Siri thesis

Cardinal Siri in 1958, shortly before the conclave

The Siri thesis is the assertion that Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the long-serving and conservative Archbishop of Genoa, was elected Pope in the 1958 papal conclave, taking the name Pope Gregory XVII, but that his election was then suppressed. Cardinal Siri did not associate himself with this idea, which is held by a small minority of traditionalist Catholics.

Its exponents claim that a prolonged emission of white smoke on the first day of the conclave indicated the election of Siri, but that threats applied from outside the conclave caused his election to be reversed, with Pope John XXIII being elected two days later. The people making the threats have been identified variously as Freemasons and the Soviet Union. Adherents of the Siri thesis say that the election of John XXIII was invalid, and regard him and his successors as imposters and antipopes.

1958 conclave

The papal conclave of 1958, which was held to elect a successor to Pope Pius XII, commenced on 26 October 1958. Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, then 52 years old, was considered a strong candidate in the election.^[1] Siri was viewed then—and throughout his life—as staunchly conservative.^[2] On the evening of 26 October, the first day of the conclave, white smoke was seen coming from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, a traditional signal to the crowds in the square outside that a pope has been elected. At 6 pm, after the smoke had continued white for several minutes, Vatican Radio told the world, "The smoke is white... There is absolutely no doubt. A Pope has been elected."^[3] No announcement was made, however, and after about half an hour, the smoke turned black, indicating that there was no result. Vatican Radio corrected its report.^[1] Two days later, on 28 November, it was announced that Cardinal Angelo Roncalli had been elected pope, and would take the name John XXIII.

History of the thesis

Sometime in the late 1980s, an American traditionalist Catholic named Gary Giuffre began to expound the belief that Cardinal Siri was the true pope, and that he was held captive in a monastery in Rome.^[1] According to Giuffre and his followers, the white smoke that was seen on 26 October 1958 did indeed mean that a pope had been elected, and that pope was Siri, but Siri was forced to surrender the papacy in the face of dire threats from outside the conclave. Roncalli, who they claimed was a Freemason, was elected instead, taking the name John XXIII.^[1] Furthermore, they said, the same thing happened at the 1963 conclave that followed John XXIII's death: again white smoke was seen, and again it indicated that Siri had been elected, and again it turned black and subsequently a different pope was elected under threat from outside, this time Giovanni Battista Montini (Paul VI).^[1] It was alleged that the threats of terrible retribution if Siri was elected were passed into the conclave by the B'nai B'rith, working on behalf of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy.^[1] Other subscribers to the thesis claim that Siri in 1958 took the name Pope Gregory XVII, indicating that he had not only been elected pope, but had accepted the nomination.^[4] Websites promoting the "Siri thesis", such as The Pope in Red, always refer to Siri as "Pope Gregory XVII"^[5]

The assertion that Siri's 1963 election had been set aside after the intervention of the B'nai B'rith was contained in an article written in 1986 by Louis Hubert Remy in a French publication, Sous la Bannière, and translated into English in 1987 for Fr. Dan Jones's newsletter, The Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes.^[6] That article made no mention of the 1958 conclave. Malachi Martin, in his apocalyptic 1990 book The Keys of This Blood, said that in the 1963 conclave Siri received sufficient votes for election, but when asked if he accepted the papacy, he refused it. The reason, according to Martin, was that he believed that "only thus could foreseen possibilities of grave danger be avoided—but whether harm to the Church, his family, or to him personally, is not clear." Siri's refusal, he says, followed a conversation on the subject of Siri's candidacy between a member of the conclave and somebody outside it, who was "an emissary of an internationally based organisation".^[7] In a 1997 interview on the radio programme Steel on Steel, hosted by John Loefller, Martin claimed that Siri had also obtained a majoriy of votes in the first 1978 conclave, but that he had received a written note after his initial election threatening him and his family with death should he accept.^[8] According to one "Siri thesis" website, Martin gave another radio interview in 2006 in which he said, for the first time, that Siri had also been elected in 1958, but that he had refused it "out of fear" on that occasion as well.^[9]

Paul L. Williams, in a 2003 book entitled The Vatican Exposed, claimed that State Department documents confirmed that Siri had been elected pope in 1958, as Gregory XVII. According to Williams, however, the election was quashed, not by a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, but by fear of the Soviet Union. Roncalli, he claims, was known as the "pink priest" because of his ties with both the French and Italian Communist parties, while Siri was "rabidly anti-Communist". Siri received the requisite number of votes on the third ballot, and was elected as Gregory XVII, but "the French cardinals annulled the results, claiming that the election would cause widespread riots and the assassination of several prominent bishops behind the Iron Curtain."^[10] It was then decided to elect Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, but as he was too ill, Roncalli was elected instead.^[11] Williams cited "Department of State secret dispatch, 'John XXIII,' issue date: November 20, 1958, declassified: November 11, 1974" and "Department of State secret file, 'Cardinal Siri,' issue date: April 10, 1961, declassified: February 28, 1994" in support of his claims.^[12] In subsequent editions, however, the references were changed to simply "F.B.I. source".^[13]

Significance

Traditionalist Catholics oppose the liturgical changes and "modernist" theological positions resulting from the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which many of them see as a "heretical" council.^[14] Sedevacantists are a minority group within traditionalist Catholicism, who maintain that none of the popes from John XXIII (who called the council) onward were true popes, and that therefore the papal seat is vacant (Latin: sede vacante).^[15] The idea that John XXIII and Paul VI were not true popes, but antipopes, is neatly explained by the Siri thesis: if Siri was elected in 1958, then the election of John, and therefore of all his successors, was invalid.^[1] The Catholic magazine Inside the Vatican has referred to adherents of the Siri thesis as "sede impeditists", meaning that they believe there was a true pope, but that he was "impeded" by outside forces from taking his office.^[16] Inside the Vatican estimated that the thesis was believed "by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people around the world".^[16]

Siri's later career

Siri himself was never part of any split, and remained true to the established church.^[4] He was appointed president of the Italian Episcopal Conference by Pope John in 1959, and remained in the post under Pope Paul until 1964.^[17] He sat on the Board of Presidency of the Second Vatican Council from 1963 until its close in 1965.^[18] He was a candidate for pope—still representing the conservatives—in the 1978 conclave that followed the death of Paul VI, where he is thought to have led in the early ballots before being overtaken by Albino Luciani (John Paul I),^[19] and again two months later in the October 1978 conclave, where he is also thought to have come within a few votes of election.^[20] He was Archbishop of Genoa from 1946 to 1987, and at the time of his retirement he was "the last remaining active cardinal named by Pope Pius XII."^[2] Siri never made any reference to the "Siri thesis", nor was there any mention of it in his New York Times obituary,^[2] in the biography written by Raimondo Spiazzi,^[21] or in a speech given by Giulio Andreotti on the centenary of Siri's birth in 2006.^[22]

References