Pope John Paul I the election, occurred when the leader of the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad, collapsed and died after a ceremony on 5 September 1978. The new pope immediately came over and prayed for him. After he became pope he had set six plans down which would dictate his pontificate: After his election, John Paul I quickly made several decisions that would "humanise" the office of pope, admitting publicly he had turned scarlet when Paul VI placed his stole on Luciani's shoulders while the pontiff visited Venice on 16 September 1972. He was the first modern
Pope John Paul II unsuccessfully asked the country's president, Efraín Ríos Montt, to reduce the sentence for six left-wing guerrillas sentenced to death. In 2002, John Paul II again travelled to Guatemala. At that time, Guatemala was one of only two countries in Latin America (the other being Cuba) to apply capital punishment. John Paul II asked the Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, for a moratorium on executions. Pope John Paul II pushed for a reference to Europe's Christian cultural roots in the draft of the European Constitution. In his 2003 apostolic exhortation "Ecclesia in Europa", John Paul II wrote that he "fully (respected) the