Glocester man to speak at international conference on life of Pope John Paul I

August 14, 2012 6:42 pm

By Richard C. Dujardin

GLOCESTER, R.I. -- A former member of the Foster-Glocester School Committee is being tapped to address an international conference on the life of Albino Luciani, who was Pope John Paul I for just 33 days before he died unexpectedly in 1978.

Mo Guernon, who regularly wrote columns for the Woonsocket Call, Warwick Beacon, and other papers, thinks he was asked to speak at the Oct. 12-13 gathering at New York City's Immaculate Conception center ibecause of an article he wrote on the "Forgotten Pope" for America magazine and interviews he's had with the late pope's family while preparing a biography.

Entitled "The Real Pope John Paul I," the conference will mark the 100th anniversary of Luciani's birth, featuring experts from Europe and the U.S.

Glocester man to speak at international conference on life of Pope John Paul I: from The Providence Journal

The heritage of Albino Luciani on the centenary of his birth

He was elected Pope on 26 August 1978

For the Catholic Church the summer of 1978 was not just an ordinary summer. Indeed Paul VI died on 6 August, after a 15-year Pontificate. On 26 August, following a very rapid Conclave – four ballots in two days – the Patriarch of Venice was elected Pope. He took the name of John Paul I: “the smiling Pope”, “the humble Pope”, “The catechist Pope”, “the pastor of the world”, “God’s smile”. The pontificate of Albino Luciani lasted for only just 33 days. On 17 October 1978 he would have been 66, but he did not live to celebrate that birthday. At dawn on 28 September the new Pontiff was found dead in his bedroom.

We are eager to remember him on the occasion of his election to the papal throne. The following day, at the altar beneath Michelangelo’s Last Judgementin the Sistine Chapel, “this humble and most recent servant of the servants of God” gave his first and only Radio Message, broadcast in “mondovision”: the Urbi et Orbi Discourse. He was still overwhelmed “at the thought of this tremendous ministry”, as a priest, teacher and pastor, but certain of the “comforting, dominant presence of the Son of God” in the Church, “Placing our hand in that of Christ” and “leaning on him... the author of salvation and the principle of unity and peace”. In this friendly way he addressed all men and women, seeing them as friends, as brothers and sisters, a world that “thirsts for a life of love”.

He developed his Discourse in six points, each one introduced by the words “we wish”, full of effect and unusual in the language of a Pope. A programme of original ideas flashes before our eyes: faith and culture find a felicitous synthesis.

It is an input tinged with solemnity, yet at the same time affection, and which seems to have been born from the delicate pulsation of his heart. Shortly afterwards, from the central loggia of St Peter’s and facing the spectacular square designed by Bernini, in a voice filled with emotion and awe and with a small boy’s smile, he commented on his election in a manner different from any other Pope. Making short shrift of the majestic “we”, he cancelled distances and, adjusting an escaping curl on his forehead, buried the practice of wearing the tiara on the head. His style of “being” Pope, humble, simple, creative and direct, instantly fired the enthusiasm of the crowd that filled the oval square and even elicited outbursts of affection in the Vatican buildings.

L'Osservatore Romano

August 26, 2012

Those words Pope Luciani pronounced about Lefebvre

From Vatican Insider

ANDREA TORNIELLI

ROME

Reconciliation with traditionalist archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was also close to Pope Luciani’s heart. This was revealed to the director of the Italian Episcopal Conference’s television channel TV2000, Dino Boffo, by John Paul I’s secretary, Diego Lorenzi, during an interview on the occasion of the centenary of the “smiling Pope’s” birth. The interview will be aired tomorrow at 18:30 on TV2000. “The problem Lefebvre had – Lorenzi stated – which still exists today, was also on John Paul I’s mind.” Referring to the Lefebvre affair, the Pope’s secretary explained how John Paul I used to say to him: “The uncut tunic of the Roman Catholic Church has a tear in it.” “And he longed for it to be mended as soon as possible,” Lorenzi concluded. “The compactness of the flock, the unity of the Church is something he held very close to his heart, more than many other things which the press seemed interested in.”

Pope Luciani’s recent biography (San Paolo editions) written by Marco Roncalli, a number of excerpts of which were published in this afternoon’s issue of the Holy See’s daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano reconstructs the future Pope’s thinking and concerns about the Lefebvrians. These concerns arose before the election and were a response to a situation which he already saw as an emergency during the Venice period. Starting for example with the homily pronounced on 16 August 1976, when Patriarch Luciani began talking about the ancient discord within the Church and ended up discussing the modern disagreements which saw Paul VI hit by the Lefebvre and Franzoni cases. Just a few days before, on 22 July, Paul VI has in fact suspended the traditionalist bishop a divinis.

In his homily, Pope Luciani linked the two cases saying: “My brothers, I was a fraternal friend of Franzoni’s and we were on familiar terms; I have heard Lefebvre speak in the Council on many occasions. I am certain that years ago both of them fully accepted the Council’s following words: “by virtue of office and as vicar of Christ, has full, supreme and universal authority, which can be exercised always and everywhere.” How come both Franzoni and Lefebvre now expressly reject these words? To me this is an unexplainable tragedy… Or perhaps “the explanation lies in the conclusion itself, which Paul Bourget gave in his novel Le demon du midi: “We must live according to what we think, otherwise we end up thinking according to how we live”… We may also face this risk…The Lord, however, wants us to obey the hierarchy.” These words are as true today as they were yesterday.

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/blog-sacri-palazzi-en/detail/articolo/lefebvre-luciani-17653/