There is the authorization of the Pope: John Paul I will be blessed

In Belluno the bells ring in celebration. The recognized miracle is the healing that took place on 23 July 2011 in Buenos Aires, of an eleven-year-old girl suffering from “severe acute inflammatory encephalopathy, refractory malignant epileptic state epilepticus, septic shock” and now dying

BELLUNO. Pope John Paul I will be blessed. Pope Francis has in fact authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree concerning the miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God John Paul I (Albino Luciani), Pontiff; born on 17 October 1912 in Forno di Canale, today Canale d’Agordo and died on 28 September 1978 in the Apostolic Palace. In Belluno the bells ring in celebration.

The recognized miracle is the healing that took place on 23 July 2011 in Buenos Aires, of an eleven-year-old girl suffering, according to the dicastery, from “severe acute inflammatory encephalopathy, refractory malignant epileptic state epilepticus, septic shock” and now dying: the clinical picture was very serious, characterized by numerous daily epileptic seizures and a septic state of bronchopneumonia.

The initiative to invoke Pope Luciani had been taken by the parish priest of the parish to which the hospital belonged, to which he was very devoted. The Venetian Pontiff, who reigned 33 days in 1978, is therefore now close to beatification and is now only waiting to know the date, which will be established by Francis.

THE LONG WAY. It was November 23, 2003, exactly twenty-five years after the death of Pope Luciani, when the opening of the cause for beatification was held in a solemn form in the cathedral basilica of Belluno. The inaugural session of the diocesan inquiry was attended, in an entirely exceptional way, by the then prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins. I invite the then bishop Vincenzo Savio. The lawsuit lasted 18 years, during which an archival investigation was carried out which involved more than seventy archives in thirty different locations, first of all the institutional archives kept in the premises where Luciani was based. The contribution of the granddaughters of John Paul I, Lina Petri and Pia Luciani, is precious. The diocesan inquiry, coordinated by Don Giorgio lise, began to operate on November 22, 2003 and the diocesan process took place in 203 sessions, during which – in the episcopal see of Belluno, Vittorio Veneto, Venice and Rome – 167 witnesses were examined. The works ended three years later.

In 2007, the ordinary Congress of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints observed how the documentation received presented some with particular reference to that preserved in the Historical Archives of the Patriarchate of Venice and in the Archives of the Bishops’ Conference of the Triveneto. The then bishop of Belluno-Feltre, Giuseppe Andrich, established the tribunal for the supplementary diocesan inquiry. Only after the delivery of these archival papers, on 13 June 2008, was the formal validity of the acts of the diocesan inquiry recognized by decree. Between 2008 and 2015 the extra-procedural depositions of another 21 witnesses were also acquired, with particular reference to the period of the pontificate and the death of John Paul I, of which the testimony of Benedict XVI is extremely important for the its historical unicum so far, as it is the first time that a Pope issues a face-to-face testimony on another Pope.

On October 17, 2016, with the delivery of the Positio in the Congregation, composed in five volumes for over three thousand six hundred pages in total, the scientific and editorial work that lasted eight years was concluded and the final judgment examination by the judging bodies of the Congregation. The Congress of Theologians expressed its unanimous positive vote on June 1, 2017 and the same response was given by the Ordinary Session of Cardinals and Bishops on November 3, 2017, on November 8 Pope Francis made public the decree on virtues. At the end of November of that same year, the diocesan inquiry conducted in 2016 in the Argentine diocese of Buenos Aires was also concluded for a case of alleged extraordinary healing which took place through the intercession of Pope Luciani in 2011 in favor of a girl suffering from a serious condition. of encephalopathy. Subsequent acknowledgments by the Commission of doctors, that of theologians, bishops and cardinals, led to the signing of the decree by Pope Francis.