He was declared Venerable by Pope Francis in 2017.
With the February rescript, Francis nominated Cardinal Parolin president of the John Paul I Foundation, which is based within the Secretariat of State.
In an article in L’Osservatore Romano April 28, 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.”
The new foundation, Parolin said, “can dutifully fulfill the task not only of protecting all the heritage of John Paul I’s writings and work, but also of encouraging the systematic study and dissemination of his thought and spirituality. All the more motivated by the consideration of how his figure and message are extraordinarily current.”
As the foundation’s president, Parolin nominated the six members of the administrative council, which will have a five-year term, among them Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy.
Catholic Italian journalist Stefania Falasca was named vice president of the foundation. Falasca is vice-postulator of John Paul I’s cause for canonization and a leading scholar on his life.
In a 2017 interview, Falasca told CNA that St. Pope Paul VI, Luciani’s predecessor, considered the then-cardinal to be “one of the most advanced theologians of the time.”
Luciani, she said, had “an ease of language” in his writing, which was coupled with “a solid theological preparation.”
In 2008, on the 30th anniversary of John Paul I’s death, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, when the apostle writes: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.”
Benedict said this biblical text brought to mind John Paul I, who chose the same episcopal motto as St. Charles Borromeo: Humilitas.
