Book Description

The only existing biography of the 33 Day Pope. It is the record of his struggles as an impoverished child, as a revolutionary priest, as an outspoken bishop, as a compassionate cardinal and as a beloved pope. It is the record of his philosophies, and of his hopes, and of his dreams, for mankind. For twenty years as a bishop, he was a rampaging locomotive running about the courts and Parliament of Italy demanding equal rights for oppressed peoples. In 1967, faced by an orphan population of two million in Italy, it was his lobbying in Italian Parliament that made it legal for single persons to adopt children. An opposition member challenged, "That would make it legal for homosexuals to adopt children," Bishop Luciani, responded, "Until the day comes that we can guarantee equal human rights and dignity to the tiniest minority, we cannot truthfully call ourselves a democracy." His intentions concerning bastards, women, homosexuals, etc. was quite evident in his acceptance speech, ". . . we must rise up the courage within us to set aside the convictions of our forefathers and together we will muster the strength to lift those restraints that have been unfairly placed by doctrine upon the everyday lives of many innocent people . . . for God-given human life is infinitely more precious than is man-made doctrine . . ." On the evening of September 26, 1978, he called together the Vatican cardinals. He told them "The Church's ban on contraception is the driving force behind disease, poverty and starvation in third world countries and abortions in first world countries." . . .He told them one thing more. "Mother Church is about to cease to be the cause of many of the world's problems and rather will begin to be the answer to them."