{"id":328590,"date":"2016-09-28T12:24:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T10:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/john-paul-i-the-smiling-pope\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:05:13","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:05:13","slug":"john-paul-i-the-smiling-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/john-paul-i-the-smiling-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"John Paul I, the \u201cSmiling Pope\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GiovanniPaoloI\"<\/strong>“The \u201cSmiling Pope,\u201d John Paul I,<\/strong> rose to the chair of St. Peter on 26 August, 20 days after Pope Paul VI\u2019s death. Though his brief pontificate lasted only a month, there was time enough for us to receive a smile from him, along with words of benediction.\u00bb This is what Chiara Lubich<\/a> wrote in the book, \u201cThe Cry<\/a>\u201d (1), where she highlighted the uninterrupted rapport established with the successors of Peter, and also with Albino Luciani <\/a>in the brief stretch of his pontificate. “The new pope has the gift of making himself immediately understood by all<\/strong> \u2013 even by children \u2013 wrote Guglielmo Boselli (2), then the director of Citt\u00e0 Nuova.<\/a> His language, like that of Jesus, is normal and straight to the point. It is this wisdom coming from the heart that gives the capacity to immediately create a spontaneous relationship: the wonderful gift of one who came from a long pastoral experience, was always in touch with the people, and did not need any difficult speeches typical of professionals of the trade. He is a man of extensive humanistic and theological culture, who has overcome the phase of those still studying Christianity in a laboratory: his words are immediately and exactly what they should be. He just has to open his mouth and there is already communication, real communication.” He was elected after a brief conclave of only 26 hours, and as they said, \u201can apostolate of the Council\u201d was elected. In fact, at the audience with the cardinals on <\/strong>30 August, when reference was made to the Lumen gentium<\/em> 22, he broached one of the key points of the Vatican II ecclesiology. “The Bishops \u2013 he said, speaking off the cuff \u2013 have to also think of the universal Church\u2026 behind you I see your bishops, and the Conferences which in the atmosphere established by the Council, have to give strong support to the Pope\u2026 So this is true, but today it is vital that the world sees us united\u2026 Have pity for this poor new Pope, who really didn\u2019t expect to rise to this role. Try to help him and let us try together to give the world a show of unity, even sacrificing some things at times since we have so much to lose if the world does not see us firmly united.” On 28 September<\/strong>, after only 33 days, came the bewildering news of his death. “John Paul I \u2013 again wrote Guglielmo Boselli<\/strong> (3) \u2013 maybe had the task of bringing down the last external evidences of every type of \u201cdistance\u201d between the pope, the bishop of Rome, \u201cpresident of charity\u201d and the people who still could resist: this was by carrying out dialogue as a man among many in a church, in which all is credible, and authentic. \u00a0Pope Luciani did his share, which he perhaps shouldn\u2019t have and couldn\u2019t have done\u2026 The clear continuity with Pope Francis is very evident.” <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Chiara Lubich,\u00a0 The Cry, New City ed. 2001<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Citt\u00e0 Nuova, 17\/1978, p. 8<\/li>\n
  3. 19\/1978, p. 9<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On 28 September 1978, after only 33 days of his pontificate, the world was taken by surprise by the news of the death of Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I. Our remembrance of the \u201cSmiling Pope.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[894],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senza-categoria-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}