Siri was cast aside, kicked, out, and reportedly kept under close watch by some of his personal attendants.
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I've heard this claim so many times, but I've never seen a shred of evidence for it. Have you?
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It's not Siri was living in some bunker after the election of Roncalli. He was seen in public, operated his diocese. He could easily, at any time, have picked up his phone and called the police and told them he was being threatened by his assistants, or that they wouldn't let him leave his house. He could have simply walked out his front door, hailed a cab, and gotten the hell out of town. He could have done any number of things very easily if he were the true pope and knew it. The fact that he didn't is hard to reconcile with the idea that he was pope.
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So many popes have been put to death, put in dungeons, tortured both physically and mentally in every possible way. If Siri were pope, why would he have behaved so radically differently? Wouldn't he have the graces of state of all his predecessors?
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If he were the true pope, allowing John XXIII to present himself to the world as the true pope, and allowing the world to be deceived by that, would be an act of schism if he knew that he himself were the true pope. Maybe he was okay with burning in hell forever to avoid persecution in this world; he wouldn't be the first. But it just seems hard to believe.
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The only theory I have ever heard for why Siri would sell his soul in such an awful manner is that his family was threatened with murder if he announced himself as pope. But that would be martyrdom if it were carried out. Couldn't he call his family up, tell them to prepare their souls for a glorious crown, and then give a press conference telling the world how he was elected in the 1958 conclave?
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While I do agree that the 1958 conclave is extremely suspicious and anomalous, I just don't think the idea of "Pope Siri" living out his days as a secret pope is a very adequate answer, and seems to create greater problems than it is intended to solve.