As Pope Francis completes his first year in office, David Willey reports from Rome on the changes that have taken place in the Vatican and the Catholic Church.
Back in 1978 – which went down in history as the “year of the three Popes” – I remember meeting a gregarious American priest and journalist who drew up a pithy job description for the leadership of the Catholic Church on the death of Paul VI.
“We need a happy, holy man, who smiles!” he said.
Well, we got just such a man in Papa Luciani, the Patriarch of Venice who charmed the world with his breezy manner and his simple, endearing smile in the 33 days he reigned as Pope John Paul I before his sudden death – most likely from a heart attack.
Dark plots
Conspiracy theorists leapt to the conclusion that he might have been poisoned because some Vatican cardinals feared that he planned revolutionary changes in the running of his Church. Continue reading.
Source: BBC News
Image: Reuters/JSOnline
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