Pope John XXIII

 NAME Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. Known to the world as Pope John XXIII. Affectionately nicknamed "Il Papa Buono" — "The Good Pope" — by the Italian public. (1), (2)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Pope John XXIII was the 261st pope of the Roman Catholic Church, serving from 1958 until his death in 1963. He is best remembered for convening the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), a sweeping reform of the Church that modernised its liturgy, encouraged ecumenical dialogue, and fundamentally changed Catholicism's relationship with the modern world. He was also celebrated for his warmth, humility, and accessibility — qualities rare in a papacy — and for his humanitarian efforts during World War II, when he helped thousands of Jewish refugees escape Nazi persecution. He was canonised as a saint in 2014. (2)

BIRTH Born November 25, 1881, in Sotto il Monte, a small country village in the Province of Bergamo, approximately 40 miles northeast of Milan, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND Angelo was the fourth child and eldest son born to Giovanni Battista Roncalli and Marianna Giulia Mazzola. He was fourth in a family of thirteen children. His father was a sharecropper — a contadino — who worked the land for a landlord but had saved enough money to eventually buy a modest plot of his own. The family was devoutly Catholic and extremely poor. Roncalli later quipped with characteristic wit: "Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways — women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one." (3)

CHILDHOOD Angelo grew up in a stone farmhouse in rural Sotto il Monte, surrounded by the rhythms of agricultural life and a large, close-knit family. The household was deeply religious, and the young Angelo was profoundly influenced by his great-uncle Zaverio Roncalli, a pious and well-read man who served as a kind of spiritual mentor. At the age of eleven, Angelo told his father he wanted to become a priest. (2)

EDUCATION Roncalli entered the minor seminary at Bergamo in 1892 at the age of ten, showing early academic promise. He continued his studies at the Pontifical Roman Seminary (the Apollinare) in Rome, where he excelled in theology and church history. He was awarded his doctorate in sacred theology and was ordained at the age of twenty-three. 

In addition to his native Italian, he acquired fluency in Latin and Greek as part of his clerical formation, later adding fluent French and a working knowledge of Turkish and Bulgarian. (4). 

The young priest Roncalli

CAREER RECORD 1905: Roncalli was ordained a priest in the Roman Church of Santa Maria in Monte Santo. 

1906: He began teaching the life and thought of the early Church Fathers at the Pontifical Lateran Seminary in Rome. His progressive views did not endear him to church authorities, resulting in him being reassigned to work as a letter copier in the Oriental Congregation of the Vatican.

1915: He was drafted into the Royal Italian Army during World War I, serving as a sergeant in the medical corps and later as a military chaplain. (1)

1919: Following the end of the war, Roncalli returned to church work and founded Italy's first dedicated student home for poor youths. 

1925: He was appointed to the papal diplomatic service, serving as Papal Envoy (and later Nuncio) to Bulgaria, and subsequently to Turkey and Greece between 1925 and 1944. 

1944: He was appointed Papal Nuncio to recently liberated France. Upon hearing of his prestigious appointment, he humbly believed a mistake had been made, stating, "I am not worthy of the job." (1)

1953: On January 12, 1953, he was appointed Patriarch of Venice and was elevated to the rank of Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca by Pope Pius XII. (1)

1958: On November 4, 1958, Angelo Roncalli was elected pope at the age of 76. Initially viewed as a temporary "caretaker" pope due to his advanced age, he instead revolutionized the Church by announcing his plans for the Second Vatican Council within three months of taking office. 

1962: On October 11, 1962, he formally opened the historic Second Vatican Council in Rome.

APPEARANCE Roncalli was a stout, broad-faced man with a large nose, warm brown eyes, and a ruddy complexion — the physical type of a prosperous Italian farmer more than a prelate. 

He stood about 5 feet 7 inches tall and was noticeably overweight in later life, a fact he acknowledged with amusement. 

Roncalli had a full, jowly face that seemed naturally disposed to smiling, and contemporaries frequently remarked on the warmth of his expression. When he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's after his election, dressed in white silk cassock, red velvet cape lined with white ermine, and gold silk stole, the crowd was reportedly taken aback — expecting a more ascetic figure — but quickly won over by his beaming face. (5)

FASHION As pope, Roncalli wore the traditional papal vestments: white cassock, red mozetta, red slippers, and the white zucchetto skullcap. For his coronation he wore the 1877 Palatine Tiara. 

Roncalli was not known for personal vanity in dress and was sometimes gently mocked by Vatican tailors for the difficulty of fitting his generous frame into papal garments. Before his papacy, as a bishop and cardinal, he dressed simply and practically. (2)

Portrait of John XXIII (1881 – 1963)

CHARACTER By virtually every account, John XXIII was warm, humble, witty, and genuinely accessible — qualities that set him apart from his more remote predecessors. He had a gift for disarming people with a joke and a natural ease with ordinary men and women that endeared him to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. 

John XXIII's humility was not performative; he frequently expressed genuine amazement at his own elevation, saying late in life that he had never sought promotion and had simply tried to do the job in front of him. He was emotionally intelligent, pastorally focused, and — crucially for what followed — willing to listen. His secretary of state Cardinal Tardini described him as "a man who radiates joy." (3)

SPEAKING VOICE Roncalli had a warm, unhurried voice with a strong Bergamasque accent that he never entirely lost despite decades abroad. Italian observers noted it gave him a rustic, approachable quality — he sounded like a country priest rather than a Roman curial official. 

His French, acquired during his years in Bulgaria and perfected during his time as Nuncio in Paris, was fluent if accented. 

He was a compelling speaker in formal settings, with a preacher's sense of timing and an instinct for the memorable phrase. (3) 

SENSE OF HUMOUR Pope John XXIII was celebrated for his wit, and many of his jokes entered Catholic legend. When asked how many people worked in the Vatican, he replied: "About half of them." 

He was also renowned for the apple anecdote: at a diplomatic banquet, his dinner partner wore a very low-cut dress, which he politely affected not to notice. When dessert was served, however, he selected an apple and offered it to her. She declined. He pressed her: "Please take it, Madam. It was only after Eve ate the apple that she became aware of how little she had on." 

On another occasion, attending a reception where a woman in a daringly low-cut dress arrived, he noted dryly that every person in the room turned not to look at the woman, but at him — to see if he was looking at her. 

He also said of himself: "It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it — then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope." (6)

RELATIONSHIPS Roncalli had no known romantic relationships., having entered the seminary at ten years old. 

He maintained a lifelong closeness with his large family, visiting Sotto il Monte when possible and corresponding regularly with his siblings. He had a particular affection for his great-uncle Zaverio, who shaped his early piety. 

As pope he was known for breaking protocol to spend time with ordinary visitors, Vatican workers, and children. 

His warmest professional bond was with his longtime secretary, Monsignor Loris Capovilla, who was with him at the end of his life. (2)

MONEY AND FAME Roncalli came from genuine poverty and never accumulated personal wealth. Throughout his career in the diplomatic service of the Vatican he was supported by the Church. As pope he was indifferent to luxury and reportedly found the pomp of the Vatican somewhat oppressive. 

He became one of the most famous and beloved figures in the world during his papacy, named Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1962. His popularity transcended Catholicism — secular leaders and non-Christians responded warmly to his openness and humanity. (7) 

Pope John XXIII on Time magazine cover of January 4, 1963

FOOD AND DRINK Roncalli was fond of good, simple Italian food — the peasant cooking of Lombardy. He was known to enjoy polenta, pasta, and local cheeses, and his ample figure suggested a healthy appetite. He reportedly loved wine in moderation, as befitted a man from a farming background. There are no records of exotic or extravagant tastes; his pleasures at table were the pleasures of the Italian countryside. (3)

MUSIC AND ARTS Roncalli had a conventional clerical formation in sacred music — Gregorian chant, polyphony, and liturgical settings — and valued music as an expression of worship. 

He had a genuine love of the visual arts and a deep appreciation of Renaissance religious painting.  During his years in Venice as Patriarch, Roncalli immersed himself in the city's extraordinary artistic heritage. He was known to walk through Venetian churches simply to look at the paintings.  (2)

LITERATURE Roncalli was a serious reader and a diligent keeper of a spiritual journal, published posthumously as Journal of a Soul — a remarkable document covering his inner life from seminary to the papacy. He wrote with clarity and warmth, and the journal became a spiritual classic. 

Roncalli was widely read in Church history and the writings of the Fathers, and had a particular scholarly interest in St. Charles Borromeo, on whom he produced a major five-volume historical study early in his career. (8)

NATURE He retained throughout his life an affection for the rural Lombard countryside of his birth — the fields, vineyards, and mountains around Sotto il Monte. He returned there when he could and spoke warmly of the land and seasons. (3)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Roncalli was not athletic. His chief intellectual recreations were reading, writing in his journal, and conversation. 

He was an attentive and enthusiastic student of history, particularly Church history, and spent many years researching the archives of his home diocese of Bergamo. 

He enjoyed chess and card games in relaxed clerical company. (3))

SCIENCE AND MATHS John XXIII's 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra showed an awareness of the role of technology and scientific development in shaping modern economies and global inequality — a notably progressive position for a pope of his era. (6)

PAPACY When Angelo Roncalli was elected pope on November 4, 1958, few people expected history to start moving furniture around. 

At seventy-six, he looked very much like what church experts call a "safe pair of hands" and what everyone else calls "a temporary arrangement." The assumption was that he would keep the seat warm, avoid surprises and perhaps spend a few years smiling benevolently while important men discussed important things in hushed voices. 

Instead, he became Pope John XXIII and immediately started causing trouble of the most Christian kind.

Even his choice of name carried a message. By calling himself John XXIII, he quietly settled an old argument about the legitimacy of a fifteenth-century claimant to the papacy. It was a remarkably efficient way of ending a centuries-old dispute: simply put the name on the headed paper and carry on.

At his coronation he wore the magnificent Palatine Tiara of 1877 and appeared before cheering crowds dressed in white silk, red velvet, ermine and gold. It was the sort of outfit that would make most people look ridiculous. Roncalli somehow managed to look like everybody's favourite grandfather who had accidentally wandered into a Renaissance painting.

Pope John XXIII's coronation on November 4, 1958. 

Then, only three months after his election, he announced plans for what would become the Second Vatican Council. The Church, he said, needed aggiornamento—bringing up to date. It was a phrase that caused excitement among some Catholics and mild palpitations among others, particularly those who believed that if God had wanted anything updated He would have included a newer version in the original packaging.

John's instinct was always to move towards people rather than wait for them to come to him. On Christmas Day 1958 he visited children suffering from polio in hospital. The next day he went to Rome's Regina Coeli prison and told the inmates, "You could not come to me, so I came to you." It is difficult to imagine a more practical summary of the Gospel.

His habit of crossing old boundaries continued. In 1960 he met Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher of Canterbury, the first meeting between a pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in more than four centuries. After 400 years of separation, suspicion and theological point-scoring, somebody finally decided it might be worth having a conversation.

His 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra urged cooperation between nations and insisted that wealthier countries had responsibilities towards poorer ones. This was another of John's unsettling habits: taking Christianity's inconvenient teachings and treating them as though they were meant to be taken seriously.

When the Second Vatican Council opened on October 11, 1962, changes began to ripple through the Catholic world. Worship increasingly moved from Latin into local languages. Lay people were given a greater role. Relationships with other Christian traditions softened. Catholics were encouraged to read the Bible for themselves. The Church opened a few windows and discovered that fresh air, though alarming at first, was not necessarily fatal.

John XXIII died in 1963 before the council completed its work. He never saw many of the reforms fully implemented. Yet perhaps that was fitting. Gardeners rarely sit beneath the full shade of the trees they plant.

The "caretaker pope" turned out not to be minding the shop at all. He was quietly renovating it. 

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Roncalli was not a systematic theologian in the academic sense; he was, as he would have said himself, a pastor. Consequently, his theological instincts were deeply pastoral, ecumenical, and optimistic, shaped significantly by the tradition of pastoral renewal and the social teachings of Leo XIII. 

His signature theological concept was aggiornamento—the conviction that the Church must open its windows to the modern world without compromising its core faith. He was also influenced by the concept of ressourcement, or returning to the sources of Scripture and the early Church Fathers, though this was ultimately more the work of the theologians he enabled than his own original contribution. 

Today, his encyclical Pacem in Terris, with its insistence that peace is built on truth, justice, love, and freedom, is regarded as one of the definitive documents of modern Catholic social thought. (6)

POLITICS As a diplomat and then pope, Roncalli was scrupulously careful to operate above partisan politics, though his theological positions had profound political implications. Pacem in Terris (1963) was addressed to "all men of good will" regardless of religion and implicitly endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a remarkable step. 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, he issued a public appeal for peace that was broadcast by Radio Vatican and acknowledged by both Kennedy and Khrushchev. 

He was the first pope to receive the head of a Communist state when he met Alexei Adzhubei, Khrushchev's son-in-law, at the Vatican in 1963 — a meeting that scandalized conservatives but which John saw as a simple act of human dialogue. (6)

John XXIII with Prime Minister of Lebanon Sami Solh in 1959

SCANDAL By any standard, John XXIII's personal life was free of scandal. The closest thing to controversy was institutional: his convening of the Second Vatican Council alarmed conservatives within the Curia and the College of Cardinals, who feared the changes he was unleashing. His successor Pope Paul VI reportedly said of him: "This holy old boy doesn't realise what a hornets' nest he is stirring up." Some traditionalist Catholics have never fully accepted the Council's reforms, but the criticism was directed at his programme, not at any personal misconduct.  (2)

MILITARY RECORD Drafted into the Royal Italian Army during World War I, Roncalli served first as a sergeant in the medical corps, tending to the wounded, and later as a military chaplain to soldiers at the front. The experience of mass suffering and death had a lasting effect on his pastoral sensibility. He was demobilised in 1918. He held no military rank after the war and had no involvement in combat.  (2)

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Roncalli was not physically robust in later life. He was significantly overweight and suffered from various ailments associated with age and his build. 

In 1962–63 he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, which progressed rapidly. He bore the illness with characteristic calm and openness, reportedly saying: "My bags are packed. I'm ready to go." (2)

HOMES Roncalli was born and raised in the stone farmhouse of his family in Sotto il Monte, Bergamo. He lived in various seminary residences in Bergamo and Rome during his studies. As a diplomat he resided in Sofia (Bulgaria), Istanbul and Athens, and then in Paris as Nuncio. From 1953 to 1958 he lived in the Patriarch's palace in Venice. As pope he occupied the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. He retained a sentimental attachment to Sotto il Monte throughout his life. (2)

TRAVEL Roncalli was one of the most widely travelled Vatican officials of his era. His diplomatic postings took him to Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, and France over two decades. He travelled extensively within each country, often to remote and difficult areas. 

As pope, however, he did not travel internationally — the tradition of papal foreign travel was established only by his successor Paul VI and, more dramatically, by John Paul II. 

His most celebrated "journeys" as pope were the short pastoral visits within Rome: to the hospitals on Christmas Day 1958 and to the Regina Coeli prison the following day — both firsts for a modern pope. (2)

DEATH Pope John XXIII died on June 3, 1963, in the Apostolic Palace, Vatican City, after a long struggle with stomach cancer. He was eighty-one years old. In his final hours, some 100,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square for a sunset Mass. When news of his death reached the departing crowd, they wept openly, calling out: "Papa, poor Papa." 

He was buried in St. Peter's Basilica. His body, exhumed during the beatification process, was found to be remarkably well preserved, and it is now displayed in a crystal sarcophagus in the Basilica.  (4)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA John XXIII appeared frequently in newsreel footage and early television news during his papacy (1958–63), a period when television was becoming the dominant medium. His warmth translated exceptionally well on screen. 

The opening of the Second Vatican Council in October 1962 was one of the first major religious events to receive extensive live television coverage.

He has been portrayed in several films and television productions, most notably by Rod Steiger in the 1983 Italian television film Il Papa Giovanni (also known as A Man Named John). 

ACHIEVEMENTS Convened the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the most significant reform of the Roman Catholic Church in four centuries, introducing vernacular Mass, ecumenical dialogue, and a reorientation of the Church toward the modern world.

Issued Pacem in Terris (1963), a landmark encyclical on peace, human rights, and international relations, addressed to all humanity rather than Catholics alone.

Played a personal role in defusing tensions during the Cuban Missile Crisis through a public peace appeal acknowledged by both superpowers.

Saved thousands of Jewish lives during World War II through the use of his diplomatic position in Turkey and Greece.

Became the first pope to visit a prison and a hospital in an active pastoral capacity since the loss of the Papal States in 1870.

Met the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1960 — the first such meeting in over 400 years — pioneering modern Anglican-Catholic dialogue.

Beatified September 3, 2000, by Pope John Paul II. Canonised April 27, 2014, by Pope Francis, who waived the requirement for a second miracle in recognition of his role at the Second Vatican Council. His feast day is October 11, the anniversary of the opening of Vatican II — rather than June 3, the anniversary of his death, as would be customary. 

Sources: (1) Wikipedia – Pope John XXIII (2) Encyclopaedia of Trivia – Pope Saint John XXIII (3) Encyclopædia Britannica – Pope John XXIII (4) New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia – Pope John XXIII (5) Catholic News Agency – Pope St. John XXIII (6) Vatican.va – Pope John XXIII (7) Time Magazine – Man of the Year 1962