in St Peter's Square on 18 April, Paul VI called the charges "horrible and slanderous insinuations" and appealed for prayers on his behalf. Special prayers for the pope were said in all Italian Catholic churches in "a day of consolation". The charges have resurfaced periodically. In 1994, Franco Bellegrandi, a former Vatican honour chamberlain and correspondent for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, alleged that Paul VI had been blackmailed and had promoted other gay men to positions of power within the Vatican. In 2006, the newspaper L'Espresso reported that the private papers of police commander General Giorgio Manes accepted the blackmail story as true, and that they claimed Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro had been asked to help. Health Paul VI had been in good health prior to his pontifical election. His health following his papal election took a turn when he needed to undergo a serious operation to treat an enlarged prostate. The pope procrastinated in this but relented in November 1967; the operation took place on a simple table in an improvised operating theatre in the papal apartments by a team led by Professor Pietro Valdoni. The Vatican was delicate in their description of what the pope underwent and referred to it as "the malaise from which the Holy Father had been suffering for weeks". As a result of the delay in having the operation, the pope had to wear a catheter for a period following the operation and still was by December. The pope discussed business from his bed about 48 hours after the operation with Cardinal Amleto Cicognani and at that point was off intravenous feeding in favour of orange juice and hot broth. Cardinal Cicognani said the pope was "in good general condition" and that he spoke in a "clear and firm voice". The pope's two brothers also visited him at his bedside following a "tranquil night" for the pope. The doctors also reported the pope's condition to have been "excellent". Kidnapping and death of Aldo Moro On 16 March 1978, former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro—a friend of Paul VI's from his FUCI student days—was kidnapped by a far-left Italian terrorist group known as the Red Brigades. The kidnapping kept the world and the pope in suspense for 55 days. On 20 April, Moro directly appealed to the pope to intervene as Pope Pius XII had intervened in the case of Professor Giuliano Vassalli