He participated in all of the sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) as the bishop of Vittorio Veneto and he worked to implement the guidelines council in the following decade as the Patriarch of Venice.
As a cardinal, Luciani published a collection of “open letters” to historic figures, saints, famous writers, and fictional characters. The book, Illustrissimi, included letters to Jesus, King David, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Christopher Marlowe, as well as Pinocchio and Figaro, the barber of Seville.
He made history in 1978 when he became the first pope to take a double name, after his two immediate predecessors, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. His episcopal motto was simply: “Humilitas.”
Shortly before his death at the age of 65, John Paul I prayed: “Lord take me as I am, with my defects, with my shortcomings, but make me become what you want me to be.”
As the rain clouds cleared by the end of the beatification ceremony, Pope Francis prayed the…
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