“You’re having a bad dream,” she said, trying to bring me back to reality. After all, less than two months earlier, Pope Paul VI had died on Aug. 6, 1978, the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t having a nightmare. Mom had not yet heard the breaking news out of the Vatican. Just shy of celebrating his 66th birthday, the newly elected Vicar of Christ, Pope John Paul I, was dead, 33 days into his pontificate — one of the shortest in church history.
For me, this news was particularly significant because of my new work as a laywoman in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas. On Aug. 6, the very day on which Pope Paul VI died, I began my service as a journalist with the diocesan newspaper there. My first days in the office were spent preparing the paper with news about Pope Paul VI’s death and the significance of his 15-year pontificate, which made its own unique and lasting mark upon the church near the end of the second millennium.
Through research for upcoming issues, I also learned a lot about how a pope is elected. In the weeks that followed, I was part of our newspaper’s sharing of that fascinating process with our readers. Then on Aug. 26, with many people throughout the world, I was glued to the television, seeking signs of white smoke billowing from the smokestack at the Sistine Chapel and heralding the election of a new pope.
What joy there was when Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice, the newly elected Pope John Paul I, had his first encounter with the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square! The new pope’s radiant smile soon captivated the world, and his simple, humble and joyful presence instantly became a magnet for the media and an audience of millions. Pope John Paul I soon became known as the “smiling pope” or “God’s smile.”
The news of the pope’s untimely death on Sept. 28, 1978, rocked the church and caught the world’s attention. In his homily for Pope John Paul I’s funeral Mass, Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, Dean of the College of Cardinals, summed up admirably the significance of the holy and humble pastor, “One month was enough for him to have conquered hearts, and for us, it was a month to love him intensely. He passed as a meteor which unexpectedly lights up the heavens and then disappears, leaving us amazed and astounded.”
As we prepared our diocesan newspaper for another papal election, who would have ever anticipated what was just around the corner and who would be chosen to lead the church into the new millennium and beyond?
Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George, which has its American provincialate in Alton.