The dad Pope Francis beatified this Sunday in Rome John Paul I, known as “the dad of the smile”, which in 1978 occupied the throne of Peter for 33 days, in one of the shortest pontificates in history.
Thousands of faithful, including the Italian president Sergio Mattarella, They attended the beatification mass in St. Peter’s Square in the rain. The mass is the stage prior to canonization that elevates a deceased faithful Catholic to the dignity of a saint.
During the ceremony, a large tapestry depicting John Paul I it hung on one of the walls of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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“With his smile, he dad Luciani managed to convey the goodness of the Lord. It is beautiful a Church with a cheerful, serene and smiling face, that never closes its doors, that does not harden hearts, that does not complain or harbor resentments, that is not angry or impatient, that does not appear harsh or suffer by nostalgia for the past,” said the dad Francis during the homily.
Albino Lucianiwho adopted the name of Juan Pablo when he was elected dad by August 1978, at the age of 65, he was a popular figure and close to parishioners.
He succeeded Paul VI and was the last dad Italian to date. He died of a heart attack just 33 days and 6 hours later.
In the early morning of September 29, 1978, a nun discovered his lifeless body, sitting on the bed, with his glasses on and some leaves in his hands. An autopsy was not performed to confirm the cause of death.
The announcement of his death was surrounded by inconsistencies and false information and even fed the theory of a murder by poisoning to prevent him from putting order in the affairs of the Church and, in particular, in the Vatican bank, where financial embezzlement had been detected.
But this “conspiracy hypothesis” was due above all to the “calamitous communication” from the Vatican, according to Christophe Henningjournalist and author of the book “Petite vie de Jean Paul Ier” (Short life of John Paul I).
Like Henning, many specialists reject this hypothesis, considering that it is based more on a set of coincidences than on tangible elements.
The Italian journalist Stefania Falasca -who actively supports the canonization of John Paul I- also denied those rumors in a book published in 2017 and prologued by Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See (number two in the Vatican).
kind to everyone
Albino Luciani was born in 1912 in northern Italy, into a very modest working-class family. He was a seminarian and received a doctorate in theology. In 1969 Paul VI named him Patriarch of Venice and in 1973 he elevated him to Cardinal.
Considered a man of consensus, he managed during his short pontificate to print a simpler style in the exercise of his mission, although he remained isolated within the Curia, the Vatican government.
He defended the opposition of the Church to abortion and contraceptive methods, while initiating an internal reform.
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Very sensitive to povertyalso affirmed the importance of giving a “fair wage” to everyone.
With a “great simplicity and a strong pastoral fiber”, John Paul I “humanized the trade [papal] and simplified everything that was formal”, Christophe Henning explained to AFP.
Sister Margarita Marín, who assisted John Paul I in the papal apartments, remembers a man “kind to everyone.”
“He treated his collaborators with great respect, apologizing for bothering them. I never saw him get impatient with anyone,” the nun recalled Friday at a news conference.
Beatification requires recognition of a miracle.
The one attributed to Albino Luciani is the healing in 2011 in Buenos Aires of an 11-year-old girl who was dying, but who recovered thanks to the prayers of a priest invoking John Paul I.
To be canonized, the Vatican must recognize a second miracle.
Among the recent popes, the Italians John XXIII (1958-1963) and Paul VI (1963-1978) and the Polish John Paul II (1978-2005) were canonized.
