Thirty seven years ago yesterday, 65-year-old Italian Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected on the fourth ballot during the second day of the papal conclave as pope on Aug. 26, 1978, taking the name Pope John Paul I, a combination of names honoring his two immediate predecessors, now Blessed Pope Paul VI and St. Pope John XXIII. He was consecrated as pope Sept. 3, 1978.
Known as the “Smiling Pope,” he died just 33 days later on Sept. 28, 1978, the briefest pontificate since Pope Leo XI’s in 1605, and setting the stage for the first Year of Three Popes – Blessed Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I and St. Pope John Paul II – since 1605 when Pope Clement VIII, Pope Leo XI and Pope Paul V all sat on the Chair of Peter.
Born at Canale d’Argordo, near Belluno, 80 miles north of Venice, Luciani was consecrated as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto by Pope John XXIII at St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 27, 1958, and subsequently was named Patriarch of Venice by Pope Paul VI on Dec. 15, 1969. He was created a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI on March 5, 1973.
On Thursday, Sept. 28, 1978, Pope John Paul I shared a simple dinner of clear soup, veal, fresh beans and salad in his papal apartment with his two secretaries, an Italian, Father Diego Lorenzi, and an Irishman, Father John Magee.
The secretaries had a glass of wine each; Pope John Paul I drank only water. When dinner was over, the three men briefly watched a news program on television and shortly after 9 p.m. the pope retired for the night, setting his wind-up alarm clock for 4:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 29, the hour he usually arose.
At 4:30 a.m., Sister Vincenza Taffarel, a nun who had served as housekeeper in his household during his decade as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto between 1959 and 1969, took a flask of coffee to his study, as she had done every day for 20 years, knocking at his bedroom door and bidding him good morning. There was no reply. A quarter of an hour later she returned and knocked again and still no reply. Alarmed, she opened the door and Pope John Paul I was sitting up in bed, wearing his glasses, with some sheets of paper clutched in his hand. She checked for a pulse and found none.
Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, deputy head of the Vatican’s health service, estimated the time of death to have been about 11 p.m. the previous evening. The cause of death was said to be a heart attack.
While Pope John Paul I had a very short pontificate, it was by no means the shortest. That distinction is officially held by Pope Urban VII, an Italian, who was only pope for 13 days between Sept. 15 and Sept. 27, 1590. One of his first papal acts was to make a list of all the poor in Rome, so that he could help them. He paid off the debts of all the monts-de-piété in the ecclesiastical state, and ordered the bakers of Rome to make larger loaves of bread and sell them cheaper, indemnifying their losses out of his own pocket.
An even shorter pontificate, although one we can place an asterisk beside, because it was so short there wasn’t even time to consecrate him after being elected pope, resulting in him being now omitted from most modern lists of popes, was that of Pope-elect Stephen II, who only served for three days between March 23 and March 26, 752 before dying as the result of a stroke.
It’s a bit complicated really. It is, after all, a Catholic thing.
Pope-elect Stephen II was an Italian priest, whose predecessor, Pope St. Zachary, had made cardinal presbyter seven years earlier in 745. But he hadn’t quite been episcopally ordained as a bishop yet when elected pope.
According to the canon law in effect when he was elected in March 752, his pontificate actually wasn’t to begin until his papal consecration, hence his name is not registered in the Liber Pontificalis, nor in many other lists of popes. Regnal numbering was also not used for popes until the 10th century, and their turned out to be a lot of Pope Stephens, complicating matters even further, if possible. Any regnal numbering attached to their pontificates has been applied posthumously.
However, since Oct. 1, 1975, a pope has been considered pope from the time of his election and acceptance, even before papal consecration, thus Pope-elect Stephen II has been sometimes anachronistically called Pope Stephen II again over the last 40 years.
And, of course, again history’s shortest pope with a three-day pontificate.
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