Pope Luciani to be beatified

Pope Francis on Wednesday, 13 October, received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the Dicastery to promulgate the decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of Albino Luciani or Pope John Paul I. The Congregation’s website says it is about the healing of an eleven-year-old girl at the end of her life with “severe acute inflammatory encephalopathy, a malignant refractory epileptic illness and septic shock”. Her situation was very serious, characterized by numerous daily seizures and a septic state of bronchopneumonia. The initiative to invoke the Pope had been taken by the parish priest of the parish that included the hospital. So for Pope John Paul I, who hailed from the northern Italian region of Veneto, the way to beatification has been ...