John Paul I

John Paul I (in Latin, Ioannes Paulus PP. I), secular name Albino Luciani (Canale d'Agordo, October 17, 1912-Vatican City, September 28, 1978), was number 263.er pope of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from August 26, 1978 until his death 33 days later. His pontificate was one of the shortest in history, leading to the most recent year of the three popes. He was the first pope born in the 20th century and also the last to die in said century. He, too, is the last Italian pontiff to date, and the last in a long uninterrupted succession of Italian popes spanning more than four centuries, beginning with Clement VII in 1523.

Before the conclave that elected him took place, he expressed his desire not to be elected, confessing to those closest to him that he would resign from the papacy if elected; but when he was chosen by the cardinals, he felt compelled to accept.He was the first pope to choose a compound name, 'John Paul', in honor of his two immediate predecessors, John XXIII. and Paul VI. He explained that he wanted to honor both by feeling grateful and indebted to them for making him a bishop and a cardinal, respectively. He was also the first pope to use the number & # 34;I & # 34; in his name, calling himself & # 34; Juan Pablo Primero & # 34;.

His two successors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have recalled his close, kind and affectionate attitude on multiple occasions. In Italy he is remembered by the nicknames of & # 34; Il Papa del Sorriso & # 34; (The Pope with the Smile) and "Il Sorriso di Dio" (God's Smile). He was referred to by Time magazine and other publications as "The September Pope" (The September Pope).

He was declared a Servant of God, the first step on the path to holiness, on November 23, 2003, by John Paul II. Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtue on November 8, 2017 and proclaimed him Venerable. It was announced that he would be beatified, after confirming his attribution to his intercession in the miraculous healing of a girl from Argentina, in October 2021. The beatification took place on September 4, 2022 in Saint Peter's Square.

Biography

Childhood

Albino Luciani's home.

Albino Luciani was born in the small Italian town of Forno di Canale, Belluno (called Canale d'Agordo from 1964) on October 17, 1912. The son of Giovanni Luciani, a bricklayer, and Bortola Tancon. He was baptized by the midwife he helped deliver, as she feared his death. His baptism was formalized two days later by the town's parish priest, Achille Ronzon.

He was the eldest of four brothers of the Luciani marriage; the other siblings were Eduardo, Antonia (Nina) and Federico, who died at a young age. Luciani's family, of humble origins, suffered hardship during World War I.

When he was six years old, he received the sacrament of confirmation from Bishop Giosuè Cattarossi. At the age of ten, his mother died and his father married a second time with a woman of great devotion; It was then that his priestly vocation was born, as he declared, thanks to the preaching of a Capuchin friar.

All this week, journalists have spoken about the poverty of my childhood. But none could ever suspect the hunger I've known.

Albino Luciani

First stage of his priestly life

Albino Luciani in 1932.

In 1923, he entered the minor seminary in the town of Feltre. The novice Luciani gobbled up all the seminary books, although even more important was his ability to remember absolutely everything he read. In the summers, the young seminarian returned home and dedicated himself to working in the fields.

In 1928, he went to the Gregorian Seminary of Belluno, where he was ordained a subdeacon in 1934, a deacon in February 1935 and finally a priest on July 7 of the same year in the church of San Pedro in Belluno. Two days later, he was named chaplain priest of his hometown; months later he was transferred, as a professor of religion at the Technical Institute of Miners of Agordo. In 1937 he was appointed vice-rector of the Gregorian Seminary of Belluno, a position he held until 1947. Among other subjects, he taught classes in dogmatic and moral theology, canon law, and religious art.

In 1941, Luciani began studying for a doctorate in negative theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, which required a year's stay in Rome. However, his superiors at the seminary wanted him to continue teaching during his studies, which he achieved through a dispensation granted by Pius XII on March 27, 1941. His thesis, The origin of the human soul according to Antonio Rosmini, was strongly opposed to Rosmini's theology, and awarded him his doctorate magna cum laude. He had the virtue, which is reflected in his thesis, of explaining the most complicated concepts in a simple way. It is during these years that Luciani began to take an interest in Rosmini's writings.

Life from 1947 to 1958

In 1947, he was appointed Vicar General of the Diocese of Belluno by Bishop Girolamo Bortignon. Two years later, in 1949, he was appointed director of the diocesan catechetical office.

On December 15, 1958, he was named bishop of the diocese of Vittorio Veneto by John XXIII and consecrated as such in the Basilica of Saint Peter, by the same pope, on December 27 of that year.

Episcopacy

Albino Luciani, bishop of the diocese of Vittorio Veneto, in 1959.

He took possession of the diocese of Vittorio Veneto on January 11, 1959. For 11 years, he ministered in this diocese, making his first pastoral visit on June 17, 1959. He took his role as bishop very seriously: the priests of his diocese did not need to make an appointment, therefore, a priest who arrived, a priest who was received. Said a priest from the time of the bishopric of Luciani: «he It was as if we had our personal pope. At Luciani's table there were always two or three priests. He was a man who could not stop giving himself, because he used to visit the sick and people with disabilities: in hospitals, they lived in a state of shock since you never knew if the bishop would show up. He would get on his bicycle, go to the hospitals and tour the wards; he also visited the priests in the mountains to deal with the specific problems of his locality ».

I am thinking these days that with me the Lord acts an old system of his: he takes the little ones from the mud of the street and puts them up; he takes the people from the fields, from the sea nets, from the lake, and makes them apostles. It's his old system. Certain things the Lord does not want to write them in the bronze, or in the marble, but even in the dust, so that, if the scripture is left without decaying, without scattering through the wind, it is clear that everything is work and everything is merit only of the Lord (...). In this dust, the Lord has written the episcopal dignity of the illustrious diocese of Vittorio Veneto.

From the homily pronounced on 4 January 1959

In 1962, he attended the opening of the Second Vatican Council in Rome; he would be present at four of the sessions of said council.

Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice

Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice, in 1969.

On December 15, 1969, Paul VI named him Patriarch of Venice, succeeding Giovanni Urbani. He took office on February 3, 1970. Paul VI himself elevated him to the dignity of a cardinal on March 5, 1973. In his first Angelus after being named pope, he recalled the shame he had suffered when Saint Paul VI took off his own stole and placed it on his shoulders:

But Pope Paul, not only made me a cardinal, but a few months earlier, on the stand of St. Mark's Square, made me put completely colored before twenty thousand people, because he took off the stole and placed it on my shoulders. I've never gotten so red.

Angelus of August 27, 1978

Pontificate

Choice

Luciani was elected on the fourth ballot of the August 1978 conclave, an unusually brief conclave, the second shortest of the XX century after that of 1939. Protodeacon Cardinal Pericle Felici was in charge of announcing the decision of the College of Cardinals to elect the Patriarch of Venice, Albino Luciani, as the 263rd (two hundred and sixty third) Pope of the Catholic Church, on 26 August 1978, making him the third Patriarch of Venice to be named pope, after Giuseppe Melchiore Sarto (elected as Pius X in 1903) and Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (elected as John XXIII in 1958). He chose the name John Paul, becoming the first pope in history with a compound name, a gesture with which he intended to honor his two predecessors, John XXIII, who appointed him bishop, and Paul VI, which made him patriarch of Venice and cardinal. He was also the first pope to use the ordinal "first" in his name.

It was even thought that his election was due to the division between members of different ideologies within the College of Cardinals:

• The conservatives and curialists supported Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, who defended a more conservative interpretation or even a correction of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In the headquarters circles there is the view that Siri was elected in the conclave of 1958 and that he even chose the name of Gregory XVII for his pontificate, but he was forced to give up the election because of the reprisals he could generate on the other side of the Steel curtain.
• Those who defended a more liberal interpretation of the reforms of Vatican II, and other Italian cardinals, supported Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, but did not get enough votes for his "autocratic" tendencies.

Among the cardinals from outside Italy, in an increasingly internationalist College of Cardinals, there were figures such as Cardinal Karol Wojtyła. In the days after the conclave, the cardinals declared with satisfaction that they had chosen 'God's candidate'. Argentine Cardinal Eduardo Pironio declared: "We have witnessed a moral miracle". Mother Teresa said: "It has been the best gift from God, a ray of sunshine of God's love that shines in the darkness of the world."

Reform program

Humanization of the papacy

John Paul I photographed from the window of his study of the Apostolic Palace, during a speech by the Angelus

After his election, John Paul I made a series of decisions that would make "more humane" to the pope, publicly admitting that he blushed when Paul VI named him patriarch of Venice. He was the first modern pope to speak in the singular using "I"; instead of the majestic plural, although the official recordings of his speeches were rewritten in a more formal way by some of his more traditional aides, who reincorporated the majestic plural in press releases and in L'Osservatore's news. Roman. He was also the first to reject the gestatory chair, until they convinced him that it was necessary so that he could be seen by the faithful.

John Paul I chose the Latin expression Humilitas ("humility") as his papal motto, which was reflected in his controversial rejection of the coronation and the papal tiara in the enthronement ceremony, substituting it for a simple investiture, contrary to the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo, promulgated by Paul VI in 1975.

One of his statements, which had a great impact in the press, was: «God is Father, and even more so, he is a mother», referring to Isaiah, who compares God to a mother who does not forget her son Zion. The pope made this comment during his Angelus on September 10, 1978, in which he also called for prayers for the Camp David Accords.

Encyclical on repayment

John Paul I had planned to issue an encyclical to consolidate the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which he described as "an extraordinary event of far-reaching history and growth for the Church," and to reinforce the discipline of the Church in the life of ecclesiastical officials and the faithful. As a reformist, he also launched some initiatives such as the return of 1% of the income of each church to allocate it to the churches of the Third World. The visit of the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, president of Argentina, to Vatican City, also caused great controversy, especially when the pope reminded him of the human rights violations that occurred in Argentina during the so-called dirty war.

Moral Theology

Journalist John L. Allen states that: “It is almost certain that John Paul I would not have reversed the teachings of Paul VI, especially since he was not a doctrinal radical. Also, as Patriarch of Venice, some have seen a hardening of his stance on social issues over the years. Nevertheless, "it is reasonable to suppose that John Paul I would not have insisted on the negative judgment in Humanae Vitae as aggressively and publicly as John Paul II did, and probably would not have understood it as an almost infallible teaching. It would have remained a more 'open' question." According to accounts, while as Patriarch of Venice, "Luciani was uncompromising in his defense of the Church's teaching and severe with those who out of intellectual pride and disobedience they disregarded the Church's prohibition on contraception", while not condemning the sin, he was tolerant of those who sincerely tried and failed to live according to the Church's teaching".

Personality

John Paul I was considered a skilled communicator and writer, even publishing some writings. His book Illustrissimi, which he wrote when he was a cardinal, consists of a series of letters addressed to a large number of historical and fictional characters. Among them are letters addressed to Jesus, King David, Figaro the barber, Empress Maria Theresa, and Pinocchio. Others are addressed to Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Christopher Marlowe.

John Paul I immediately surprised us with his sympathy and personal warmth. There are voices that say that within the Vatican he was seen as a simple intellectual unaware of the great responsibilities of the papacy, although David Yallop, author of the book In God's Name (In the name of Dios, in which he defends the theory that John Paul I was assassinated), maintains that these voices are only the result of a campaign launched by people from the Vatican who opposed Luciani's policies. In the words of writer John Cornwell, "he was patronized"; one senior cleric, speaking of Luciani, went so far as to say: “Peter Sellers has been chosen.” Critics compared his speeches, with mentions of Pinocchio, to the more intellectual speeches of Pius XII and Paul VI. His visitors spoke of his loneliness and isolation, and of the fact that he was the first pope in decades not to have a diplomatic role —like John XXIII or Pius XI— or a curial role —like Pius XII or Paul VI— within church.

His personal impact, however, was double: his image as a kind, close and kind man immediately captivated the entire world. This image was formed immediately after appearing on the balcony of Saint Peter's Square after his election. His cordial presence made him a much-loved figure even before he began to speak, particularly among the press. He was also a skilled speaker. While Paul VI spoke as if he were exposing a doctoral thesis, John Paul I produced kindness, closeness and even laughter.

According to his aides, he was not the naive idealist his critics made out. According to Cardinal Giuseppe Caprio, John Paul I accepted his position and set out to carry it out with confidence.

John Paul I was the first pope to admit that he had been so intimidated by the prospect of the papacy that other cardinals had to encourage him to accept. He rejected the age-old tradition of the papal coronation and also the tiara, opting instead for a simple inauguration mass. In his remarkable angelus on August 27, 1978, the first full day of his pontificate, he impressed the world with his natural likability.

Death

Tomb of John Paul I in the Vatican caves.

The atmosphere of optimism and closeness established by John Paul I would never advance due to the brevity of his pontificate. He was found dead in his bed shortly before dawn on September 29, 1978, 33 days after his election. According to official sources, the 65-year-old pope died of a heart attack. It has been said that the Vatican withheld some aspects of the discovery of the body. As is customary after the death of a pope, no autopsy was performed. Although this, together with contradictory statements made after the death of the pope, have given rise to a series of conspiracy theories around it. These statements refer to who found the body and where, at what time, and what papers were in his hand. The Holy See has not yet investigated these aspects. The Pope has rested in the Vatican grottoes since October 4, 1978.

Controversy and hypotheses surrounding his death

The Vatican affirms that John Paul I died of a heart attack in his bed and that no autopsy was carried out due to the opposition of his relatives. Some aspects of this official statement, however, were later contradicted: it was not the Irishman John Magee —later bishop—, who was the personal secretary of Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II, the first person to find the corpse of the pontiff, but one of the nuns who were in charge of domestic work and named Vincenza, as it became known in 1988; The late pope's family revealed in 1991 that death did not occur in bed, but at his desk;, and also, an autopsy would have been carried out, according to other reports. These official inconsistencies, together with other factors of an economic nature, have given rise to conspiracy theories that point to the pontiff being poisoned.

John Paul I intended to delve into the reforms initiated by John XXIII. The clarification of the Vatican accounts was one of his priorities. While he was patriarch of Venice, in 1972, the Vatican Bank sold Banca Cattolica del Veneto to Banco Ambrosiano, owned by Roberto Calvi, without consulting the metropolitan bishopric of Venice, of which Monsignor Albino Luciani was head. The person responsible for this action was Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, which led to certain disagreements between Luciani, not yet named pope, and the American, responsible for the dubious Vatican administration at the time. The Banca Cattolica del Veneto specialized in loans with low interest rates to those most in need; perhaps for this reason Pope Luciani took action on the matter. Giovanni Benelli, substitute for the Secretary of State of the Holy See, tells him that there is a plan between Roberto Calvi, Michele Sindona and Marcinkus to take advantage of the wide margin of maneuver that the Holy See has: "tax evasion, illegal movement of shares". Luciani's reaction, collected in the book With my heart set on God: Prophetic Intuitions of John Paul I, is enormously disappointing.

On May 9 of that same year of the death of John Paul I, 1978, the Prime Minister of Italy, Aldo Moro, leader of the Christian Democrats, had been assassinated. The strange circumstances of the death of Albino Luciani —a heart attack, for someone who was in good health— and other mysterious events, such as the fact that the death was not certified by the Vatican coroner, but by another, and the haste of his embalming, triggered the theory that John Paul I was actually assassinated. The double confession of the nun, Sister Vicenza Taffarel, who found the body of the Supreme Pontiff (in a first version: still dressed, in his bathroom, possibly on the floor, where he vomited; and the other: in his bed, with disordered documents and the glasses falling from his face, already stripped of the papal habit) suggest that he was poisoned.

Some research works abound in the line of poisoning. The book El día de la cuenta by the Spanish priest Jesús López Sáez alleges that the supreme pontiff was probably poisoned with a strong dose of a vasodilator. The book In God's Name (In the name of God), by English researcher David Yallop, defends that he was poisoned by high-ranking leaders of the Catholic Church in complicity with gangsters linked to Banco Ambrosiano and secret Masonic brotherhoods.

In 1988, the Holy See opened its doors to journalist John Cornwell and gave him all kinds of facilities to interview witnesses to the life and death of John Paul I, including some who had never publicly declared their experiences. In his book Like a thief in the night. The Death of Pope John Paul I reflects the interviews with the late Pope's secretaries, Paul Marcinkus, the niece (a doctor by profession) of Pope Luciani, a sergeant of the Swiss Guard, the embalmers, journalists, an FBI agent who worked in Rome, Joaquín Navarro-Valls at Vatican Radio, the pope's doctors, etc. The conclusion was that it seemed unlikely that the pope had been assassinated, attributing his death to a combination of factors. His affable character was crushed by the Vatican bureaucracy and the work pressure to which he was subjected (Cardinal Villot admitted that he felt guilty for having overwhelmed him with suitcases of documents), the little help he received from his environment to carry out his his new function, his health problems (especially circulatory, embolism, thrombi, etc.) which, combined with stress and a possible carelessness in medication, together with the lack of treatment by the Vatican doctors, could have produced an embolism lung cancer on the night of September 28, 1978. Various sources accused Cornwell of having been hired by the Vatican itself to give this information, at least in part false, since it was shown that Albino Luciani did not have any of the health problems mentioned, nor did he take any medication, which has left numerous doubts unresolved about the death of the Supreme Pontiff.

In July 2019, a book was published by Anthony S. Luciano Raimondi, allegedly a gangster of the Colombo family and a relative of Bishop Marcinkus, with whom they would have perpetrated the murder of Juan Pablo using valium and cyanide, whose motive would also have been to cover up a massive fraud of financial titles.

Legacy

John Paul I was the first pope to abolish the papal coronation, and also the first to choose a compound name (John Paul). His successor, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, chose the same name in his honor.

John Paul II on his predecessor

Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was elected as Pope John Paul I's successor on October 16, 1978. The following day he celebrated Mass with the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel. After the mass, he gave the first blessing of him Urbi et orbi , which was broadcast by radio to the whole world. In it he pledged fidelity to the Second Vatican Council and paid homage to his predecessor:

What will we say about John Paul I? Just yesterday he came out of our ranks to clothe the non-small weight of the papal mantle; but what a flame of charity, what "a wave of love"—as he wished for the world in his last Sunday speech, before the Angelus— came out of him in the few days of his ministry! It is also confirmed by his wise catechetical lessons, addressed to the faithful in public hearings, about faith, hope and charity.

First radio message Urbi et orbi of John Paul II, on 17 October 1978

Start of the canonization process

Bronze panel representing Popes John XXIII and John Paul I in dialogue. The work was created by the Italian sculptor Franco Murer.

Commemorative plaque of Luciani as Patriarch of Venice.

MUSAL - Albino Luciani Museum

The canonization process for John Paul I formally began in 1990 with the petition of 226 Brazilian bishops, including four cardinals.

On August 26, 2002, on the 24th anniversary of the election of John Paul I, Bishop Vincenzo Savio announced the beginning of the preliminary phase of gathering documents and testimonies to begin the canonization process. On June 8, 2003, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints gave its approval and on November 23, the process was formally inaugurated in the Cathedral Basilica of Belluno, led by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins.

The investigation in the diocese concluded on November 11, 2006 in Belluno. In June 2009, the Holy See began the "Roman" of the beatification process of John Paul I, based on that of Giuseppe di Altamura Denora, who claimed to have been cured of cancer. An official investigation into the alleged miracle is underway.

On August 26, 2015, the 37th anniversary of Luciani's election as pontiff, Giuseppe Andrich Bishop of Belluno-Feltre assured that for the first time in the history of the Church, a pope testified to the cause of beatification of another pope, referring to Benedict XVI. On November 9, 2017, Pope Francis approved the decree declaring John Paul I venerable by which he recognized his heroic virtues.

Beatification

On October 13, 2021, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of John Paul I in the healing of an eleven-year-old girl in Buenos Aires on July 23, 2011. The beatification took place on September 4, 2022, in a celebration in the Plaza de San Pedro.

For his canonization, a second miracle will be necessary.

In popular culture

• In the second story called "La santa" of the book "Twelve Pilgrim Tales" of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1982 Gabriel García Márquez, alludes to the death of Albino Luciani.
• In 2006, RAI produced a mini-series entitled John Paul I, the smile of God, starring Neri Marcorè as Albino Luciani.
• The song Hey! Luciani The Fall talks about John Paul I.
• Patti Smith's song Wave He talks about Luciani, and his album. Wave He's dedicated to him.
• The movie The godfather, part III makes a covert reference to the hypothesis that his death was caused (according to Francis Ford Coppola's statements on the DVD of the same). After a secretary enters his room to give him a cup of tea, which "would help him reconcile the dream," the pope sleeps quietly, but later, when a nun who is part of the papal servitude enters the same room and tries to wake him up, he discovers that he lies without life.
• The novel by Portuguese writer Luis Miguel Rocha entitled The Death of the Pope and published in 2008, he holds the theory that John Paul I was murdered.
• The essay by writer Eric Frattini entitled "The Holy Covenant, five centuries of Vatican espionage" and published in 2004, gives a detailed account of the last hours of the pope and shows all the versions on the strange death of the high pontiff.
• The novel The Company: a CIA storyby Robert Littell, shows the death of John Paul I as a murder ordered by the KGB.
• The Book of David Yallop In God's Name ("In the name of God") develops the theories that point to the murder of John Paul I.
• In the book Angels and Demons of the writer Dan Brown speculates with another name that the murdered Pope is John Paul I.
• The theatrical script The Candidate of God of Mexican Luis Basurto talks about the last day of life of Juan Pablo I, leaving in the air the possibility of an undercover crime.
• In Stefania Falasca's book titled "Papa Luciani, Chronicle of Death" he relates to interviews and testimonies that the Pope died very probably because of a fulminant infarction, and the theory of murder is rejected.
• Plegaria por un Papa poisoned, novel by Colombian writer Evelio José Rosero, in which he recreates the events prior to the short pontificate of Albino Luciani, his most human facet and the petty reality of the clergy of his time that he sought to confront.