Archive for Pope John Paul I
Jesus to Sister Faustina, “Encourage souls to place great trust in My fathomless mercy. Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach Me, for even if it had more sins than there are grains of sand in the world, all would be drowned in the unmeasurable depths of My mercy” (Diary, 55-56).
“Let us pray for the Nazis, because no conversion is impossible!” Fr. Maximilian Kolbe to his friend Fr. John Lipsky, in Auschwitz.
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. I came across this extraordinary story of divine mercy on Fr. Z’s blog.
Rudolf Hoess was the commandant of the concentration camp at Auschwitz The man certainly had the blackest sins imaginable on his soul. When he was arrested in 1946, unlike other Nazis, who denied the existence of the “final solution,” Hoess confessed everything freely and even dispassionately. He was imprisoned in Poland, tried and, on April 16, 1947, hanged just outside the gates of the camp he had once commanded.
But that isn’t the whole story.
Rudolf Hoess was baptized and brought up Catholic, in fact, by very fervent, even fanatically religious parents. In boyhood, he dreamed of being a priest. But in his teens, after a betrayal by a priest, he drifted away from the Church. He enlisted in the army at fifteen, and fought in the last two years of World War I. After some terrible war experiences, he rejected God completely. He eventually joined the Nazi Party and embarked on a career as a camp commandant. In his memoirs, he spoke of the pain he had often suffered witnessing brutality in the camps — but rejected all remorse because of his belief in Nazi ideology, and because he wanted his superiors to see him as tough and unfeeling. It was the Nazi ideal, after all.
After he was condemned to death, Hoess was sent to a prison in the little town of Wadowice, just fifteen miles from Auschwitz, to await execution. Suddenly he asked for a priest. There was considerable difficulty finding a Polish priest who could speak German, but eventually Fr. Wladislaw Lohn, the provincial of the Jesuits of southern Poland, agreed to come from Cracow. Fr. Lohn was well acquainted with Auschwitz. Twenty-seven of his fellow Jesuits had been imprisoned there, and twelve of them had died. When he learned who the prisoner he was going to see was he felt he needed some spiritual reinforcement: He went to the Cracow convent where Sister Faustina had received the revelations about Divine Mercy and asked the sisters to pray for his mission and they did so. Here one account says:
Fr. Lohn then spoke several hours with Hoess. At the end of the conversation, the former commander of Auschwitz made a profession of Catholic Faith and officially came back to the Church. Then Hoess received sacramental confession.
Years later, Fr. Lohn testified that he prepared this man, who had been condemned to death, for confession by speaking about Jesus’ heart. On the following day, Fr. Lohn brought Holy Eucharist to the converted Hoess. On receiving Holy Communion, he knelt down in the middle of his cell and cried. He dismissed the priest with the words, “God has forgiven me, but the people will never forgive me!”
Anticipating his imminent death and reconciled with God, he wrote a touching and loving farewell letter from prison the next day, April 11, 1947, to his wife and his five children. In it he openly stated the motives for his behavior and admitted his faults, but he also describes his sincere and caring love for his family and describes his return to God: “It was a difficult struggle. Yet I found my faith again in the Lord my God.”
On April 12, four days before execution, Hoess wrote a statement publicly asking the Polish nation for forgiveness…
On the day of the execution, April 16, 1947, it was written in the district attorney’s record, “Rudolph Hoess was completely calm until the last moment and he expressed no wishes.”
There are a number of extraordinary coincidences in this story. Not the least of them is the fact that Wadowice, Poland, where Hoess spent his last days and made his extraordinary confession, is the birthplace of the Pope who canonized Sister Faustina and gave the Church the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday, Blessed John Paul II.
There is more here. But by far the best-documented account is here.
You can also read more about John Paul II, his predecessor, John Paul I, and the Divine Mercy here.
Filed under: Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, Rudolf Hoess | |No Comments
Great news! We really have this conference going at last. It’s going to be held at the Immaculate Conception center in Douglaston, Queens, New York, on October 12-13.
Because of space limitation, we can accept only 120 people. Register here today and reserve your space now!
Filed under: Pope John Paul I | |No Comments
I know I’ve been silent too long regarding my promise to speak about the big plans for the John Paul I centenary — but finally I have good news — A conference is in the works! It is tentatively called “The Real John Paul I.” The date is Fri-Sat. October 12-13, 2012. I hope to secure the exact location shortly.
The loveliest news from my point of view that John Paul I’s niece, Pia Luciani,has agreed to come speak, and assures me she has put the date on her calendar. She does speak some English.
It’s also very likely that Stefania Falasca, who is also an expert on Papa Luciani, will also speak. She has written the Positio, i.e. position paper for his beatification, which is due to be turned in shortly to the Holy See (see here). So far we have three English-speaking scholars, one British and two American, who will also speak - I happen to be one of them
I have had a warm letter of support from Cardinal Dolan of New York. Now that he’s a cardinal, I hope he’s not too busy to return my letters! His help will certainly be useful. I am hoping to have an official liturgical commemoration of John Paul I in the Archdiocese on September 28, the anniversary of his death.
I am seeking sponsorship from EWTN and other organizations.
I have just set up a website for the centenary:
www.jpicentenary.org
It has details of the conference, the call for papers, a partial list of speakers, the prayer for the centenary, links to news items and more. There is also a short biography of John Paul I, adapted from one a did a long time back for Humilitas.
Now here is how you can help. The conference is going to take money. In a short time, as soon as the exact place, time and other details are set, people will be able to register and pay the fees for the conference on the website.
But even if you can’t attend, you can still contribute. You can use the Donate button on our site to send us a donation using a credit card or Paypal. We do expect to videotape the conference, and will make it available to donors.
Another way to help is by clicking from our website when you want to shop on Amazon. I have put up links to some good books on John Paul I on Amazon. Keep in mind that anything you buy from them on clicking on the link from our site, not just these books, delivers us a small commission.
You can also help by clicking on the link and buying items from the Mystic Monks — more technically known as the Carmelite monks of Wyoming. They offer a wide variety of delicious blends of roast coffee and special seasonal teas, as well as, naturally, mugs. They also sell exotic treats like chocolate-covered espresso beans and their own special variety of chocolate-covered cherries. They also have a chant CD for sale, along with rosaries, medals, books and other
religious items. We get a generous commission on everything sold. They ship all over the world.
In time, I plan to offer some commemorative items for the centenary - right now I am thinking of journals with John Paul I’s picture and the centenary date on the cover.
I am also planning to put out a book containing some of Papa Luciani’s writings a little later this year. It will be called “Living the Year of Faith with John Paul I.” It will include some of his writings during the original Year of Faith in 1967-68, as well as a variety of his other writings on the faith. The conference in October will actually coincide with the beginning of the upcoming Year of Faith proclaimed by Benedict XVI. This is a great way to tie the conference and the centenary with some high profile events. It will earn money too! In fact, I may be able to put out some commemorative journals with Papa Luciani’s picture and quotes from him on the faith, that would be very very suitable for the Year of Faith.
In other words, a lot is happening! I will have more updates very soon.
Update March 8: We still don’t have a venue and will need some money to secure it, since other sponsorship still hasn’t materialized. Please donate if you can!
Filed under: Archbishop Dolan, Pope John Paul I | |No Comments
I just ran across this article from last fall, from what appears to be an Italian wire service. So a step ahead is soon in store - it could even be taking place right now — in Papa Luciani’s beatification process. I must, however register my opinion contrary to that of the postulator, about the venue for the beatification ceremony - no beatification ceremony for a Pope should be held anywhere but in Rome, and it should be presided over by the Pope! This is what was done for Pope John XXIII and for John Paul II. John Paul I deserves no less. It seems rather unlikely that Pope Benedict, who knew Luciani personally and has a strong devotion to him, will survive long enough to preside - he’ll be 88 or 89 - but we can always hope.
Tuesday October 11, 2011
PAPA LUCIANI’S POSTULATOR: BEATIFICATION AT LEAST FOUR YEARS AWAY
(AGI) – Citta del Vaticano, October.
It will take “at least four or five years,” but John Paul I will follow in the wake of his predecessor and will rise to the honors of the altars as a blessed. In the coming months, in fact, Monsignor Enrico dal Covolo, postulator of the cause for beatification for Albino Luciani, the cardinal patriarch of Venice, who in August 1978 was elected Pope after Paul VI but reigned for only 33 days, thus opening the way for the election of a non-Italian after 500 years – will hand in the “Positio” to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, which will now have to examine it and subject it to the approval of the theologians and of its members, and then propose to the reigning Pope the decree on the heroic nature of his virtues.
Named rector of the Lateran University by Benedict XVI and consecrated bishop by the Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, the Salesian Enrico dal Covolo has been able to keep the cause of the Pope from the Veneto precisely because it has now almost reached port. “We also have,” he confided to AGI, “a miracle that could be proposed to the Congregation and the Medical Commission, in as much as the previous study put forward by the Postulator’s office has had a favorable outcome.” It will be the Pope then, obviously, who decides where the rite of beatification will take place, but,” Dal Covolo anticipates, “it is probably that the choice will fall on Belluno, Luciani’s home diocese, where the preliminary process was experienced with great passion by the faithful.”
Among the many processes that he followed up to last year as postulator general of the Salesians, along with the cause of Luciani, Msgr. Dal Covolo has been able to preserve only one other, the one for the Polish layman Jan Leopold Tyranowski, who had a fundamental role in the formation of Karol Wojtyla. “He moved in Salesian circles, very much tied to the spirtuality of Don Bosco,” explains the prelate, who recalls how, though without forcing the time of the canonical cause that had been introduced, John Paul II, as a former disciple of this extraordinary teacher of spirituality, wanted to define Tyranowski “a true saint.”
Here’s a link to the Italian original.
Filed under: Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, Pope John XXIII | |No Comments
I am very anxious to kick off the centenary for Papa Luciani! Preparations began last year in his home town of Canale d’Agordo.
This prayer for the centenary of Papa Luciani has been published in the diocese of his birth; from Humilitas (Italian ed), September 2011, p. 5.
PRAYER FOR THE CENTENARY
Lord, Omnipotent and eternal God,
We admire the marvels that You Grace
works in your children. Today
We bless you for the love You have poured out
On Your Servant, Pope John Paul I, by calling him
To life, to Your friendship,
To serve You as pastor and as Your
Vicar for the Universal Church.
As we inaugurate the centenary year that recalls
the history of his life in the light of your Providence,
which guides men and events toward the encounter with You,
from the testimony of life of John Paul I,
a living image of Jesus, the Good Shepherd,
help us to draw on those gifts that make us
Your children and disciples of Christ:
from his faith and serenity we want to learn
to abandon ourselves to You with the heart of a child;
from his generosity, we want to learn
to say “Yes” to everything You ask of us;
from his love for the simple and the little ones,
we want to learn to serve everyone who needs us.
Father in Heaven,
We humbly ask you to glorify
In your Church Your Servant John Paul I,
So that, through his intercession and his example,
We may all draw on and give,
with humility and simplicity ,
The light and love that radiate from You.
Through Christ out Lord.
Amen.
Filed under: Pope John Paul I | |No Comments
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