired was later related by the priest personally to Jim Condit Jr., who passed most of it on to us years ago over the telephone. An account of his conversation with Fr. Khoat is also posted, as part of a longer article, several places on the internet.
According to this, Fr. Khoat asked Siri the big question “Are you the Pope?” at least twice, only to get a negative answer. Finally, the Vietnamese priest really laid it on: he told Siri that if he had consecrated Russia to Our Lady as requested at Fatima, his bishop would not have been killed and his country would not have fallen to the Communists.
Now Siri appeared stricken to the point of tearing up.
At this point Fr. Khoat became even more explicit. “You are the Pope, not de facto, but de jure (i.e. he was the lawful Pope, but did not in fact rule from the Vatican).”
“You already know it,” Siri said.
(Let us note here that when this writer first heard those words articulated by Condit over the telephone, what came to mind was the scene during the Passion when Pilate asked Christ, Who was at that point bound and crowned with thorns, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Siri’s own answer seemed an echo of Our Lord’s response as recorded in the gospels: “Thou sayest it.”)
Next Fr. Khoat told Siri to come with him immediately, that he had plane tickets for him to go to America, where people were waiting to help him. But Siri said that would be impossible. He could not go, because “they” could –– and would — kill him at any time. Instead he told the Vietnamese to return at 8 p.m. that evening when his secretary would be gone. Reportedly Fr. Khoat did just that. He also visited Siri yet a third time, when he brought along a fellow priest, Msgr. Carlo Taramasso, an Italian who had also worked for some time in the U.S.
Whereas Fr. Khoat would return to his Vietnamese flock in America, Msgr. Taramasso would linger in Italy within reach of Siri. In March of the following year, 1989, however, after being visited by Cardinal Casaroli, a high-ranking prelate accused of being a Freemason, he died mysteriously. Not long afterwards, Gary Giuffré, having traveled to Italy, spoke with the deceased’s sister, a physician who, it is interesting to note, did not think her brother passed away from natural causes.
At the time of the Benny Lai interview, however, Msgr. Taramasso was still alive and well, and apparently in touch with Siri. Indeed, in an unpublished commentary on the interview that is posted (without the author’s permission) on the web, Gary Giuffré calls the monsignor Siri’s “chief confidant and advisor.” This is also significant in discussing the Lai tape if we reconsider Siri’s words about the importance of a pope’s secretary of state. Whereas back in 1958, or ’63, or even ’78, he may not have known anyone who might fill that role, is it possible he saw in Msgr. Taramasso a likely prospect, i.e. one willing to help him, as he put it, to complete his pontificate?
Another intriguing thought is that the interview with Benny Lai might represent a new approach, that Siri, knowing now that he had some form of support as far away as the United States, intended that his words would in fact reach that broader audience. This would explain why he so openly expressed his feelings of remorse, along with the certainty that God would forgive him. He apparently was appealing to his followers, hoping they would understand.
What he did not know at that time in September of 1988, however, was that Msgr. Taramasso would soon be gone, and that he himself would meet his Maker less than two months after that, on May 2, 1989. Whether their departures were entirely free of human intervention is obviously debatable. If Siri was helped along, it would, ironically, justify his fears as expressed to Fr. Khoat in Rome the previous year. Should he try to escape, “they” would kill him, he had said. Consequently, from beyond the grave, his words come to us now with a renewed sense of urgency, conjuring up the specter of what did probably occur and what might have been. And, God willing, what possibilities still remain for us survivors.
