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Pope St John XXIII

Feast day: 11 October

Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli was born on November 25 1881 in Sotto il Monte, a small country village in the Bergamo province of the Lombardy. Region of Italy. He was the eldest son of Giovanni Battista Roncalli and his wife Marianna Guilia Mazzolla and was fourth in a family of thirteen. The Roncallis were sharecroppers. They maintained a vineyard and cornfields and kept cattle.

Angelo received his First Communion and Confirmation at the age of eight. He was enrolled in the Secular Franciscan Order in 1996 and professed his vows the following year. In 1904 he completed his doctorate in canon law and was ordained a priest. He met Pius X in St Peter’s. He became secretary to the new bishop of Bergamo in 1905 until his death in 1914. He also lectured in the diocesan seminary in Bergamo. The bishop’s last words were, “Angelo, pray for peace.” The bishop’s death affected him deeply.

During the First World War Angelo was drafted into the Royal Italian Army as a sergeant, acting as a stretcher bearer and chaplain. He became spiritual director of the seminary in 1919 after his discharge. In 1921 he travelled to Rome to meet Pope Benedict XV, who appointed him Italian Secretary for the Propogation of the Faith. Angelo said afterwards that he found Pope Benedict the most sympathetic pontiff he had met.

In 1925 he was told by the Cardinal Secretary of State that he had been appointed Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria by Pius XI. He was consecrated a bishop. After this, in 1934, he was appointed Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece and became titular archbishop of Mesembria in Bulgaria. He was known in Turkey as the “Turcophile Pope”.

His mother died in 1939 but he was unable to see her before her death as Pope Pius XI had also died and Angelo had to remain at his post until the election of a new pope. Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected as Pius XII which pleased him. He was then made head of the Vatican Jewish Agency in Geneva. Angelo was deeply concerned about the Jewish people. Even before the war he had used his office to help the Jewish Underground in saving thousands of Jews in Europe. During the holocaust, in the Second World War, he continued to rescue them in various ways. He organised “immigration certificates” to Palestine through the nunciature diplomatic courier and by issuing “baptism of convenience certificates” to priests in Europe. Jews held at Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia were liberated as a result of his intervention. He also persuaded King Boris of Bulgaria to allow Jews to leave Bulgaria. There were many other Jews saved as a result of his assistance. His words, quoted by the Catholic Herald, sums up his attitude to the Jewish people: “We are conscious today that many, many centuries of blindness have cloaked our eyes so that we can no longer see the beauty of thy chosen people nor recognise in their faces the features of our privileged brethren... Forgive us for the curse we falsely attached to their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying thee a second time in their flesh, for we know not what we did.”

In 2011 the International Raoul Wallenburg foundation, an organisation which researches holocaust rescuers and advocates for their recognition, submitted a massive file (The Roncalli Dossier) to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, with a strong recommendation to bestow on him the title of Righteous among the Nations. He played an active role after the war in getting Catholic Church support for the establishment of the state of Israel. This was typical of his openness to other faiths.

In 1944 Pope Pius XII nominated him as the Apostolic Delegate to liberated France. Here he had to deal with the retirement of bishops who had collaborated with the Germans, who had occupied France. In 1952 he was appointed by the Pope as Patriarch of Venice and became a Cardinal.

In 1958 Pope Pius XII died and a conclave was held. Angelo Roncalli was elected on the eleventh ballot. Many had thought that the progressive Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Baptista Montini, would be chosen; he, however, was not a cardinal and therefore not part of the conclave. This did not rule him out but made his election less likely. It was thought because of Roncalli’s age (he was 77) that he would be a stop-gap Pope, who would maintain the status quo. The Holy Spirit however had other ideas! The first surprise of his reign was that when asked what name he would take he replied: “I will be called John” The reason for the surprise was John XXIII had been an anti-pope, appointed by the invalid Council of Pisa in 1410 during the Western Schism.

Pope John had a sense of humour. He told a story about how in the early days after his election he heard a woman say in a loud voice: “My God, he’s so fat!” “Madam,” he replied, ”The holy conclave isn’t exactly a beauty contest!”
 
One of his first acts as pope was to eliminate the description of the Jews as perfidious. When he heard the celebrant use that word at the Good Friday liturgy, he interrupted the ceremony to address the issue and asked forgiveness for centuries of anti-semitism. As a result the Good Friday prayers were changed under Paul VI, John’s successor. John also became the first Pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits to his diocese of Rome. On December 2, 1958 he visited children with polio in the Bambino Gesu hospital and then went to the Sancto Spiritu hospital. The following day he went to the Regina Caeli prison and told the inmates: “You could not come to me so I came to you.” These gestures caused a sensation.

He increased the College of Cardinals beyond the traditional seventy and for the first time created cardinals from Japan, Africa and the Phillipines.

John, the stop-gap Pope, surprised even his own cardinals when he declared his intention to call a General Council of the Church. He made this declaration in 1959, in the chapter house of the Benedictine Monastery attached to the basilica of St Paul-without-the-Walls. This was an amazing decision. There had only been two councils in over four hundred years; the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and Vatican I (1869-1870). Giovanni Montini, later Paul VI, said, “This holy old boy doesn’t realise what a hornet’s nest he’s stirring up!” It took two years to prepare for the council. John’s intention was “to open the windows of the church and let in some fresh air.” It was attended by bishops from many countries, observers, representatives from the orthodox and protestant traditions, sisters and laymen and women. Prior to the council John went to Assisi and Loreto to pray for its success. He was the first Pope since Pius IX to travel outside Rome.

The Council opened on October 11 1962 and was addressed by Pope John with the Gaudet Mater Ecclesia speech. He appeared on the balcony and told the people to go home and hug their children and tell them the hug came from the Pope. This speech became known as the “Speech of the Moon.” The first session of the Council ended in December 1962. John had been diagnosed with stomach cancer in September and was failing. He suffered eight months of stomach haemorrhages. Probably one of his last acts was to offer to negotiate between Khrushchev and Kennedy over the Cuban missile crisis. Khrushchev later sent him a message of good wishes for his health and John repled, typing the letter himself.

Despite of his open attitude John held very traditional views on moral theology; however, he did establish a commission of six non theologians to investigate questions on birth control.

He developed peritonitis and died on June 3, 1963. His last word were as follows: “I had the great grace to be born into a Christian family, modest and poor but with the fear of the Lord. My time on earth is drawing to a close. But Christ lives on and continues His work in the Church.”

John did not live to see the end of the great council which he had initiated. The final session ended on December 8 1965, in the reign of his successor Paul VI. It issued sixteen documents and had far-reaching consequences. Some of the major changes were extensive liturgical reform, with the vernacular to be used in church services and participation of the laity in responses. Communion under both kinds was permitted. It gave a larger role to lay people, promoted a much greater reading and critical study of scripture - particularly the Old Testament - and began dialogue with the Orthodox and Protestant churches. Religious Orders were to rediscover their original purpose and adapt it to modern conditions. Religious freedom was guaranteed and states were urged to protect it with laws.

The “stop-gap Pope” had in his short reign of four years and seven months created a revolution in the Roman Catholic Church. Things would never be the same again. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon Johnson on 3 December 1963. Its citation sums up what Pope John XXIII stood for: “His Holiness, Pope John XXIII, dedicated servant of God. He brought to all citizens of the planet a heightened sense of the dignity of the individual, of the brotherhood of man and the common duty to build an environment of peace for all humankind.” His body now lies in the chapel of St Jerome in St Peter’s and can be seen by the public. Pope John XXIII was canonized by Pope Francis on 27 April 2014.

Pope St John XXXIII, pray for us.