John Paul I - a Mikhail Gorbachev of the Catholic Church?

Yesterday Pope Francis beatified

Pope John Paul I in Rome.

John Paul I was pope from August 26 to September 28, 1978. The pope of a month. He was 66 when he became pope. Before being elected, Albino Luciani was Patriarch of Venice.

He was known as the smiling pope and in his short time in the job he made some significant changes. 

He used 'I’ instead of the royal we.  He initially refused to use the sedia gestatoria  until others convinced him of its need to allow himself to be seen by crowds. He was the last pope to use it. He was the first pope to refuse to be crowned. Instead of a coronation, he inaugurated his papacy with a "papal inauguration" where he received the papal pallium as the symbol of his position as Bishop of Rome.

Luciani had mixed feelings regarding the traditional stance on contraception. In 1968, as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, he submitted a report to his predecessor as the Patriarch of Venice, Giovanni Urbani, that argued that the contraceptive pill should be permitted. It was agreed on by fellow Veneto bishops and was later submitted to Pope Paul VI. 

When Humanae vitae was released, Luciani defended that document. Nevertheless, he seemed to contradict that defence in a letter he wrote to his diocese four days after the encyclical's release. 

In May 1978, Luciani was invited to speak at a  conference in Milan to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the encyclical. He refused to speak at the event or even attend it.

Might Albino Luciani have been the Catholic Church’s version of Mikhail Gorbachev? The Russians waited far longer to return to their old ways than did the Catholic Church.

Sadly and unfortunately he was not pope long enough to show his style and to carry out much needed reform in the church.

While in Venice he wrote a monthly column for Messaggero di S. Antonio.

Below is an introduction to his letter to Charles Dickens and like any good journalist he admits to having difficulties in coming up with an idea.

Dear Dickens,

I am a bishop who has been give the odd task of writing a letter to some eminent person every month for the Messaggero di S. Antonio. I was pushed for time, around Christmas, and didn’t know whom to choose. And then I saw an advertisement in a newspaper to your famous books and thought to myself, ‘I’ll write to him. I read his books as a boy, and really loved them; they were filled with love of rtht poor and a sense of the need for social reform, they were warm and imaginative and human’. So here I am, bothering you.

First of all I remember your love for the poor. You felt it and expressed it splendidly, because, as a child, you lived among the poor.

Illustrissimi - The Letters of Pope John Paul I is a collection of Luciani’s letters to famous people of the past. It was first published in 1978. 

Archbishop Basil Hume writes a preface to the English translation published in 1978.