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Pope John Paul IAlbino Luciani: Pope John Paul I Born Oct. 17, 1912; Died Sept. 28, 1978By United Press InternationalThe son of a Socialist migrant bricklayer from a Dolomite mountain hamlet in Italy, Albino Luciani once said of himself: “1 am only a poor man, accustomed to small things and silence.”Luciani, who died in his sleep Thursday night at the age of 65, reigned as spiritual leader of the world’s 700 million Catholics for 34 days after his election as the 263rd pope on Aug. 26.Few people outside Italy had heard of Luciani — a smiling man who wore rimless spectacles and had the ruddy face of the mountain native he was — before preparations began for the papal election conclave to replace Pope Paul VI.Despite his active interest in thelot of the poor, Luciani was rated as a church conservative. He admitted to a reporter he found it hard to accept the FiCumenical Council's teaching that all religions are entitled to liberty, in contrast with the old teaching that Koman Catholicism, was the only true religion,” and has rights that others have not.“The thesis I found hardest to live with was the one on religious freedom,” Luciani said. ‘‘For years 1 had taught the public law theses of Cardinal (Alfredo) Otta-viani, according to which only the truth had rights. In the end, i convinced myself we had been wrong.”Luciani was born Oct. 17,1912, at Forno di Canale, a hamlet in a scenic but poor side valley of the Dolomite range 33 miles south of the luxury skiing resort of Cortinad’Ampezzo.His father was a bricklayer, who worked in Switzerland in the summers and returned home in the winters, before moving to the Venetian lagoon island of Murano as a glass worker. Although he was a Socialist party activist in his spare time, the elder Luciani never opposed young Albino’s decision to become a priestLuciani attended seminary in the town of Feltre and graduated in philosophy and theology at the seminary of Belluno, the hometown of 19th-century Pope Gregory XVI. He then graduated in dogmatics from the Gregorian University in Home and was ordained a priest in 1935.He returned to his home area to work as a parish assistant, a religion teacher in a mining technicians’ school and a professor of theology, morals, canon law and sacred art. He later was in charge of catechism teaching in the Belluno diocese and wrote a book about his experiences, titled, with typical modesty, ‘‘Catechism Crumbs.”Pope John XX11I, acting on a recommendation from Padua Bishop Girolamo Bortignon, appointed Luciani bishop of Vittorio Veneto at the foot of the Alps in 1958.Pope Paul VI promoted Luciani patriarch of Venice in 1969 and named him a cardinal in 1973For historical reasons, Venice and Lisbon are the only European cities whose bishops hold the title of patriarch The Venice See won additional prestige from the fact Pius X and John XX1I1 held it at the time they were elected popes in 1903 and 1958, respectively.Luciani plunged into his work with enthusiasm, riding to mainland parishes by bicycle, doing away with official pomp and ceremony and instructing parish priests to sell their churches’ gold ornaments to provide for handicapped children.The church’s real treasures are the poor, the little ones, who should not be helped by means of mere occasional alms, but in such a way as to insure their promotion,” Luciani once wrote.At the same time, the patriarch opposed the vvorker-priest movement and other forms of what he considered undue church involvement in the class struggle in Venice’s industrial mainland suburb of Porto Marghera
Newspaper Details
Kenosha News
Kenosha, Wisconsin, US
Fri, Sep 29, 1978
Page 21
Full Page
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USA 15 May 2025
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