Pope John Paul I

What if Pope John Paul (Albino Luciano) had remembered to take his medication, and served as pope for maybe 7-8 years? He would probably have been more sympathetic toward liberation theology than his successor, and I doubt we would see Opus Dei having the influence it does today, and I can't see Jose Maria Escriva as a saint. Furthermore, he was more open to the idea of contraception (specifically the pill) than either Paul VI or JP2 (I'm not saying he was in favour of it, just more open-minded). In line with his view that the church's wealth should be redistributed more equitably, would we have seen large scale sell-offs of church properties in 1st world countries to fund development in the third world? Would this have diminished the efforts of Protestant evangelists in Latin America? And how would the likes of Pinochet have reacted? BTW - please no conspiracy theories, I'm not interested in discussing how he died.

I don't know, but one thing is sure: he would be remembered with immense love by the people. He was another John XXIII; an open heart at the head of the Church.

Weak Pope

Wombat said:

What if Pope John Paul (Albino Luciano) had remembered to take his medication, and served as pope for maybe 7-8 years? He would probably have been more sympathetic toward liberation theology than his successor, and I doubt we would see Opus Dei having the influence it does today, and I can't see Jose Maria Escriva as a saint. Furthermore, he was more open to the idea of contraception (specifically the pill) than either Paul VI or JP2 (I'm not saying he was in favour of it, just more open-minded). In line with his view that the church's wealth should be redistributed more equitably, would we have seen large scale sell-offs of church properties in 1st world countries to fund development in the third world? Would this have diminished the efforts of Protestant evangelists in Latin America? And how would the likes of Pinochet have reacted? BTW - please no conspiracy theories, I'm not interested in discussing how he died.

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Pope John Paul I is something of a Rohrschach test--people project on him their fantasies. So Malachi Martin presents him in Windswept House as being assassinated because he was a threat to the Satanic Masonic lodge behind Vatican II. This is not totally baseless either, JP I did have a very warm meeting with Lefebvre before he died and it looked like there would be some sort of reconciliation of the Society of St. Pius X back into the RC Church. This evaporated when JP II took over because JP II was diametrically opposed to Lefebvre on the Big Issue which is not the Latin Mass but Religious Liberty.

There has been some speculation that JP I favored the following compromise on artificial contraception -- to oppose it in principle but permit it in cases of extreme hardship. This actually was Pius XII's formulation in permitting the rhythm method in the Address to the Minwives.

I've mentioned on other Papacy posts there is a theological, political and discipline axis by which to measure Popes. JP I looked to be an even laxer Pope on the discipline axis than Paul was. I see him as being a weak Pope easily dominated and manipulated by the Curia.