Pope John Paul I Pope John Paul I Pope John Paul I (; ; born Albino Luciani; ; 17 October 191228 September 1978) served as Pope of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 26 August 1978 to his death 33 days later. He was the first pope to have been born in the 20th century. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent year of three popes, the first to occur since 1605. John Paul I remains the most recent Italian-born pope, the last in a succession of such popes that started with Clement
Papal election reforms of Pope Benedict XVI two-thirds majority rule. He establish the procedure that after 33 ballots (still excluding the first day's ballot if any), additional ballots would allow voting only for the two candidates with the greatest number of votes in the preceding ballot, and he excluded those two candidates from participation in the balloting. Benedict resigned the papacy on 11 February 2013, effective 28 February. On 22 February he issued his second set of instructions on the papal election process, "Normas nonnullas". Following his resignation, cardinals had questioned the rule that they delay starting the conclave until 15 days after the papacy fell vacant.