BELLUNO

Saturday, August 26^th, 2000, St. Alexander

The ten " miracles " of Pope Luciani

 There are 250,000 signatures that support the Cause of Beatification. The perspectives and the procedure to follow. Don Carlin, and the parish Priest of Canale, don Tison, invites the  maximum caution.

BELLUNO. There are ten cases of healing that have something of miraculous and that are attributed to Pope Luciani, elected to the Papal See on August 26^th, 1978. More than enough miracles  to support the petition to open the Process of Beatification, asked by 250,000 faithful. So many, at least, are those who have signed the Petition, that it still remains opened at Canale as it is in Venice. But so the parish Priest of Canale D’ Agordo, don Andrea Tison, as don Mario Carlin, director of " Humilitas ", advises precaution.

" Humilitas " is the magazine that shows the figure and the work of Luciani, also collecting important testimonies of his acts, and  it takes its title from the maxim of the dead Pontiff. Anyway, the two Priests say, any kind of fanaticism should be avoided. Of the same opinion  is Sister Maria Edvige Pinaffo, who has two relatives, who have received ‘miracles’ : her sister Ines, survivor to the most difficult operation on the heart, and a brother’s son-in-law recovered from a tumour of the brain. " I have in my hands, since some years ago, the relative documentation about a young person that " miraculously " was recovered from  cancer ", don Tison said. " I will give it, before leaving the parish, in September, to the Bishop, Msgr. Brollo, so he may  keep it and he uses it as he considers opportune ". But is it really a miracle? "May be. The clinical report could make it feel. But it is necessary that the experts have to verify it. I it am not an expert. So I can’t say anything, even though I would be very glad if it was a miraculous healing".

" More important than miracles and the same Beatification ", don Carlin emphasizes, " is the necessity, better, the urgency this figure of Pope can be valued. Today, in fact, we are in the presence of a strange "conspiracy of silence", that is putting the stick between the wheels to those who would want that the memory of this illustrious son of the bellunese land can endure, because of the exemplarity of his life ". Today, at Canale D’ Agordo, it is remembered, with one religious ceremony, the 22 years of Albino Luciani’s election to the Pontificate, born on October 17^th, 1912 and become Priest on July 7^th, 1935. It is not excluded that today don Tison delivers to Bishop, Msgr. Pietro Brollo the relative document referred to the last " miracle ". It is about a young person of Veneto, whose identity don Andrea does not want to reveal. He is limited to specify: " Today he is father of a family. Ten  years ago, he suffered from a serious form of tumour. That time, he came on a  pilgrimage to Canale D’ Agordo and he has repeatedly invoked the grace of the Lord, through the intercession of Luciani. He has recovered successfully. He graduated, he is happily married and he has children". These testimonies, as the signatures for the Beatification, are conserved in the Archives of the diocese, in Belluno. But, at the moment, it is not known when and in what way the Process, that would have to carry Luciani on the altars, will be able to start. Usually it competes to the diocese in which the future Saint dies to start the procedure. But in Rome Luciani had lived only for a short time.

 John Paul II, who next September 3^rd will beatify John XXIII, to whom is due the nomination of the General Vicar of the diocese of Belluno-Feltre as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, has confided opportunely to Msgr. Maffeo Ducoli that if there were difficulties in Rome, they can be overcome in Venice or Belluno, opening the Cause in these places. " In my opinion, it is more important today to value how much Luciani has been a testimony instead of insisting in the Beatification exclusively”, don Carlin says. “It is also true that if it is intended to continue on this road, as I wish, it is appropriate to do it in a very short time. A Cause of Beatification, so that it can’t find obstacles of historical reasons, should take place within the 30 years from the death. At least, to be started in this period of time”.

 As don Carlin thinks, then, regarding to miracles, they are more profitable, in order to the Canonization, those that Luciani could make as ‘ Servant of God’, the first stage up to  the canonization, rather than those already made, which, in any case, “remained as important signs” of the exemplarity of the person purposed to the honor of the altars. ‘A Process now’, don Carlin adds, ‘should be necessary because a number of witnesses are still alive and they can confirm how this Pope has not been the ‘meteor’ as he is called, but all his life he has practised the virtues that are an example to Christians’.