Vatican City, Nov 17, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Last week Albino Luciani, better known by his papal name, John Paul I, took the next step on the path to sainthood. Yet apart from the fame garnered by various theories that sprouted due to the enigmatic nature of his death, for many little is known of his saintly life and brief pontificate.
Born Oct. 17, 1912, in Italy’s northern Veneto region, Albino Luciani, known also as “the smiling Pope,” was elected Bishop of Rome Aug. 26, 1978. He made history when he became the first Pope to take a double name, after his two immediate predecessors, St. John XXIII and Bl. Paul VI.
He sent shock waves around the world when he died unexpectedly just 33 days later, making his one of the shortest pontificates in the history of the Church.
In addition to the novelty of his name and the surprise of his death, Luciani was also the first Pope born in the 20th century, and is also the most recent Italian-born Bishop of Rome.
Yet behind all the novelty of the month before his death and mystery of those that ensued, John Paul I has been hailed as a man of heroic humility and extraordinary simplicity, with a firm commitment to carrying forward the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and a knack for explaining complicated Church concepts in a way everyone can understand.
Life and background
Coming from a northern region in Italy that borders Austria, Luciani grew up with people from all cultures and backgrounds passing through. The area saw high levels of immigration and strong activity on the part of Catholic movements.
The priests around whom Luciani grew up had a keen social awareness and involvement with the faithful.
While all the basic needs of his family were met, Luciani grew up in relative poverty, with his father gone most of the time for work. However, according to Stefania Falasca, vice-postulator of his cause for canonization, this background gave the future Pope “a huge cultural suitcase” that he was able to bring with him in his various endevours.
Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Belluno e Feltre July 7, 1935, at the age of 22, Luciani was rector of the diocese’s seminary for 10 years. He taught various courses throughout his tenure, including dogmatic and moral theology, canon law, and sacred art.
In 1941 he received a dispensation from Ven. Pius XII to continue teaching while pursuing his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University.
He was named Bishop of Vittorio Veneto by St. John XXIII in 1958.
In 1969 he was named Patriarch of Venice by Bl. Paul VI. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1973, and was elected Bishop of Rome five years later.
Literature also played a key role in Luciani’s formation. According to Falasca, he had a library full of books in different languages and a special fondness for Anglo-American literature.
Though he knew English, French, German and Russian, his favorite authors were from the Anglo world, and included authors such as G.K. Chesterton, Willa Cather, and Mark Twain.
As cardinal, he wrote his own book called “Illustrissimi,” which is a series of letters penned to a variety of historical and fictional persons, including Jesus, King David, Figaro the Barber, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa Habsburg, Pinocchio, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Christopher Marlowe.
Luciani, Falasca said, was considered by Paul VI to be “one of the most advanced theologians” of the time, and was held in high esteem because he not just knew theology, but also knew how to explain it.
The clarity he had was “highly considered right away among the Italian bishops,” she said. “He was considered the brightest pen because of this ‘cultural suitcase,’ which knew how to synthesize in a very delicate writing, but clear and full of references.”
Luciani, she said, had “an ease of language” in his writing, which was coupled with “a solid theological preparation,” making him both credible and accessible.
Pontificate – ‘an Apostle of the Council’
John Paul I above all else was “a son of the Council,” Falasca said. Luciani “translated and communicated the directives in a natural and simple way … So he was an apostle of the Council in this sense.”
“He explained it, he put it into practice, he put the directives into action in a crystalline way.” It was this desire to carry the Council forward that formed the basis for his priorities during his 33 days in office.
Among these priorities was a “renewed sense of mission” for the Church, Falasca said, explaining that for Luciani, to accomplish this mission it was important “to go back to the sources of the Gospel.”
“This, you can say, was the meaning of the Council for Luciani.” And for him, going to the sources also meant “communicating the Gospel in simplicity and conforming his ministry” to it.
In addition to mission, John Paul I also placed a special emphasis on spiritual poverty in the Church and the search for peace and ecumenism.
Ecumenism and dialogue in particular are topics Luciani felt were “a duty that is part of being a Christian.”
Collegiality also was another key topic for Luciani, and it was the subject of his only written intervention during the Council, which he contributed in 1963.
Luciani also placed a strong emphasis on mercy, Falasca said, explaining that in many ways he was “was the Pope of mercy ‘par excellence,’” and was known for his warm and friendly demeanor.
These priorities can be clearly seen in the four general audiences John Paul I gave during his pontificate, with the subjects being poverty, faith, hope, and charity.
And the way he spoke about these and other topics, with “the simplicity of his approach (and) of his language,” left “an indelible memory in the People of God,” Falasca said.
John Paul I, she said, moved people with his naturalness and his ordinary way of speaking to the faithful.
Luciani had put this quality into writing long before his pontificate when in 1949, he published his first book, titled “Catechesis in Crumbs,” which focused on how to teach the essential truths of the faith in a simple and direct way, understandable to everyone.
Death
When John Paul I died 33 days after his election, his sudden and unexpected death led to various conspiracy theories that Luciani had been murdered.
However, in a book titled “John Paul I: The Chronicle of a Death” and published Nov. 7 to coincide with the announcement that Luciani’s sainthood cause was moving forward, Falasca dispels the theories by outlining the evidence gathered on John Paul I’s death while researching for his cause.
In the book, she recounts how the evening before his death Luciani suffered a severe pain in his chest for about five minutes, a symptom of a heart problem, which occurred while he was praying Vespers with his Irish secretary, Msgr. John Magee, before dinner.
The Pope rejected the suggestion to call for a doctor when the pain subsided, and his doctor, Renato Buzzonetti, was only informed of the episode after his death.
Heroic Virtue
Luciani’s prime virtue was humility, which is “the base without which you can’t go toward God.” Humility, Falasca said, “was so embedded in him, that he understood it as the only way to reach Christ.”
Luciani’s connection with the Lord was also evident in the way that he spoke about God, she said, explaining that he was able to make the love of God close to people, and felt by them.
Falasca said she believes he is an ideal model of the priesthood. To this end, she recalled how during her time working on Luciani’s cause, many young priests came to her saying they felt the call of their vocation when they saw his election on TV.
Another sign of his sanctity was the “spontaneous reputation” that grew over time, and is a “distinctive sign” in determining the heroic virtue of a person.
“The reputation for holiness is the condition ‘sine quo non’ (without which it could not be) to open a cause of canonization; there must be a reputation,” she said, and “Luciani enjoys much of it, and he enjoys it not in an artificial way.”
Many people pray to him and have continued to travel to his birth town over the past 40 years, she said, because people are attracted “by his charm.”
“He won over many with his stand in the face of contemporaneity, his closeness to the people of his time with that simplicity and with that familiarity of communication.”
Luciani opened “a new season in being and in the exercise of the Petrine ministry…with his charm, which knew how to conjugate in perfect synthesis, in my view, what was old and what was new.”
He also lived an extraordinary sense of poverty of spirit as seen in the Beatitudes, and had an “extreme fidelity to the Gospel in the circumstance and the status that he embraced.”
In a testimony given for documentation in the Luciani’s cause for canonization, Benedict XVI said that when Luciani appeared on the balcony in his white cassock after his election, “we were all deeply impressed by his humility and his goodness.”
“Even during the meals, then, he was took a place with us. So thanks to a direct contact we immediately understood that the right Pope had been elected.”
Benedict XVI’s testimony regarding John Paul I is four pages long and is one of the documents included in Falasca’s book. In her comments to CNA, she said they had originally planned to interview him in 2005 while he was still a cardinal, but he was elected Pope on the same day he was scheduled to speak, and since a Pope is technically the one judging a saints’ cause, he is not allowed to give testimony for it.
However, there are currently no previsions for a retired Pope, so when Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, Falasca and her team advancing Luciani’s cause reached out again, receiving the testimony that has now been published in her book.
In his testimony, Benedict recalled that he first met Luciani while the latter was Patriarch of Venice. He had decided to visit the seminary in Bressanone with his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, for vacation in August 1977, shortly after becoming a bishop.
Luciani came to visit the brothers after learning of their visit, and to go out of his way to do this in the oppressive heat of August “was a expression of a nobility of spirit that went well beyond usual,” Benedict wrote. “The cordiality, simplicity and goodness that he showed to me are indelibly impressed in my memory.”
Benedict said he was shocked when he received news of John Paul I’s death in the middle of the night and didn’t initially believe it, but slowly accepted the news in Mass the next day, during which the celebrant offered prayer for the “deceased Pope John Paul I.”
Speaking of John Paul I’s pontificate, Benedict noted that in 1978 it was evident that “the post-conciliar Church was passing through a great crisis, and the good figure of John Paul I, who was a courageous man on the basis of faith, represented a sign of hope.” And this figure, he said, still represents “a message” for the Church today.
Benedict also noted that during the various public speeches Luciani gave, whether it was a general audience or a Sunday Angelus, the late Pope “spoke several times off-the-cuff and with the heart, touching the people in a much more direct way.”
Luciani often called children up to him during general audiences to ask them about their faith, Benedict said, explaining that “his simplicity and his love for simple people were convincing. And yet, behind that simplicity was a great and rich formation, especially of the literary type.”
So far hundreds of graces and favors have been recorded for those who pray to Luciani, and there are already two miracles being studied and considered for his beatification and eventual canonization. Falasca said they are currently trying to decide which to present first.
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For all his railing against “semi-Pelagianism,” it’s actually the kinds of thinkers Jorge Bergoglio seems to support that are the real Pelagians.
To be fair, inventing religion is hard work.
As the author of the upcoming book Synodaling for Dummies (Paulist Press 2025), I propose we begin our new synodalling Church by replacing all present active indicative verbs in the New Testament with “synodal.” For instance, Know, Teach, Say, Raise Up, Receive, Send, Bear, Carry, Bring, Believe, etc.
[N.B., it is best to render these as third person plural so as not to offend.]
Your name “God’s Fool” and your coining the term “synodaling” invites a touch of needed levity into the otherwise demoralizing (literally!) ecclesial discourse of the moment.
Synodaling sounds a bit like yodeling….So what if there were a synodal yodeling contest this October? Who would be the top guttural and joyful contestants and the winner?
As with St. Thomas More: “Grant me, O Lord, a good sense of humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke and to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others.” And, Pope Francis: “Hard times may come when the cross casts its shadow, yet nothing can destroy the supernatural joy that adapts and changes, but always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.”
So, the dream team?
KING KUNG is the gorilla in the closet, but a bit dated and only an echo from the “backward” past.
Archbishop PAGLIA whose portrait is lovingly included in the homoerotic mural graffitied inside the cathedral of Terni-Narni-Amelia? Or, is it an outhouse mural? Too ambiguous. No prize.
What about Cardinal GRECH who says he would like to modify the purity of white noise by “stretching the gray area”? No?
Then there’s Cardinal MCELROY who spills the beans in a published interview, that the tribe wants to change everything! Butt, would he change into a kilt and inflate some bagpipes? A Fearsome noise, but not a yodel!
How about BATZING and the whole German “non-synod” that’s still invited to the synodaling party, anyway? Party crasher. Get thee to a nunnery!
So, then, Cardinal HOLLERICH who gathers the most votes by appealing to secularism’s “sociological and scientific foundation” for cancelling and rewriting God’s script on binary human sexuality. Stuffing the ballot box. The sinner! I mean, winner!
Oh, wait, I’m now awake, not a wake. The synodaling yodeling contest….just a bad dream.
Peter, your synodalling contest needs a conga line. As for me, syodalling is more serious. I dreamt a musical called A Syondal Tale. It had a guy named Dr. Jiggle (who looked like Cardinal Marx); he liked to dance in a big mansion. He kept yelling: “Eat! That’s all Rome has left us.” And there was a guy named Mr. Butterbun (who looked like Cardinal Roche). Butterbun kept singing to Dr. Jiggle: “When you know God made you special, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, you can just be yourself!” I admit it was weird. But there you have it.
You are kind the say I “coined” the term “synodaling.” But the synodaling planned for October began in the Garden, when our first parents began to talk to a snake. Later, it was perfected during the time of Arius. After it was defeated, some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth, and for one and half thousand years synodaling passed out of all knowledge. Until when chance came, it ensnared a new champion in Milan called The Unnamed. He taught synodaling to his friends deep in the mountains of Switzerland. Now, it is to be practiced in Rome, the Eternal City. It was no fool who asked: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Surely the fund-raising arm of this new church will be called Synodialing for Dollars. Don’t sign me up.
Unfortunately, the Catholic establishment (i.e. the sitting Pontiff Francis, and it seems most of our Bishops and Cardinals, have a culture that recognizes primarily their duty and obeisance to their own cult of human ecclesial authority, and seems generally to ignore the prior authorities of scripture and tradition, in pursuit of “another gospel.”
It all gets back to “what the meaning of is, is”!…
And what the meaning of the Eucharistic Church is—and whether the Mass is something that “we” do, or whether the Real Presence is something that the Holy Spirit already (!) does through and in concurrence with the actions of the ordained priests, as commissioned by the historical Jesus Christ…So, as for the horizontal and “endless journey” of synodality, how about this: “His is a single, uninterrupted utterance, because it is continuous and unending” (Sermon by St. Bernard, Liturgy of the Hours, the upcoming 23rd week of Ordinary Time).
The Word of God versus the words of pygmies in red hats.
We are caught in what seems to be a death-loop of cognitive dissonance: “I am wholly committed to a Church permanently in mission in which Catholics own the Great Commission they received on the day of their baptism: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19)”.
It is very clear that some within the church did NOT get that message at their baptism or do not share the passion. What would account for why Cardinal-Designate Americo Aguiar has decided that the very last thing he would consider for World Youth Day is “conversion?” Note his comment: “We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all. … We want it to be normal for a young Catholic Christian to say and bear witness to who [sic] he is or for a young Muslim, Jew, or of another religion to also have no problem saying who he is and bearing witness to it, and for a young person who has no religion to feel welcome and to perhaps not feel strange for thinking in a different way”.
Meanwhile, the world’s grotesque are busy actively engaged in recruiting our youth to deviance, perversion, perdition: “We’re here, we’re queer and we’re coming for your children.”
Didn’t the church receive the word directly from Christ Himself: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14). How is it that the only institution with a divine commission to direct “the little children” to Christ is the one now with a completely “hands off” policy? Cognitive dissonance now abounds in the church on almost every level.
One of the more salient “favorites” from our time attending the Novus Ordo Mass was the ditty: “Let us Build the City of God”. We cringe at the thought, however, Rome seems hell-bent on erecting that city, in mans image according to his likings.
Make no mistake, despite the childish blather put out by the Vatican, this is the “Synod on homosexuality”. The ONLY real purpose behind this synod is to give the Pope backup and support for when he defies the bible and begins to advocate in favor of homosexuality. Blessings of homosexual relations? Just the start.
This is EXACTLY the same path used by homosexuals to take over all Protestant mainline religions. Their goal was to take them over, then gut them. And they did. Most of those churches are projected to be nonexistent in 30 years or so.
First, they get “women priests”. Almost all of the “women priests” will be lesbians. Once they reach places of power, the women priests insist that homosexuality is the next big issue.
We have seen this before. In the Protestant realm, they all cried “The Holy Spirit is speaking to us, and demanding women priests and homosexuality!” This is precisely what the Synod goers say. I checked on a few of the announced attendees. A lot of them are OBVIOUSLY lesbians or homosexuals. Of the new cardinals, most are openly in favor of one issue: homosexuality.
The homosexual cabal has been eliminating Christianity from the world now for 20 years. Their pattern is always the same. It is being played out before us now, at this Synod.
If Catholics do not act NOW, and act with great force and vehemence, we will not have a church in ten years.
It’s driving me crazy. What’s the word that describes the phenomenon when members of the hierarchy abuse their God-given office to shove lies about the Deposit of Faith down the throats of helpless, faithful believers? (Am I the only one who feels guilty for asking questions?). It’s not synodalism.
Anyway, no worries. I’ll go back to the stock market. Didn’t St. Francis say: Another day, another dollar..?
Many years ago, I had a dream where I went to my local saloon to watch a ball game and encountered an ignorant drunk who ranted that he was a former altar boy but now hated the Church because the Church made up all these “rules” for no other reason than to keep people from having fun. Trying to point out such things that moral precepts against doing evil were gifts from God that enabled people to live better lives than they would otherwise lead was fruitless. Part of the dream was dreaming that I woke up to the ridiculous fantasy that the barstool drunk became a cardinal. Then I woke up for real, relieved. Convinced, I said to myself, wow, at least something this ridiculous can’t happen in real life.
“What’s the word that describes the phenomenon when members of the hierarchy abuse their God-given office to shove lies about the Deposit of Faith down the throats of helpless, faithful believers?”
Good question. I would call it malevolent apostasy.
I remember now! It’s Clericalism
As a simple man, I have to look at everything in simple ways. I don’t have the time or energy to try and swim out of this spiritually demonic riptide. In order to survive a riptide, all one need focus on is staying afloat without exerting any effort to swim against the riptide. Doing so will eventually bring one safely back to shore, albeit perhaps many miles from where he entered the water. What I am tryjng to say is, believing and trusting firmly in God and His providence, that when all of this turmoil is behind us, the Bergoglio papacy will have been wiped clean from the face of the earth and Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will be fully and completely restored, in a more beautiful form than ever before.
Then the children of those future times won’t even have to ask,”What’s a bergoglio?”
I think that we should all agree that the concept of a ‘Synodal’ Church goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and existed in the Church at the time of the Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, and all places on earth where a belief in God has existed.
Genesis 3:1 Expulsion from Eden.
Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?” The woman answered the snake: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.’” But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know* good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Here are quotes from ‘Luisa Piccarretta and the Divine Will- Teachings of Jesus” by Susanne James, published 2020. Wow! What a book! Quotes below.
“The principal spiritual gift, which Adam and Eve had enjoyed, but lost, was the Divine Will. God had shared his own intimate life with them. God who is a Trinity (3 persons) operates with his Divine Will. The Three Persons have this Will in common, and so they exist in perfect harmony, and share perfect Love.”
“However, only four people have ever lived in the Divine Will: that is Adam, Eve, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ”
“Now the Lord’s Prayer was heading for fulfillment: God’s Will done on earth as it is in Heaven.” “Jesus explained. These three Fiats will reflect the Sacrosanct Trinity on earth, and then I will have the Fiat voluntas tua (Thy Will be done) on earth as it is in Heaven. These three Fiats will be inseparable. One shall be the life of the other, they shall be One and Three, yet different from each other. My Love so desires it, and my glory demands it. Having sent forth from the bosom of my Creative Power the first two Fiats, I wish to emit the Third Fiat, since I cannot contain my Love any longer. This will complete the work that poured forth from Me. Otherwise the work of Creation as well as Redemption would remain incomplete”
“Jesus told Luisa: “That is why I want to purify the earth, because as it is now – the earth is unworthy of such a wonder of sanctity.
Jesus to Luisa, “There will be no end to the generations, until man returns to my Bosom in the state of beauty and sovereignty, just as he emerged from my hands at the Creation! I am not satisfied only with man’s Redemption, so even at the cost of having to wait, I am patient. By virtue of my Will, man must return to Me in the same state in which I originally created him…” (November 11th 1922)
(end quotes from Susanne James book)
Acts of the Apostles 3:19
Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment and send you the Messiah already appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the times of universal restoration of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.
In a contest between Francis and Christ, wwho wins?
The problem covered in this article goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. God planted and established the Garden of Eden and made the trees bear their fruit. God’s garden, God’s rules. Adam and Eve didn’t have any valid claim to the forbidden fruit. They took the things that are God’s without His permission. They acted like the garden was their own personal private property that they could do with as they pleased.
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The modernists appear to have a diet that is inclusive of the forbidden fruit.
Nor did Adam and Eve have any intrinsic right over their very own lives. All of our lives belong to God. The whole notion of “My body; my choice” is laughable. Its basic premise is in error and leads to illogical conclusions. At best, we are merely the custodians of our lives. God never said, “I give you life; now, go, and do exactly as you please.” No cleric dare ever give this permission.
Does Samton have any specific actions in mind that decent Catholics can do to halt this tide of evil in our Church? Withholding money doesn’t seem to make a difference since their plan is destruction.
Thanks again, George, I can’t help but thinking that, since nothing is static, these fads too will pass. We know whose world is, but we also know Whose Church THE Church is, and that nothing will prevail against it. Eventually when things begin to heat up for Christians, the exit doors will be stampeded and a few faithful will remain. What we need to do in the interim is remain faithful and keep the lamps burning so that the light of faith is passed on to the next generation. Since we know the eventual outcome, there is no need to be overly concerned about the present mess that the Church is in. The Remnant will survive, our job is to be sure we are part of it. Keep up your part in keeping the lamps burning. Your work IS appreciated. God bless.