His 33-day papacy was one of the shortest reigns in papal history, resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes. John Paul I was the first Pope to have been born in the 20th century. Having died before he could make a legacy as a pope, he is best remembered for his friendliness and humility, making him known as "the smiling Pope", drawing comparisons with "Good Pope John", the widely popular Pope John XXIII. He was the first pope to choose a double name and did so to honor his two immediate predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. He was also the first (and so far only) pope to use "the first" in his regnal name. In Italy he is remembered with the affectionate appellatives of "Il Papa del Sorriso" ("The Pope of the Smile") and "Il Sorriso di Dio" ("God's Smile").
Arms of John Paul I, a blending of the arms of his two predecessorsBiography
Personal background and papal electionAlbino Luciani was born in Forno de Canale (now called Canale d'Agordo) in Belluno, a province of the Veneto region in northern Italy. He was the son of Giovanni Luciani, who had two daughters from a previous marriage, and Bortola Tancon. While his father was allegedly a Socialist and anti-clerical in his beliefs, his mother was reported to be a devout Catholic,[1] having once considered becoming a nun. Albino was followed by a sister named Antonia and a brother named Edoardo, who later became a schoolteacher. Giovanni Luciani had no regular job, and was forced to seek work elsewhere, including Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and France; it was a Bergamese man Giovanni met in Germany after whom Albino was named. By 1935, however, Giovanni had a permanent job as a Murano glass-blower. Bortola, meanwhile, remained home and helped support the family by writing to the illiterate and working as a scullery maid.
He entered the minor seminary of Feltre in 1923, where his teachers found him "too lively", and later went on to the major seminary of Belluno. During his stay at Belluno, he attempted to join the Jesuits but was denied by the seminary's rector, Bishop Giosuè Cattarossi. Ordained a priest on July 7, 1935, Luciani then served as a curate in his native Forno de Canale before becoming a professor and the vice-rector of the Belluno seminary in 1937. Among the different subjects, he taught dogmatic and moral theology, canon law, and sacred art. In 1941 Luciani began to seek a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, which required at least one year's attendance in Rome. However, the seminary's superiors wanted him to continue teaching during his doctoral studies; the situation was resolved by a special dispensation of Pope Pius XII himself, on March 27, 1941. His thesis (The origin of the human soul according to Antonio Rosmini) largely attacked Rosmini's theology, and earned him his doctorate magna cum laude.
In 1947, he was named vicar general to Bishop Girolamo Bortignon, OFM Cap, of Belluno. Two years later, in 1949, he was placed in charge of diocesan catechetics. On December 15, 1958, Luciani was appointed Bishop of Vittorio Veneto by Pope John XXIII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following December 27 from Pope John himself, with Bishops Bortignon and Gioacchino Muccin serving as co-consecrators. As a bishop, he participated in all the sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). On December 15, 1969, he was appointed Patriarch of Venice by Pope Paul VI and took possession of the archdiocese on February 3, 1970. Pope Paul created Luciani Cardinal Priest of S. Marco in the consistory of March 5, 1973.
John Paul I described himself as quiet, unassuming, and modest, with a warm sense of humor. In his notable Angelus of August 27, delivered on the first day of his papacy, he impressed the world with his natural friendliness. What also struck Catholics was his humility, a prime example being his embarrassment when Paul VI once removed his papal stole and put it on Patriarch Luciani. He recalls the occasion in his first Angelus thus:
Pope Paul VI made me blush to the roots of my hair in the presence of 20,000 people, because he removed his stole and placed it on my shoulders. Never have I blushed so much!
Papacy
Luciani was elected on the fourth ballot of the August 1978 papal conclave. He chose the regnal name of John Paul, the first double name in the history of the papacy, explaining in his famous Angelus that he took it as a thankful honor to his two immediate predecessors: John XXIII, who had named him a bishop, and Paul VI, who had named him Patriarch of Venice and a cardinal.
Observers have suggested that his selection was linked to the rumored divisions between rival camps within the College of Cardinals:
- Conservatives and Curialists supporting Giuseppe Siri, who favored a more conservative interpretation or even correction of post-Vatican II's reforms.
- Those who favored a more liberal interpretation of Vatican II's reforms, and some Italian cardinals supporting Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, who was opposed because of his "autocratic" tendencies.
- The dwindling band of supporters of Sergio Cardinal Pignedoli, who was allegedly so confident that he was papabile that he went on a crash diet to fit the right size of white cassock when elected.
Outside the Italians, now themselves a lessening influence within the increasingly internationalist College of Cardinals, were figures like Cardinal Karol Wojtyła. Luciani later claimed to his private secretary, Father John Magee, that he had sat facing the next pope. (Some reports claim he called the man "the foreigner".) In 1980, having become Papal Master of Ceremonies, Magee out of curiosity checked the seating plans in the Sistine Chapel for the August 1978 conclave, which were kept in a file in his office. It showed that the man opposite Luciani was indeed Wojtyła. He immediately told Wojtyła, who was later known as Pope John Paul II, of his predecessor's prediction. Magee discusses this in the interview he gave to RTÉ on the 8th April 2005, available in the external links, below.
Over the days following the conclave, cardinals effectively declared that with general great joy they had elected "God's candidate". Argentine Eduardo Cardinal Pironio stated that, "We were witnesses of a moral miracle." And later, Mother Teresa commented: "He has been the greatest gift of God, a sunray of God's love shining in the darkness of the world."
Long conclave predicted
Many, including the cardinals, expected a long conclave, deadlocked between the camps. Luciani was an easy compromise. He was a pastor more in the spirit of Vatican II than an austere intellectual, a man with few autocratic pretensions and so less unwelcome to some than Giovanni Cardinal Benelli. And for Italian cardinals, determined not to "lose" the papacy to a non-Italian for the first time in centuries and faced with other controversial Italian candidates, Luciani was an Italian with no baggage. He had no enemies created through a high profile career in the Curia, made no controversial or radical statements or sermons and was just a smiling gentleman, a pastor.
Even before the conclave began, journalists covering it for Vatican Radio noted increasing mention of his name, often from cardinals who barely knew him but wanted to find out more; not least, "What is the state of the man's health?" Had they known just how precarious his health was (his feet were so swollen he could not wear the shoes bought for him by his family for the conclave) they might have looked elsewhere for Paul VI's successor. But they did not. Hence, to his own horror and disbelief, he was elected to the papacy. The surprise of his election is captured in his official portrait, his hair is clumsily brushed back, because unlike papabili cardinals who expect their election, he had not had his hair cut for the conclave. When he was asked if he accepted his election, he stated "May God forgive you for what you have done". Moments later, hesitating, he said: "I accept".
Vincent Browne's claim
The belief that Luciani's election was a decision not made until during the conclave was challenged by senior Irish journalist Vincent Browne, who in 2005 revealed that he had been told by a senior Vatican source, whom he declined to name, that a number of cardinals had already decided informally amongst themselves to elect Luciani pope (though Luciani himself was unaware of it) during the sede vacante period between Pope Paul VI's death and the conclave. The source told him to expect a quick election. Browne recounted discussing this with sociologist and priest Father Andrew Greeley, who dismissed the claim, the idea of a short conclave and Luciani's chances of election. Their discussion was cut short by the crowd reacting to the traditional white smoke issuing from the Sistine Chapel's chimney, the conclusion of what indeed had turned out to be an abnormally short conclave. To Greeley's visible astonishment Luciani was announced as the new pope.
The smiling pope
After his election, John Paul quickly made several decisions that would "humanise" the office of pope, admitting publicly he had turned scarlet when Paul VI had named him the patriarch of Venice. He was the first modern pope to speak in the singular form, using I instead of we, though the official records of his speeches were often rewritten in more formal style by traditionalist aides, who reinstated the royal we in press releases and in L'Osservatore Romano. He was the first to refuse the sedia gestatoria until Vatican pressure convinced him of its need, in order to allow the faithful to see him. Vatican officials tactfully did not mention to him that his awkward flat-footed walk, which they felt was "unregal" and ungainly, also embarrassed them.
John Paul was the first pope to admit that the prospect of the papacy had daunted him to the point that other cardinals had to encourage him to accept it. He strongly suggested to his aides and staff that he believed he was unfit to be pope. Though Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo explicitly required that John Paul be crowned, he controversially refused to have the millennium-old traditional Papal Coronation and wear the Papal Tiara.[2] He instead chose to have a simplified Papal Inauguration Mass. John Paul I used as his motto Humilitas.
New Pope, new rules
As a theologian, he was regarded as being on the conservative side. However, he raised considerable worry within the Vatican when he met with representatives of the United Nations to discuss the issue of overpopulation in the Third World, a controversial issue in light of the Church's anti-contraceptive stance. Some critics of Humanæ Vitæ [1], Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on sexual mores which restated the Catholic Church's opposition to artificial birth control in the age of the first contraceptive pill, [2] [3], expressed the hope that a new pontiff would somehow reverse this traditional teaching.
John Paul I intended to prepare an encyclical in order to confirm the lines of the Second Vatican Council ("an extraordinary long-range historical event and of growth for the Church", he said) and to enforce the Church's discipline in the life of priests and the faithful. In discipline, he was a reformist, instead, and was the author of initiatives such as the devolution of one per cent of each church's entries for the poor churches in the Third World. The visit of Jorge Rafael Videla, president of the Argentine junta, to the Vatican caused considerable controversy, especially when the Pope reminded Videla about human rights' violations taking place in Argentina during the so-called Dirty War.
John Paul may have impressed people by his personal warmth, but within the Vatican he was seen as an intellectual lightweight not up to the responsibilities of the papacy. In the words of John Cornwell, "they treated him with condescension"; one senior cleric discussing Luciani said "they have elected Peter Sellers". Critics contrasted his sermons mentioning Pinocchio to the learned intellectual discourses of Pius XII or Paul VI. Visitors spoke of his isolation and loneliness, and the fact that he was the first pope in decades not to have had either a diplomatic (such as Pius XI and John XXIII) or Curial role in the Church (such as Pius XII and Paul VI).
Death
John Paul's sudden death, only 33 days after his election, caused worldwide shock. The cause of death as officially reported by the Vatican was "possibly associated to a myocardial infarction" (a common form of heart attack). However, a degree of uncertainty accompanies this diagnosis because it is the tradition for Popes not to have an autopsy. This uncertainty has led to a number of conspiracy theories about the pope's death.
In addition, Vatican healthcare had been notoriously poor for some of his predecessors. Pope Paul VI's poor healthcare is generally agreed to have hastened the approach of his death. There is no evidence to suggest that the standard of Vatican health care had improved by Pope John Paul I's 33-day reign. Nor, given his apparent lack of heart problems (as attested to by his own doctor, who flatly contradicted the rumours that came from the Vatican in the aftermath of the pope's death) was there any apparent immediate requirement for a review of medical services. In contrast, John Paul I's successor, Pope John Paul II, always had access to excellent medical services, a fact that saved his life after the assassination attempt made upon him in 1981.
The Pope's body was embalmed within one day of his death. Wild rumours spread. One rumour claimed that a visiting prelate had recently died from drinking "poisoned coffee" prepared for the pope. A visiting prelate actually had died some days earlier, but there was no evidence of any poison. Another unsubstantiated rumour described the Pope's plans to dismiss senior Vatican officials over allegations of corruption. The suddenness of his embalming raised suspicions that it had been done to prevent an autopsy. The Vatican insisted that a papal autopsy was prohibited under Vatican law. However one source (the diary of Agostino Chigi) reports that an autopsy was carried out on the remains of Pope Pius VIII in 1830. On November 11, 2006 the first part of his beatification process concluded at the Belluno cathedral.
Legacy of Pope John Paul I
Pope John Paul I was not in office long enough to make any major practical changes within the Vatican or the Roman Catholic Church (except for his abandonment of the Papal Coronation). His impact was twofold: his image as a warm, gentle, kind man captivated the world. The media in particular fell under his spell. He was a skilled orator. Whereas Pope Paul VI spoke as if delivering a doctoral thesis, John Paul I produced warmth, laughter, a 'feel good factor', and plenty of media-friendly sound bites. Secondly, the manner of his death raised many questions about the conduct of senior Vatican figures. Even among those who dismiss conspiracy theories, there are some that admit that the Vatican mishandled the circumstances of his death. For others, the suspicion remains that the 'smiling pope', who charmed the world, died in a manner that has yet to be explained adequately. He was regarded as a skilled communicator and writer, and has left behind some writings. His book Illustrissimi, written while he was a Cardinal, is a series of letters to a wide collection of historical and fictional persons. Among those still available are his letters to Jesus Christ, the Biblical King David, Figaro the Barber, Marie Theresa of Austria and Pinocchio. Others 'written to' included Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Christopher Marlowe.
A number of campaigns have been started to canonize Pope John Paul I. Miracles have been attributed to him. On June 10, 2003 the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints gave its permission for the opening of the beatification process of Pope John Paul I, Servant of God. The "diocesan phase" of this process began in Belluno on November 23, 2003; a miracle has already been alleged, of an Italian man cured of cancer.
John Paul II on his predecessor
Karol Józef Wojtyła was elected to succeed John Paul I as Supreme Pontiff on Monday, 16 October 1978. The next day he celebrated Mass together with the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel. After the Mass, he delivered his first Urbi et Orbi (a traditional blessing) message, broadcast worldwide via radio. In it he pledged fidelity to the Second Vatican Council and paid tribute to his predecessor:
"What can we say of John Paul I? It seems to us that only yesterday he emerged from this assembly of ours to put on the papal robes—not a light weight. But what warmth of charity, nay, what 'an abundant outpouring of love'—which came forth from him in the few days of his ministry and which in his last Sunday address before the Angelus he desired should come upon the world. This is also confirmed by his wise instructions to the faithful who were present at his public audiences on faith, hope and love." (source: L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 26 October 1978, p.3)
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