Pope Francis beatified John Paul I in Rome on Sunday. He had been pope for just 33 days, from August 26 to September 28, 1978.

Candela Giarda (22) explained in a video recorded from Argentina that she was unable to travel to Italy.

"Unfortunately we can't go because my foot is broken, but surely at some point we will be able to go to the tomb of John Paul I," Giarda said.

The Blessed John Paul's intercession in Giarda's life began in 2011, when she was close to death.

Her mother and the local Catholic priest prayed for her healing through John Paul I's intercession.

Soon afterward, the 11 year-old began to improve. Around six weeks later she was discharged from hospital.

After the Vatican investigation into Giarda's healing concluded, Pope Francis recognised the event as a miracle obtained through the intercession of John Paul I.

Francis's recognition paved the way for John Paul's beatification.

In her video from Argentina, Giarda thanked "Pope John Paul I for this second chance at life that he gave me; and to Pope Francis for inviting us to his beatification".

Giarda's mother also spoke on the video.

"What happened ... may help other people to have a little more faith, of hope in the face of difficult times like the ones we are experiencing," she said.

"We appreciate the prayers offered and we entrust ourselves to the prayers of Pope Francis and we are going to continue praying for him."

The priest who prayed with Giarda's mother the night the doctors said there was nothing else they could do for her will attend John Paul's beatification on 4 September.

Asked why he suggested the woman entrust her daughter to John Paul I's intercession, he said when he saw the dying girl he was "inspired to turn to John Paul I to ask for the healing of [the mother's] little girl".

He, Giarda's mother and some of the nurses present prayed Giarda would be miraculously healed.

"Until that moment I had never prayed to John Paul I for healing," Dabusti says.

He explained John Paul I had inspired him when he was elected pope. At that time Dabusti was just 13 years old.

"I was really struck by the election and the person of Pope Luciani [John Paul I]: I saw that he was very simple and very happy," he said.

"These two traits had caught my attention and aroused my admiration, above all, my spontaneous affection for him."

Dabusti says he has always kept a portrait of Pope John Paul I in his room: "Growing up, I begged him to help me discern which vocation to follow."

"And I am certain that Albino Luciani was a mysterious spiritual father and a silent but effective intercessor for me in deciding to embrace the priestly vocation."

Source

• Catholic News Agency

The man who would become pope - then Bishop Albino Luciani - prepared the document on contraception on behalf of the bishops of Italy's Triveneto region. It was then was given to St Paul VI before he issued his encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

The encyclical upheld the Church's opposition to artificial birth control.

John Paul I's document was not available publicly until 2020.

His initial openness to softening Catholic teaching on contraception and his later support for Paul VI has come to notice on the eve of the World Meeting of Families. His beatification in September is also in sight.

Andrea Tornielli of Vatican News says there is also "a very rare audio tape" of Luciani talking about Church teaching on regulating births.

His comments were made during a conference in 1968 - before Humanae Vitae was released.

"For me this is the biggest theological issue that has ever been dealt with in the Church.

Tornielli quotes Luciani as hoping for a "liberalising" word from Paul VI, saying:

"When there was Arius or Nestorius and they were talking about the two natures in Christ, they were serious issues, yes, but they were understood only at the top of the Church, by theologians and bishops.

"The poor people understood nothing about these things and would say, ‘I adore Jesus Christ, I love the Lord who redeemed me,' and it was all there, there was no danger."

The future Pope John Paul I then said the issue of whether it is permissible under some circumstances to use some forms of birth control, "is a problem that no longer concerns the top leadership of the Church, but the whole Church, all young families."

Vice postulator of John Paul's sainthood cause, Stefania Falasca, says Luciani was interested in "the moral and scientific problems related to birth control".

He studied them "seeking a way in which the application of Catholic doctrine could also take into account the drama of conscience of many believing couples, tormented by the discord between fidelity to magisterial indications and the actual difficulties of life as a couple."

Falasca says by urging a somewhat more liberal position before Humanae Vitae and urging full acceptance of the teaching afterward, Luciani was being Catholic.

"One must distinguish, on the one hand, the reflection and concerns in research by a pastor who is also a dogmatic theologian, close with great pastoral sensitivity to the difficulties of so many Christian couples and therefore in favour of a deepening of Catholic doctrine on the issue and, on the other hand, consider the bishop faithful to a doctrine that had remained substantially and consistently steadfast in its disapproval of contraceptive practices."

It's also important to "consider the bishop faithful to a doctrine that had remained substantially and consistently steadfast in its disapproval of contraceptive practices," she says.

He also urged pastors to be gentle with penitents, encouraging them to grow in accepting the teaching of Humanae Vitae without condemning them if they could not fully comply.

Source

• Crux Now

In a tell-all new book "When the Bullet Hits the Bone," Anthony Raimondi (69) opens up about John Paul's death after just 33 days in office.

Raimondi says his co-conspirators killed the pope because John Paul I threatened to expose a billion-dollar stock fraud by Vatican bank insiders.

John Paul - who died after only 33 days in office - vowed to defrock the perpetrators, who would have been jailed.

If he'd agreed to keep his mouth shut, John Paul "could have had a nice long reign" instead of dying, Raimondi says.

The perpetrators included Raimondi's cousin, Cardinal Paul Marcinkus, who ran the Vatican bank and about "half the cardinals and bishops in the Vatican."

Raimondi says Marcinkus recruited him to come to the Vatican to help with the murder.

He had to learn the pope's habits and observe as Marcinkus drugged John Paul by spiking his nightly cup of tea with Valium.

He was told he needed to observe the process and to testify before God that John Paul I didn't suffer, Raimondi says.

However, rather than be in the pope's bedroom while he was being murdered, Raimondi says he chose to wait in the corridor outside the bedroom.

"I'd done a lot of things in my time, but I didn't want to be there in the room when they killed the pope. I knew that would buy me a one-way ticket to hell."

He claims the Valium did its job so well John Paul wouldn't have stirred "even if there had been an earthquake."

His cousin then measured cyanide in the dropper, "put the dropper in the pope's mouth and squeezed.

"When it was done, he closed the door behind him and walked away."

A papal assistant checked on him, then cried out that the pope was dying.

Marcinkus and two other cardinals in on the plot "rushed into the bedroom like it was a big surprise," Raimondi writes.

A Vatican doctor was then summoned, who said the pope had suffered a fatal heart attack.

Raimondi insists the Valium and the deadly toxin killed John Paul I painlessly.

He says a new plan to kill John Paul's successor, John Paul II was developed soon after he became the new pope.

The fraudsters believed he would take action against them, Raimondi says.

However the new pope decided not to act because he knew he too would die.

Raimondi says he will stand by the claims he makes in his book "till the day I die.

" If they take [the pope's body] and do any type of testing, they will still find traces of the poison in his system."

Source

• Herald Sun
• New York Post
• Image: New York Post

The Pope, who held office for only 33 days before his death in 1978, was not murdered.

Rumours that he was murdered began circulating soon after his sudden death.

A new book "Papa Luciani: Chronicle of a Death," discloses details about the pontiff's death. It says there is conclusive evidence that his death was the result of a heart attack.

Reviews of the book, which was published on Tuesday, say Vatican journalist Stefania Falasca presents "thoroughly-researched evidence, including previously undisclosed medical reports, witness testimonies and Vatican documents".

Her research confirms original reports claiming John Paul I died of a heart attack.

Until now, a lack of published evidence has allowed conspiracy theories to surface, including insinuations of murder.

Falasca's book outlines the evidence regarding John Paul I's death, including how the evening before his death he suffered a severe pain in his chest for about five minutes.

It occurred while sitting and praying vespers in the chapel with his Irish secretary, Msgr. John Magee.

The pope rejected the suggestion to call for a doctor and the pain went away without treatment. His doctor, Renato Buzzonetti, was only informed of the event after John Paul died.

Contrary to the Vatican's initial announcement stating the pope's secretaries were first to find him dead the next morning, he was actually found by Sr. Margherita Marin.

In a sworn testimony, Marin said when she went at an older nun's request to see why he hadn't had his early-morning cup of tea, she "touched his hands, they were cold, and I saw, and was struck by the fact that his nails were a little dark."

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is the Vatican Secretary of State, says in a preface to the book that while serving as Patriarch of Venice in 1975, the pope (who was then Cardinal Luciani) suffered from a heart problem, which was being medically treated.

In November 2003 Saint Pope John Paul II declared John Paul I a Servant of God.

Requests to begin John Paul I's beatification process followed shortly after his death. These were formalized in 1990, with a document signed by 226 Brazilian bishops.

Two miracles have been attributed to the intercession John Paul I are being examined. If one is recognised as a miracle, the man Italians called "the smiling pope" could be beatified.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• America Magazine
• Image: Catholic Herald

This was reported by Italy's Famiglia Cristiana (Christian Family) Catholic magazine last week.

No pope has ever testified for the beatification of another, the magazine stated.

John Paul I died 37 years ago after being pope for just 33 days, following the death of Blessed Pope Paul VI.

He was succeeded by St John Paul II

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Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone announced that the position document for the beatification of Pope John Paul I will be submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the northern autumn.

This sets out the pros and cons for the case for beatification.

Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected pope on August 26, 1978.

He died after 33 days in office, prompting many conspiracy theories that he had been murdered.

One miracle has already been attributed to John Paul I's intercession: the healing of Giuseppe Denora from a malignant stomach tumour in 1992.

John Paul I was declared a Servant of God by his successor in 2003.

The only 20th century popes who have not yet begun the process toward sainthood are Benedict XV and Pius XI.

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