The Pope of the smile

John Paul I will go up to the altars. Pope Francis has in fact authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree concerning the miracle - the healing of a girl in desperate conditions - attributed to the intercession of the venerable servant of God Albino Luciani, who will thus become blessed. Born on 17 October 1912 in Forno di Canale (now Canale d’Agordo), elected Pope on 26 August 1978, he died on the following 28 September in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Albino Luciani was pope for only 33 days, one of the shortest pontificates in history. He was the son of a socialist worker who had worked for a long time as an emigrant in Switzerland. Luciani was ordained a priest in 1935 and in 1958 he became bishop of Vittorio Veneto. Son of a poor land characterized by emigration, but also very lively from a social point of view, and of a Church characterized by figures of great priests, Luciani participates in the Second Vatican Council. He is a shepherd close to him people of him. Paul VI at the end of 1969 appointed him Patriarch of Venice and in March 1973 created him a Cardinal. Luciani, who chose the word "humilitas" for his episcopal coat of arms, is a pastor who lives soberly, close to the poor and the workers. He is uncompromising when it comes to the unscrupulous use of money against people, "as evidenced by his firmness on the occasion of an economic scandal in Vittorio Veneto involving one of his priests", Vatican News recalls. After the death of Paul VI, on August 26, 1978 he was elected in a conclave that lasted only one day. He dies suddenly on the night of September 28, 1978; he is found lifeless by the nun who brought him coffee to his room every morning.
The miracle that will lead him to beatification concerns the healing "on July 23, 2011 in Buenos Aires", explains Vatican News, "of an eleven-year-old girl suffering, according to the dicastery, from" severe acute inflammatory encephalopathy, a refractory malignant state of epileptic disease, septic shock "and now dying: the clinical picture was very serious, characterized by numerous daily epileptic seizures and a septic state of bronchopneumonia". The initiative to "invoke Pope Luciani was taken by the parish priest of the parish to which the hospital belonged, to which he was very devoted".

The postulator of the cause of beatification of John Paul I, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy and a native of the diocese of Vittorio Veneto, speaks of the miracle that took place ten years ago which will allow the Pope « short "the beatification:" At that time there was a little girl - the postulator tells the Vatican media - today a girl of almost twenty, who was healed in extraordinary circumstances from very serious neurological problems, in practically desperate conditions ". Even today «I saw some videos that portray her while she walks, while she talks, and she sees a girl of almost twenty who is fine. We owe it to the faith of those who prayed around this person when she was sick. It is an event that certainly has extraordinary characteristics, because we got busy on a medical level, but above all there was a night, a long moment of prayer, of intercession, which is what ultimately qualifies an event of this. genre ».


Domenico Agasso
NP November 2021