I just finished reading the book The Good Pope by Greg Tobin. It is subtitled “John XXIII and Vatican II – the Making of a
Saint and the Remaking of the Church”. A number of the actions and character
traits portrayed in the book reminded me of our current Pope, Francis.
Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII,
was born in 1881, in a town in northern Italy to a peasant farming family.
Tobin writes “The Roncallis seldom even had bread, but made do with polenta (a
dish made from corn meal). Despite this, they always had room at the table for
one more.” As a boy, Angelo worked in the fields with his father. He went to
the Bergamo junior seminary when he was 11 years old and, later in his seminary
training studied at the Pontifical Roman Seminary. While still in the seminary,
he and many of his classmates were drafted into the Italian army. After a year,
he returned to the seminary. After his ordination, he returned to the
Pontifical Roman Seminary to study Canon Law.
Later, he returned to Bergamo as secretary to the new
bishop, Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi. Bishop Radini-Tedeschi had been involved with
the Opera dei Congressi, an organization for social action groups. The bishop was
a “firm believer in social justice and Catholicism as a spiritual force that
could change the lives of the poor and less fortunate”. Radini-Tedeschi became
Roncalli’s mentor.
In May1915, Italy declared war on Austria and Father
Roncalli was once again called up to serve in the Italian military as a medical
corpsman. He did both hospital orderly work and tended to the patients as a
priest. In March 1916, all priests in the Italian army were made chaplains. He
continued to serve in that capacity for the next 3 years.
In January 1921, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XV
to oversee missionary work for the Vatican. In 1925, he was appointed apostolic
delegate to Bulgaria and made a bishop. This was followed by diplomatic
assignments in Turkey and Greece in 1934 and France in 1944. During these
appointments, his diplomatic skills were very successful, probably because of
his willingness to reach out and talk with the political and religious leaders
of those countries, even those of different faiths. His efforts in this regard
were not always in accord with the views of the Vatican, but he pursued them
anyway. He also was very involved in charitable relief efforts in response to
different situations in those countries.
In 1953, he was named the patriarch of Venice and
made a Cardinal. Tobin writes: “The administration of a diocese and the
thousands of demands on his time and attention were, to him, secondary to the
primary task of tending to the spiritual needs of the people, ‘into which he
flung himself with all the energy and ardor of his nature. He was, in fact,
joyfully fulfilling a spiritual need of his own.’” Tobin also writes that “As
in Paris, he did not shut himself away in his magnificent marble residence.
Instead he spent a good deal of time in public, where he enjoyed traveling on
the vaporetto, the water bus, rather than the Fiat provided him by the
diocese.” And “He sold the patriarch’s summer palace to pay for a new seminary
and used personal funds to support charities for the poor.”
John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council
(Vatican II). His intention was that the Council would address how the Church
should interact with the modern world. Tobin writes: “The repository of belief
that all Catholics shared, the pope said, ‘should be studied and expounded
according to the methods of research and literary forms of modern thought.’”
Although some previous popes had criticized “modernism”, John supported the
humanistic values involved in modernism. Tobin continues: “This meant that
historical and scientific studies of the Church and the Bible, in particular
were welcome in John’s world; he wasn’t afraid to shed rational light on the
mysteries of faith. … the updating
John had in mind was not merely window dressing or a useful slogan but a
profound change in the way Catholics practiced their religion and viewed
themselves and their Church.” Even though he died before the second of four
Vatican II sessions, the Council he convened significantly changed the Church.
To me, John XXIII stands out from other recent popes
because of his emphasis on people rather than on the rules and the institution
of the Church. There were times before he was Pope when he acted in ways the
Vatican powers would not have approved. And he used the resources of the Church
to help people in need (e.g., those affected by natural catastrophes or war,
Jews escaping from the Nazi regime). He also interacted with and reached out to
religious leaders of different faiths and political leaders of different
political views. He believed that we are all God’s children and was a big
supporter of ecumenism. Pope Francis reminds me of Pope John XXIII in his
emphasis on people, especially those who are in need, and his not embracing the
finer things that usually come along with being a bishop, cardinal or pope. I
remember reading in The Good Pope about John XXIII leaving the Vatican to visit
people who were ill and in prison (although I was unable to find that specific passage
in preparing this blog). I did find a reference in Wikipedia to his making
visits to children with polio in some nearby hospitals and visiting a
reformatory school for juvenile delinquents. He also visited the Regina Coeli
prison. Here is a youtube video about that visit. The Wikipedia entry also
refers to his “frequent habit of sneaking out of the Vatican late at night to
walk the streets of the city of Rome.” Regarding Pope Francis, we have seen
stories of him visiting the poor, ill and those in prison; even washing the
feet of young people in a detention center during Holy Week. On his birthday,
he had breakfast with 3 homeless men who live on the streets near the Vatican. It
has also been reported that he will sneak out of the Vatican at night to visit homeless people. Just as John XXIII had a profound affect on the Church, it seems
possible that Francis will “shake up” the Church with his emphasis on caring
for the poor, ill, disabled, imprisoned, homeless, etc.
During this Christmas season, let us be thankful for
the Good Pope, John, for his efforts to modernize the Church and his concern
about people of all faiths and nationalities. And let us pray that our new
Pope, Francis, will continue to direct the Church toward brotherly love for all
people, especially those in need.
As I end this blog, my wish for all of you echoes the
words the angels sang at that first Christmas and John XXIII used as the title
of his last encyclical – Pacem in
Terris (Peace on Earth)!
