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Pope Francis will beatify the “smiling pope” John Paul I on Sept. 4, 2022.
Vatican News, the website overseen by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, said on Dec. 23 that the pope who reigned for only 33 days would be beatified in St. Peter’s Basilica.
It added that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints shared the ceremony’s date with Cardinal Beniamino Stella, postulator of the cause of canonization, and Bishop Renato Marangoni of Belluno-Feltre, the Italian diocese where the cause opened on Nov. 23, 2003, and closed on Nov. 9, 2017, with the proclamation of John Paul I’s heroic virtues.
Pope Francis recognized a miracle obtained through the intercession of his papal predecessor in October.
John Paul I was elected pope on Aug. 26, 1978, following the death of Paul VI. A priority of his short pontificate was carrying forward the work of the Second Vatican Council.
He died unexpectedly on Sept. 28, 1978, at the age of 65, and was succeeded by Pope John Paul II.
Even before he was elected pope, Albino Luciani was known for his humility, his emphasis on spiritual poverty, and his dedication to teaching the faith in an understandable manner.
The miracle attributed to John Paul I’s intercession is the 2011 healing of a girl in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, Argentina, from a severe form of encephalopathy, a disease affecting the brain.
In an April 2020 article in L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin wrote that “Pope John Paul I was and remains a reference point in the history of the universal Church, the importance of which — as St. John Paul II pointed out — is inversely proportional to the duration of his very short pontificate.”
In 2008, on the 30th anniversary of John Paul I’s death, Benedict XVI reflected on St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, in which the apostle writes: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.”
Benedict said that the biblical text brought to mind John Paul I, who chose the same episcopal motto as St. Charles Borromeo: Humilitas.
John Paul I’s simplicity, according to Benedict, “was a means of solid and fruitful instruction, which, thanks to the gift of an excellent memory and vast culture, was enriched by numerous citations of Church and secular authors.”
Writing in Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, on Dec. 23, vice postulator Stefania Falasca noted that the causes of six of the nine 20th-century popes have opened. Four of them have concluded in canonization: those of Pius X, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II.
The cause of Pope Pius XII was opened on Nov. 18, 1965, by Paul VI during the last session of the Second Vatican Council. Benedict XVI declared the wartime pope Venerable on Dec. 19, 2009.
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CNA Staff, Feb 17, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Pro-life activists are challenging a German municipality’s decision to ban them from praying in front of a pre-abortion advisory center.
Members of the 40 Days for Life in Pforzheim, southwest Germany, … […]
Alfred Magero, Matthew Njogu, and Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi are three Catholic fathers from Africa who recently shared insights about being a present dad, protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and being a model of family values for their children with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. / Credit: Photos courtesy of ACI Africa
ACI Africa, Jun 17, 2024 / 12:37 pm (CNA).
On the occasion of Father’s Day 2024, a day focused on the celebration of fatherhood, four Catholic men from different African countries recently shared their experiences of impacting the lives of their children.
The Catholic fathers — who hail from Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria — talk about the importance of “being present,” of protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and of being a model of family values for their children, who they believe someday will become parents as well.
Tony Nnachetta, 68: Fatherhood is a full-time enterprise
Tony Nnachetta shares a moment with Pope Francis. The married father of four is a parishioner in the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Tony Nnachetta is a married father of four who attends the Church of the Assumption Parish in Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Lagos. Nnachettahas been a parishioner there for 40 years, and he was wed there 38 years ago. A member of the Grand Knights of St. Mulumba, he originally hails from the Archdiocese of Onitsha.
I got married to my friend after we dated for four years. I was looking forward to fatherhood and I was mentally prepared for it. Here are the lessons I have learned along my fatherhood journey.
First, being a father means you watch your children grow and become independent. You watch them get to a point in their lives where they can engage in a debate with you and even disagree with you.
Fatherhood is a long process. You would be fortunate to go through the entire process and maybe see your children’s children. I have seen mine achieve excellence in school and even leave home and go across the world as they sought to become independent.
Wherever your children go, what is important for them is what they take away from home — what they take from mommy and daddy. I have always told mine to “remember the child of who you are.” This means that they are not allowed to break the Christian values in our family.
I taught them to always stand for the truth and never to flow with the tide. We have encouraged them to always say what they mean. These days, they have jokingly turned around the statement and they tell me, “Remember the dad of who you are,” and we laugh about it.
You can’t always be there to take the bullet for them, but you can support them through prayers. Our family relies a lot on the intercession of the saints. We call ourselves a family of Jesuits because the school my children went to is under the patronage of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Fatherhood is a full-time engagement. It is not like you can be a father in the morning and take a break in the evening. You worry about your children even when they are grown and have left your home. They preoccupy you everywhere. You wonder whether they are warm and if they have had their meal. But all this brings a father immense joy.
Young fathers in Africa are overburdened by poverty. Because of poverty they don’t have a way to help their families. Others are scared to enter the marriage institution. Poverty has made young men weak and helpless. Some are leaving their young families and going to faraway places outside the continent to make a living.
Poverty is eroding family values because some fathers do what they do, including stealing, for their children to survive. In doing so, they are setting a bad example for their children …
It is important for our leaders to confront this situation. They must accept that they have let us down.
Matthew Njogu, 75: Tips on being a present dad
Matthew Njogu is the moderator of the Catholic Men Association at St. Austin’s Msongari Parish of Kenya’s Archdiocese of Nairobi. His children are now adults. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Fathers need to be present in the lives of their children. For a long time, it was assumed that it was the mother’s responsibility to take care of the young children; fathers kept off. But being absent in the lives of your children hurts your relationship with them. They end up growing up without you having any impact on their lives.
Unfortunately, some fathers assume that fatherhood ends at providing material things… They don’t pay attention to their children’s growth milestones. And when they eventually try to establish a connection, they find that the children are already all grown without knowing anything about their fathers.
Simple things like dropping your children off at school help you connect with them. While stuck in traffic on the way to school, you can talk about things that will help you understand your child and for him to know you.
Always try as much as possible to have dinner with your children and help them with schoolwork. And always try to make up for the time you don’t spend with them.
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi, 53: Raising a Christ-like family
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyia runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two, though he tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Nkamanyi runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two children ages 16 and 20. He tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many,” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Here are his insights into nurturing a Christ-like family.
It is the joy of every responsible young man to be called “daddy” or “papa.” Having a Christ-like family is the greatest gift for a father; a family like that of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.
My appeal for Catholic fathers is to hold their families firmly, to provide for them, and to protect them from all dangers in the contemporary society, where values are being eroded.
I don’t believe that being a father is a challenging task. God already gave us the innate potential to be fathers. I believe that God can’t give you a role that you can’t perform.
It is unfortunate that many young men are choosing to be absentee fathers. From what I have seen, many children raised by a single parent end up adopting wayward behaviors.
Alfred Magero, 48: Being a present dad in a low-income setting
Alfred Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Catholic Parish of in the Nairobi Archdiocese. The father of three has been married for 29 years. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Parish of the Archdiocese of Nairobi. The father of three has been married for 29 years and shares his experience and that of other Catholic dads raising their children in a low-income neighborhood.
I am raising my children to become God-fearing adults. This is not an easy task in the community in which we live, where there is a lot of poverty, drunkenness, and other characteristics typical of a low-income [neighborhood].
Many fathers rarely interact with their children since their main focus is to provide for their families. They leave for work before their children wake up and come back at night when the children have already gone to bed.
The young men and boys we are raising are experiencing a different environment from ours when we were growing up. With the whole world brought to them on the palm of their hand by a simple tap on the phone, this generation is dangerously exposed. They need us, their fathers, to constantly give them direction. They need us to be their role models.
They need us to constantly remind them that they are in Africa and that they should not adopt alien cultures, especially those bound to destroy the family.
As fathers, we must remind our young ones to uphold African values that kept the family unit and the society glued together. Africans knew the importance of loving and caring for each other. Unfortunately, this value is being eroded, and in its place, now we have individualism. Older men in families would educate young men to be responsible adults. Unfortunately, we no longer have this kind of education.
Vatican City, Jun 5, 2020 / 12:40 pm (CNA).- In response to racism, the Catholic Church should be united in Christ, not take ideological sides, Cardinal Kevin Farrell said at a prayer service for George Floyd in Rome on Friday.
Bergoglio is on a warpath to make a handful of recent popes saints. I wouldn’t doubt if he’s going to nominate himself as a saint before he passes…yet, Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s canonization is on a shelf collecting dust…
Let’s make this a lot simpler. It is obvious and undeniable that every pope before Vatican II was a reactionary sinner who is rightfully consigned to the outer darkness and thence forth eternally ignored while every after Vatican II pope is a glorious “Santo Subito” because of course The Council. Once a new pope is elected, he will automatically be called “Saint” in to avoid the tedious and pointless delay and expense in having to wait until he dies and some rigamarole has to be done in the Saint-making sausage factory to beautify and canonize.
What did he actually do that was saintly? Smile for the cameras? John Paul I accomplished precisely zero as pope except being made pope by the same lobbies that made Roncalli as John XXIII and Montini as Paul VI. If he is made a saint, we should all be made saints automatically and thus dispense with the Church, the sacraments, grace, and even Christ Himself.
I, for one, do believe that the Holy Spirit, who works in mysterious ways, does lead the Cardinals to vote for a person that is needed by the Church at the time.
And you know this how? Because he had a cute and innocently-looking smile? Because we should feel sorry for him because he was robbed of years as Pope? Please give us an explication of what you’re aware of regarding his holiness?
A – its chief theologian Cardinal Kasper, promoted by sycophants of the Pontiff Francis such as “Eminence” Cupich, writes and teaches that the faithful “probably don’t need to believe” in the miracle accounts attributed to Jesus as testified by the apostles and evangelists in the New Testament, for example those in this list including the calming of the sea, the Transfiguration, the raising of the widow’s son, the daughter of Jairus and Lazarus, and especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which “appearances” were not “objectively TANGIBLE events…it is a mistake to interpret what happened as…a miraculous event…[which] “knocked them over” …. This would lead to the grotesque conclusion that those who first preached faith…were dispensed from faith by having seen…. [the appearances] “were actual encounters with Christ present in the spirit.” (Kasper, Jesus the Christ, the denial of the bodily resurrection being on p. 139 of the 1976 edition).
B – While the contemporary Catholic Church absolves the faithful from believing miracle accounts attested in the Gospels by mere evangelists and apostles, yet the faithful can nevertheless be assured that the “miracles” certified by the Church of Pachamama are all to be believed.
Not a very convincing testimony, your Eminences and Excellencies.
One more comment; I thought to be declared a ‘saint’ in the Church, there would have to be ‘2’ miracles attributed to this person. On here, apparently there was only ‘one’ attributed to JPI. These awards to sainthood seem to be flying off the shelf since Frank took over the ‘holy Chair of Peter…’
Pope John Paul II was shot while he was going to view the Shroud of Turin. When John Paul I died, there had been a three-part series on the Shroud of Turin featured in the Kansas City Star. I remember well how this unfolded. Above the headline banner, in red print, was the announcement of the featured articles each of the three days. Having an interest in the Shroud, and having seen the first article, I was anxious to read the second one. I purchased the newspaper the second day, and the headline that morning announced the death of Pope John Paul I. There, above that headline were two images in red of the crucified Christ, with the notice of the second installment of the series on the Shroud presented in red lettering between them. Rather strange.
Just because you’re not a canonized Saint doesn’t mean you’re a lesser saint. Popes and religious have hordes who labor on promoting their sainthood. Lay people, especially obscure saintly people, don’t have such tireless and savvy advocates. That’s okay because in heaven a saint is a saint. Just strive to be a saint.
I heard rumors that Pope John Paul I was poisoned due to him wanting to investigate corruption in the Vatican Bank. IF true, he would be saintly and likely a martyr, although most of these averments come from unverified sources in the Vatican rumor mill, without any proof to substantiate them thus far.
Yet another steroid fueled popularity contest promoting fraudulence…
Bergoglio is on a warpath to make a handful of recent popes saints. I wouldn’t doubt if he’s going to nominate himself as a saint before he passes…yet, Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s canonization is on a shelf collecting dust…
Let’s make this a lot simpler. It is obvious and undeniable that every pope before Vatican II was a reactionary sinner who is rightfully consigned to the outer darkness and thence forth eternally ignored while every after Vatican II pope is a glorious “Santo Subito” because of course The Council. Once a new pope is elected, he will automatically be called “Saint” in to avoid the tedious and pointless delay and expense in having to wait until he dies and some rigamarole has to be done in the Saint-making sausage factory to beautify and canonize.
Let’s start now and not waste any time: “St. Francis the Great.”
This is good news. John Paul 1, was indeed a saintly man.
What did he actually do that was saintly? Smile for the cameras? John Paul I accomplished precisely zero as pope except being made pope by the same lobbies that made Roncalli as John XXIII and Montini as Paul VI. If he is made a saint, we should all be made saints automatically and thus dispense with the Church, the sacraments, grace, and even Christ Himself.
I, for one, do believe that the Holy Spirit, who works in mysterious ways, does lead the Cardinals to vote for a person that is needed by the Church at the time.
And you know this how? Because he had a cute and innocently-looking smile? Because we should feel sorry for him because he was robbed of years as Pope? Please give us an explication of what you’re aware of regarding his holiness?
Was it the fact of his just being another ordained man saying shallow silly things about the wisdom of Humane Vitae that made him “saintly?”
“saying shallow silly things” says the person who does so regularly.
Be man enough to be specific.
Problem for Team Francis:
A – its chief theologian Cardinal Kasper, promoted by sycophants of the Pontiff Francis such as “Eminence” Cupich, writes and teaches that the faithful “probably don’t need to believe” in the miracle accounts attributed to Jesus as testified by the apostles and evangelists in the New Testament, for example those in this list including the calming of the sea, the Transfiguration, the raising of the widow’s son, the daughter of Jairus and Lazarus, and especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which “appearances” were not “objectively TANGIBLE events…it is a mistake to interpret what happened as…a miraculous event…[which] “knocked them over” …. This would lead to the grotesque conclusion that those who first preached faith…were dispensed from faith by having seen…. [the appearances] “were actual encounters with Christ present in the spirit.” (Kasper, Jesus the Christ, the denial of the bodily resurrection being on p. 139 of the 1976 edition).
B – While the contemporary Catholic Church absolves the faithful from believing miracle accounts attested in the Gospels by mere evangelists and apostles, yet the faithful can nevertheless be assured that the “miracles” certified by the Church of Pachamama are all to be believed.
Not a very convincing testimony, your Eminences and Excellencies.
One more comment; I thought to be declared a ‘saint’ in the Church, there would have to be ‘2’ miracles attributed to this person. On here, apparently there was only ‘one’ attributed to JPI. These awards to sainthood seem to be flying off the shelf since Frank took over the ‘holy Chair of Peter…’
Pope John Paul II was shot while he was going to view the Shroud of Turin. When John Paul I died, there had been a three-part series on the Shroud of Turin featured in the Kansas City Star. I remember well how this unfolded. Above the headline banner, in red print, was the announcement of the featured articles each of the three days. Having an interest in the Shroud, and having seen the first article, I was anxious to read the second one. I purchased the newspaper the second day, and the headline that morning announced the death of Pope John Paul I. There, above that headline were two images in red of the crucified Christ, with the notice of the second installment of the series on the Shroud presented in red lettering between them. Rather strange.
Just because you’re not a canonized Saint doesn’t mean you’re a lesser saint. Popes and religious have hordes who labor on promoting their sainthood. Lay people, especially obscure saintly people, don’t have such tireless and savvy advocates. That’s okay because in heaven a saint is a saint. Just strive to be a saint.
Yawn.
I heard rumors that Pope John Paul I was poisoned due to him wanting to investigate corruption in the Vatican Bank. IF true, he would be saintly and likely a martyr, although most of these averments come from unverified sources in the Vatican rumor mill, without any proof to substantiate them thus far.