Murder in the 33rd Degree: The Gagnon Investigation into Vatican Freemasonry

Was Pope John Paul I murdered? If so, by whom, and to what end? Was the Catholic liturgy sabotaged to strip it of truth, power and beauty? If so, by whom, and to what end? Was an international plot underfoot to destroy the Vatican’s financial stability? If so, by whom, and to what end? There was one man who knew the answers to these and many other questions plaguing the post Conciliar Church. In 1975, then Archbishop Edouard Gagnon was personally commissioned by Pope Paul VI to investigate the Vatican’s Roman Curia. This thorough investigation concluded in 1978, the “year of the three Popes.” In Murder In The 33rd Degree, author Charles T. Murr, a close and lifelong friend of Cardinal Gagnon, gives his firsthand account of what transpired during that papal investigation. Murder In The 33rd Degree answers many questions that many people have been asking for half a century. "As a young priest in Rome, Fr. Charles Murr worked closely with Cardinal Édouard Gagnon on the dangerous mission Paul VI had entrusted to that eminent figure: investigating the Vatican curia to uncover membership in Freemasonry. Fr. Murr’s intimate role made him acquainted with the unsavory agendas of high-ranking prelates and the intrigues surrounding the death of John Paul I and the election of John Paul II… Fr. Murr does not peddle conspiracy theories; he tells the riveting story as he lived through it and recorded it in his notes and diaries—what he saw and heard, what his friends learned and suffered. Most of all, we discover how a divinely-given opportunity for serious reform was tragically refused. Murder in the Thirty-Third Degree is the most impressive eyewitness account of postconciliar Vatican politics to appear in decades." —Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski: PROFESSOR, COMPOSER, AUTHOR, THE EXTASY OF LOVE IN THOMAS AQUINAS "Three cheers for Monsignor Murr! He has written a riveting book which will immediately become a precious historical document for the recent, often perplexing history of the Church since the Second Vatican Council. It contains a very precious and important eyewitness account of events in Rome in the 1970’s connected with the investigation of the Roman Curia which Pope Paul VI asked Canadian Cardinal Edouard Gagnon to undertake… Murr, a friend of Gagnon, has given us a unique first-person memoir which sheds new light on the mysterious death of Pope John Paul I in 1978 and on Gagnon’s relations with three Popes. In the end, after 50 years, Murr calls for the release of Gagnon’s secret report, which lies hidden in some Vatican archive… I applaud Murr for his courage." —DR. ROBERT MOYNIHAN: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF INSIDE-THE-VATICAN AUTHOR, FINDING VIGANO “Fr. Murr provides a first-hand account of the work the remarkable Cardinal Gagnon did, at the bidding of Pope Paul VI, to expose the presence of Masons in the Roman Curia.” —DR. JANET E. SMITH: PROFESSOR, PHILOSOPHER, AUTHOR, THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY

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