Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

by Wyatt North

  In 1919 Father Angelo also became spiritual director of the Bergamo seminary, but he was not asked to teach, perhaps because of suspicions that he was too progressive. Father Angelo grew happy again. He was settling into a future working with young people when the Vatican stepped in.

  Leaving Italy

  At this point, the career path of Angelo Roncalli exemplifies how passing contacts can result in career advancement. After the death of Bishop Radini-Tedeschi, Father Angelo decided to compose a biography of his beloved mentor. He was somehow able to complete it during the war years and sent a copy to Pope Benedict XV, who had been a close friend of the bishop’s. After the war, in 1920, Pope Benedict remembered Father Roncalli and removed the priest from Bergamo, appointing him a director of the organization for the support of foreign missions, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide). Although it was a minor position, he met a number of important Church figures throughout Europe and began to be known to the hierarchy in Rome. Now, as a domestic prelate, he was able to add red piping to his garb, the significance of which puzzled his family, and was entitled to be called “monsignor.”

  In addition, because of his earlier association with Monsignor Radini, he had met a librarian in Milan, Monsignor Achille Ratti, who later became Pope Pius XI. The contact had led Father Roncalli to discover the material he would use for his biography of Saint Charles Borromeo, and the librarian gave his permission and advice about how to proceed. Later, as pope, Pius XI appointed Monsignor Roncalli to the Vatican diplomatic service. Roncalli was made an archbishop and named apostolic visitor to Bulgaria in March 1925.

  In truth, the new archbishop was not happy with his assignment to Bulgaria. A Lombard to the bone, he did not wish to leave Italy, his native region of Lombardy, or his family. Since it would not be feasible to bring his two sisters along, he further had to ponder the difficult problem of their disposition while he was abroad for an indeterminate period. In the end, he rented part of a large house in Sotto il Monte for his sisters, and this became his summer home through all the years until he became pope.

  Adding to Angelo’s unhappiness at leaving Italy was the fact that he was genuinely frightened; he did not believe himself to be a capable enough person to assume this new status. He thought himself lazy and untalented, so he resolved to rely upon God for help. If it were God’s desire that he become an archbishop and go to Bulgaria, surely God would make up for his shortcomings. He took as his episcopal slogan Obedientia et Pax, Obedience and Peace.

  Monsignor Roncalli had not wanted or sought this type of advancement. What is more, there had been no papal representative in Bulgaria in 500 years. So why did it happen? Some have speculated that Pope Pius moved Angelo to Bulgaria in order to remove him from Italy. Pius XI was a disappointment to many in Italy because he failed to live up to progressive expectations and made a shocking alliance with Mussolini. Monsignor Roncalli was a known supporter of the Catholic Popular Party, which Pius suppressed in favor of the Italian fascists.

  It is true that by appointing him to Bulgaria, Pope Pius effectively put the monsignor’s suspect views on the shelf and segregated him, even while making him a titular archbishop. But just as the biblical Joseph was required to become a slave in Egypt for a time before rising to the lofty role God intended for him, God also had future plans for Angelo Roncalli. And as time passed and Mussolini’s fist tightened around Italy, Archbishop Roncalli would come to view it as a blessing that he had been able to leave.

  And so Archbishop Roncalli found himself aboard the Orient Express on his way to Sofia. Bulgaria was an obscure outpost for the Catholic Church. Archbishop Roncalli’s job there was to protect the interests of the small Catholic community in the predominantly Eastern Orthodox country. Fortuitously, he was also able to provide broader assistance during two national tragedies, thereby attaining a great deal of good will from the Orthodox majority.

  The first event occurred even before his arrival. Nine days before the new archbishop arrived in Bulgaria, an attempt was made to assassinate the king of Bulgaria, Boris III, by placing a bomb in the dome of Sofia’s main Orthodox cathedral. The horrific explosion caused the dome to crash down upon the congregants, killing 150 people and injuring 300. Arriving in Bulgaria so soon after the terrible event, the new papal visitor visited the wounded in a Catholic hospital that provided free care in the aftermath of the calamity. Archbishop Roncalli’s ecumenical kindness so favorably impressed King Boris that he received the archbishop only days later. This was an especially meaningful gesture on the part of the king because the papal visitor had no actual diplomatic standing in the country.

  The second occasion was in 1928, when Bulgaria experienced a series of destructive earthquakes. Archbishop Roncalli directed food and blanket distribution in the decimated earthquake areas, and he even elected to sleep among the homeless in tents. In addition, he solicited funds for a soup kitchen that fed people for two months following the catastrophe.

  Archbishop Roncalli also gained favor with the royal family by overlooking King Boris’ somewhat duplicitous behavior in connection with the Catholic Church. In 1930 this king of Orthodox Bulgaria had married Giovanna, the Catholic daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, in a Catholic ceremony in Assisi. Archbishop Roncalli was present for the occasion. The pope had granted the couple the customary dispensation when they both signed a promise that any issue from their marriage would be reared as Catholics. Nevertheless, upon their arrival in Bulgaria, the couple was remarried in a spectacular Orthodox ceremony, which the pope suffered as a slap in the face.

  The children that followed were baptized Orthodox, further angering the pope. Archbishop Roncalli accepted Giovanna’s word that she had no say in the matter, and he understood enough of realpolitik to recognize that Boris, too, had little choice in this regard: to keep the wavering support of the Orthodox Bulgarian populace, Boris could hardly show weakness in his Orthodoxy. As it was, he was the frequent target of assassination attempts in his simmering country, and he did eventually die in 1943 at the age of 49 under highly suspicious circumstances.

  While Roncalli did favor reconciliation and reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, his mission in Bulgaria was not to be an emissary to the Orthodox but to assist the Catholics there. The majority of Catholics in Bulgaria were in fact already well served by two bishops. These were Catholics of the Latin rite, mostly foreigners living in the chief population centers of Bulgaria. In addition, however, there were some 14,000 Uniates who followed Orthodox liturgy and customs but at the same time were in union with the Vatican. They were mostly poor and lived in rural regions without the benefit of hierarchical oversight.

  Having trained under the tutelage of Bishop Radini-Tedeschi, Archbishop Roncalli followed the lead of his mentor and went out to seek his constituency. He travelled broadly throughout the countryside to wherever they could be found—by car, wagon, and mule. He was accompanied on his journeys by a young Uniate priest, Stefan Kurtev. The simple people the archbishop visited were often astonished to receive such a high-ranking visitor as the archbishop.

  Having previously worked with Catholic missions, Roncalli was already sensitive to the question of Church-sponsored colonialism. Thus he felt it was important for the Uniates to have their own, indigenous leadership, and he recommended Father Kurtev be appointed a bishop. The Vatican would eventually allow this but only after considerable foot-dragging. Archbishop Roncalli also sought to create a Uniate seminary for the development of a local priesthood, but although he succeeded in purchasing the property for it, he was never allowed to commence building. The Vatican’s failure to support his endeavors both puzzled and hurt him, and he continually struggled with a lack of clarity and direction for his mission in Bulgaria. There remained no clear message from Rome concerning what exactly it was he was supposed to accomplish. He longed to minister directly to the folk of the land, but there was no forum for him to do so.

  In all, the ten years
in Bulgaria (1925–1934) were often discouraging and lonely for an energetic and dedicated man in his prime, but Archbishop Roncalli endured them with fortitude and good humor. His next appointment was equally obscure: apostolic delegate to Greece and head of the Vatican diplomatic mission to Turkey. Since Greece, too, was predominantly Eastern Orthodox, while Turkey was Muslim or secular, he again presided over many small communities in somewhat hostile settings. Nevertheless, his naturally friendly personality and bountiful good sense won over many friends. Istanbul, where the archbishop resided, did have a large Catholic community so that the archbishop finally had his own cathedral and the opportunity to engage in the pastoral duties he had missed for so long. The communities he served were extremely diverse so that he had to negotiate among churches in communion with Rome but adhering to their own very different traditions.

  The secular Turkish government of the time was ruthless in asserting its authority over any survivors of Islamic rule. As such, it also moved to suppress other religions. Clergy were not permitted to wear clerical garb, so the archbishop had to wear regular suits when out and about. Since the government also closed the diocesan newspaper, the archbishop’s attempts to communicate with his audience were somewhat circumscribed. Undaunted, he reached out to the ecumenical patriarch of Orthodoxy even though healing relations was not then on the Vatican agenda. He also established friendly relations with any and all foreign diplomats present in Istanbul. In a foreshadowing of his future moves as pope, he introduced the use of Turkish for all parts of the liturgy that weren’t mandatorily said in Latin. It became necessary for him to defend that practice when he was denounced to the Vatican because of it.

  Meanwhile, the political crisis in Europe was escalating with growing rapidity. Pius XI, in failing health, finally grasped the full, horrible meaning of Nazism and in early 1937 issued an encyclical against it, Mit Brennender Sorge (With Consuming Concern). In this document, he spoke of the Nazis’ utter rejection of peace and their distortion of the treaty with the Vatican. He alluded to the paganism inherent in arrogantly elevating a person (i.e., Hitler) or a people to the level of heaven. He further emphasized the universality of humanity as created by God and the Church’s ultimate rejection of racism. Much of the document was an exhortation to the faithful of the Church to cling heroically to Christian teaching despite the trials they might face in the current and coming circumstances. In a number of public statements, he made clear his opposition to Nazism. Pope Pius proceeded to break with the Italian fascists in 1938, and he is said to have been working on a statement against anti-Semitism at the time of his death, but because of his death, it was never published.

  With the outbreak of war, Archbishop Roncalli had the opportunity to undertake far more significant work in Turkey than would otherwise have been the case. Neutral Istanbul, like Bogart’s Casablanca, was a hotbed of intrigue during WWII. In such a setting, Archbishop Roncalli found ways to do his part and more. He was extremely active in saving Jews from the Nazi onslaught, which will be discussed further below. In addition, he established an office for locating prisoners of war, certainly a torment he understood personally because of his family’s experience during WWI. He was further able to achieve a humanitarian lifting of the Allied blockade of Greece so that food shipments could get through during the winter famine of 1941. The latter effort won a tremendous amount of goodwill towards the Catholic nuncio from an Orthodox country that was normally quite chary of the Catholic Church.

  Given his prior minor postings, Archbishop Roncalli was extremely surprised when at the end of 1944 he was appointed to a vital position: papal nuncio to France, which had just been liberated from Nazi Germany. The previous nuncio was viewed as a collaborator, having been close to the Vichy head of state, General Philippe Pétain. Consequently, Archbishop Roncalli was entering an extremely sensitive situation in a critical venue. The good-natured Roncalli was deemed the right sort of person to defuse the hostile mood, reestablish the Church’s independence, and negotiate the release of German seminarians being held as prisoners of war. Subsequently, he was named the first permanent Vatican observer to UNESCO, addressing its sixth and seventh general assemblies in 1951 and 1952. In that position, he enthusiastically encouraged cross-cultural dialogue and assistance.

  His success with these difficult tasks was rewarded; he was elevated to a cardinal and appointed Patriarch of Venice by Pius XII in January 1953. Cardinal Roncalli was now 71 and settling into a happy old age. He probably expected Venice to be his last post. Instead, he became pope.

  Electing a New Pope

  The nineteen-year reign of Pius XII was at an end, and Pope John XXIII was elected to his position on October 20, 1958. With WWII barely in the past, Europe was now overshadowed and divided by the Iron Curtain. When Cardinal Roncalli was elected by a conclave of fifty-one cardinals on the twelfth ballot, it was clear to all knowledgeable observers that he was a compromise candidate. What no one expected was that his election would be a watershed moment in the long history of the Church.

  The New Pope

  Certainly no person knows whether their time ahead will be long or short, but at age 77, the new pope had every reason to wonder if there would be time for him to do more than merely set the course that he desired for the Church. He surprised everyone by taking the name John, the first pope with that name in more than 500 years. The last had been the antipope, John XXIII. This led to some initial confusion about what number would follow his name until he settled the matter. Angelo Roncalli took the name of John in honor of his father Giovanni and in honor of the many churches and cathedrals named after John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, including the small one in which he had been baptized—but he also pointed out that it was a name belonging to many popes with short reigns.

  Pope John made it clear in his first public address as pope that he intended to be a pastoral pope. He then lost no time in working to establish an agenda. It came as a shock to those around him that his goal was nothing less than renewal of the Church. Within his first three months as pope, he announced that he would hold a diocesan synod for Rome (the first in the history of Rome was held in 1960), convene an ecumenical council (a general meeting of bishops), and revise the Code of Canon Law. The heart of his plan was a more accessible Church, one in which laypeople would not hold a second-class place.

  While his horrified assistants tried to bury the plan for a new ecumenical council in a decade of preparations, the new pope made it happen within months.

  The Second Vatican Council

  And so, on October 11, 1962, more than 2,500 bishops from all over the world met at St. Peter’s, and the Second Vatican Council began. The bishops would meet for the next four years (1962–1965), approximately four months each year, and they would change forever the way the Church operated. Pope John was able to preside over the first session.

  Church Councils—and there have been very few in the course of Church history—were usually convened to correct false doctrines that were becoming popular. Pope John made it clear that his was to be a positive Church Council rather than a negative one. He was not interested in merely creating a new statement about Orthodoxy. Instead, his goal was to “open the windows” to the Church to let in fresh air and to allow a “new Pentecost.” He sought, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to create an aggiornamento, an updating.

  For many years predating the reign of Pope John, the Church had been fighting a losing battle against the modern world. Several popes had forcefully positioned themselves as conservative bulwarks against modern thinking. In addition, in his elder years, Pope Pius XII had increasingly isolated himself from the rest of the Curia, issuing orders by telephone but seldom listening to responses from those charged with administering the Church. As a result, there were many leaders within the Church who were more than ready for reform and quite responsive to Pope John’s call for aggiornamento.

  In seeking Christian unity, he was prepared to acknowledge the Catholic Church’s
part in the Christian schism. Accordingly, he invited Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant observers to the council.

  As part of this process, in 1963 Pope John established the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law.

  The outcome, which occurred after John’s death, was sixteen documents: three declarations, four constitutions, and nine decrees. In the end, traditionalists were able to modify many of the progressive changes Pope John had desired. Nevertheless, the liturgy was thoroughly revised, there was a new emphasis on ecumenism, and the Church was now fully engaged with the modern world.

  Other Bold Steps

  Ever since the final seizure of the Papal States and the capture of Rome by the newly unified Kingdom of Italy in 1870, the movement of popes had been severely circumscribed. Popes from Pius IX (known as Pio Nino) onward were known as prisoners in the Vatican because they refused to leave the premises, intending to make clear to all that they rejected the Italian government’s authority. The Italian government, for its part, asserted that authority by placing Italian troops in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. Even though Pius XI finally agreed to terms with the secular Italian state in the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which created the state of Vatican City and provided a monetary settlement for the ceded papal lands, he seldom ventured out. His successor, Pius XII, was far too protective of his papal dignity ever to mingle with the general populace—even his closest associates had to approach him on their knees. Lay workers in the Vatican were advised to make themselves scarce if he appeared.