Pope Francis on Sunday beatified one of his predecessors, John Paul I, a briefly serving pontiff who distinguished himself with his humility and cheerfulness.

The ceremony in St. Peter’s Square constituted the last formal step in the Vatican before possible sainthood for Albino Luciani, an Italian who died 33 days after being elected pontiff.

“With a smile, Pope John Paul managed to communicate the goodness of the Lord,” Francis said in his homily.

“How beautiful is a church with a happy, serene and smiling face, that never closes doors, never hardens hearts, never complains or harbours resentments, isn’t angry, does not look dour or suffer nostalgia for the past,” the pontiff said.

Francis then encouraged people to pray to the newly beatified churchman to “obtain for us the smile of the soul.”

Last year, Francis approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of John Paul I — that of the recovery of a critically ill 11-year-old girl in 2011 in Buenos Aires, the hometown of the current pope.

For Luciani to be declared a saint, another miracle, following his beatification, must be attributed to his intercession and certified by the Vatican.

Seated under a canopy outside St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis led the ceremony, which was punctuated by booms of thunder, flashes of lightning and pouring rain, prompting cardinals, bishops, the choir and thousands of rank-and-file faithful in the square to open umbrellas.

When elected pontiff on Aug. 26, 1978, Luciani, 65, had been serving as the patriarch of Venice, one of the church’s more prestigious positions. In that role as well as that previously as a bishop in northeastern Italy, Luciani sounded warnings against corruption, including in banking circles.

In his short-lived papacy, John Paul I immediately established a simple, direct way of communicating with the faithful in the addresses he gave, a style change considered revolutionary considering the stuffiness of the environment of the church hierarchy.

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