In God's Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

voraciously at an early age the complete works of Dickens and Jules Verne. Mark Twain, for example, he read at the age of seven, unusual in a country where still nearly half the adults could not read at all at that time.
    At Feltre he absorbed every book they had. More significantly he remembered virtually everything he read. He was endowed with an astonishing memory. Consequently, though provocative questions might be frowned upon, Luciani would from time to time have the temerity to ask them. His teachers considered him diligent but ‘too lively’.
    In the summers the young seminarian would return home and, dressed in his long black cassock, work in the fields. When not helping with the harvest he could be found ‘re-organizing’ Father Filippo’s library. The school terms would be enlivened from time to time by a visit from his father. The first act performed by Giovanni upon returning home in the autumn was always a visit to the seminary. He would then spend the winter campaigning on behalf of the Socialists.
    From Feltre, Luciani graduated to the major seminary at Belluno. One of his contemporaries recalled for me the regime at Belluno:
     
We were woken up at 5.30 a.m. No heating, indeed the water would often be solid ice. I used to lose my vocation every morning for five minutes. We had thirty minutes to get washed and make our beds.
I met Luciani there in September 1929. He was then sixteen. He was always amiable, quiet, serene – unless you stated something that was inaccurate – then he was like a spring. I learned that in front of him one had to speak carefully. Any muddled thinking and you were in danger with him.
     
    Among the books Luciani read were a number of works by Antonio Rosmini. Conspicuous by its absence from the seminary library was
The Five Wounds of the Church.
In 1930 it still remained on the Index of Forbidden Books. Aware by now of the furore that the book had caused, Luciani quietly acquired his own copy. It was to have a deep and lasting influence upon his life.
    To Luciani’s teachers the
Syllabus of Errors
proclaimed in 1864 by Pius IX was to be considered in the 1930s as the ultimate truth. The toleration ofa non-Catholic opinion in any country where Catholics werein a majority was inconceivable. Mussolini’s version of Fascism was not the only one being taught in Italy in the years immediately preceding the Second World War. Error had no rights. The exception apparently was if it was the teacher who was in error, then its rights were absolute.
    Luciani’s vision, far from being expanded by his teachers, began, in certain respects, to shrink. Fortunately he was subjected to influences other than his teachers. Another former class-mate at Belluno recalled:
     
He read Goldoni’s dramas. He read French novelists of the nineteenth century. He bought a collection of the writings of the seventeenth century French Jesuit, Pierre Couwase and read them from cover to cover.
     
    So strongly did the writings of Couwase influence him that Luciani began to think seriously of becoming a Jesuit. He watched as first one, then a second, of his close friends went to the Rector, Bishop Giosué Cattarossi, and asked for permission to join the Jesuit order. In both instances the permission was granted. Luciani went and asked for permission. The Bishop considered the request then responded, ‘No, three is one too many. You had better stay here.’
    At the age of twenty-three he was ordained priest, on July 7th, 1935 in San Pietro, Belluno. The following day he celebrated his first mass in his home town. His delight at being appointed curate in Forno di Canale was total. The fact that this is the humblest clerical position within the Church was of no consequence to him. In the congregation of friends, relations, local priests and immediate family was a very proud Giovanni Luciani, who now had a permanent job relatively close to home as a glass-blower on the island of Murano near Venice.
    In 1937