Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum!
Fifty years ago today, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected pope and took the unlikely name of John XXIII. (“Pius” had been the favored name for almost two centuries, and there hadn’t been a Pope John since the fourteenth century–fifteenth if you count the anti-pope with the same number as Roncalli.)
I was in my first months at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie. When the news that the white smoke had been seen, we were gathered in the refectory where we listened to the “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum” on the radio (no transmissions of TV by satellite yet). When we heard the news, we went immediately to an issue of Life magazine which had a spread on the papabili, and there we found a photo of a cardinal who looked like nothing more than a fat, self-indulgent Renaissance prelate. We wondered what we were getting.
We found out soon enough. Fewer than a hundred days after his election, he announced that he intended to convoke an ecumenical council, and thereby became “a transitional pope” in senses not dreamed of by those who elected him to fulfil that role.
Deo gratias.
Thanks for this post. A number of passages and anniversaries have gone unremarked in recent weeks, largely because of the campaign swirl, to which I am a gratuitous contributor, of course. I won’t clutter too much, just to note that at Beliefnet, where I also post, I linked to a very nice remembrance of the death of John Paul I–and of his life–by John Thavis of CNS. John Paul I was truly “transitional,” I guess we’d say, yet is overlooked, understandably. But apart from recalling him as a pope and person, I think people forget that Luciani was a necessary bridge to Karol Wojtyla. In any case, here is the link:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2008/10/remembering-the-other-john-pau.html
But best of all, here is an image of the teletype John ripped that morning in Rome:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/imgs/AP%20teletype.bmp
Seems so bloody old-fashioned! The distance from Father Komonchak listening on the radio in 1958 to John Thavis ripping wire copy off teletypes in 1978 does not seem that great. The intervening 30 years, however, seems like several lifetimes.
Thanks for the reminder. Pope John was a part of the landscape of my childhood. I grew up around Catholics, most of whom never took down their pictures of Pope John and JFK in their living rooms even after both were gone.
May I recommend “Journal of a Soul,” which is touted as Pope John’s autobiography, but is really more a collection of journals and letters? It’s a book I’ve dragged around with me for many years.
My favorite entry is a letter he wrote to his family at Christmas, telling them how much he missed them, and how he typed the letter himself–that he found typing relaxing and wished he had more time to do it.
One of the things the Pope often thanked God for throughout his life was his ability to understand many points of view, answer his critics with mildness and not be bothered much by strident opposition.
In one of his early musings, he very clearly stated that he didn’t want to be the Pope of Rome or the Pope of the Catholics, but saw himself as “the Pope of everybody.” It has always seemed to me that his goal for Vatican II was to make the Church the “Church of everybody.”
I was in Rome for the last three years of Pope John’s pontificate and had the chance to see him many times. One of my favorites was out at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. It was a local feast, and the custom was for the people to bring tokens of their work before the Pope, and so the ordinary people of the area brought fruits and vegetables, fish, shovels, etc. Pope John then gave a more or less formal talk, ending it with his blessing. Then he went on very informally, chatting with the people, causing them to break out into laughter, and ending, “Well, I’m going to give you another blessing!” And after it, starting in chatting all over again, and ending that with still another blessing. He was perfectly at home with them, and they with him. A very human Pope.
Contrasts are almost always drawn between a new pope and his immediate predecessor, almost always to the disadvantage of the latter. (Which led a beloved mentor of mine, Florence D. Cohalan, to deliver two of his typical quips: “Gentlemen, when they ask you, ‘Who is the greatest pope?’, the safest answer will always be, “The present one.” And: “There’s nothing deader than a dead pope.) Pius XII had a more reserved attitude, aristocratic, and to this must be added that for his last five years or so, he became even more remote, distant even from his closest collaborators. Pope John was as different in attitude and style as he was in physical size and shape.
“Journal of a Soul” is wonderful, Jean, I agree. It’s easy to love John XXIII, and why not? I like to refer people as well to Hannah Arendt’s essay on Pope John, in “Men in Dark Times,” which she rather provocatively titled “A Christian on St. Peter’s Throne.” Half the tales she cites may be apocryphal, but so be it. It’s a great read. (As is Graham Greene’s fasscinating and adoring essay on Pius XII, in a collection I have somewheres.) I have been told that Arendt’s essay on John is the only place in any of her writings where she allowed for the existence of God. I wouldn’t be able to say. But he had that kind of personal affect, it seems.
Thank you for this post. Yes, we have come a long way. And still a long way to go!
Thanks for this post. I am glad we have been reminded of this anniversary. I was 13 years old when John XXIII became pope. At the time I remember thinking that it was odd that he did not take the name Pius. My mother liked John XXIII immediately. She thought he was a gentle and warm and wise man. She was correct. Just a couple of years later, John F. Kennedy was elected president. Those were interesting times for a American, Catholic boy. “Journal of a Soul” is wonderful book. It was and is easy to love John XXIII.
My favorite John XXIII quote: “When in doubt, liberty!”
Deo Gratias indeed. What a paradigm change Angelo Roncalli was! The restorationists who tried to hold him down during his papacy came back with a vengeance with Karol W. But most of the renewal remained and is well in tact despite theocons and neocons and other cons.
Simple words like he said to the Jews: “I am Joseph, your brother.” Sono Giuseppe, tuo fratello! Just shows the largeness of the person. Reaching out to the orthodox and the Separated Brethren. This was huge.
Amazing how the Curia tried to change his speeches and even let out directives without his knowing it. Yet he prevailed. This is why so many messages seem mixed.
We might also take note of that other great theologian of Vatican II who wrote the first major book about the council named “The Council, Reform and Reunion.” All of the reforms he recommended were implemented. Because of the Vatican’s ‘damnatio memoriae”, (destruction of a person from memory) few hardly know this great person. Han Kung. Yet history will give him his due as some do now.
No doubt, John XXIII started the cyclone that Vatican II and subsequent years were. But it was a turbulence quite necessary even if it disturbed many who only understood the status quo.
Angelo Roncalli was a brilliant person whose simple ways were misleading.
My favorite John XXIII quote: “When in doubt, liberty!”
Great quote Bill. But no one knows the origin. Some say Augustine but that cannot be proven.
The selected quote comes from an adage, whose provenance, as Bill M. says, is unknown: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas (On necessary things unity; on matters open to doubt freedom; in all things charity). Pope John gave equal weight to all three parts, or, if anything, gave most weight to the last, something which it often seems so difficult for Catholics to follow, especially when dealing with fellow-Catholics, not least of all when trying to decide which things belong under the first category and which under the second.
My favorite quote:
Q: Your Holiness, how many people work at the Vatican?
A: About half of them.
Ba-da-boom.
He was, as always, being generous.
There is a Trappist monk by the name of Kevin Hunt who tells us that doubt has been a gift to him. Doubt keeps his interior life messy and the messiness keeps him going. Perhaps the same could be said for the Church. I think religious knowledge has to be understood in the context of the search for ultimate transformation. Often we are transformed by experiences and people who bring us truths that are generous. Pope John XXIII was an example of a person brought us truth that was generous.
Early on, some folks thought of John as not the best or the brightest.
He quickly, as noted, proved them wrong.
He truly understood “positive engagement” with famous and poor alike and (my favorite) by telling the church to “throw open the windows” nudged it into a modern world
Now that he’s gone these many years, the windows are again quite shut and there’s a musty aroma around; so we, who lived through those days, miss him profoundly.
Besides his record of his spiritual journey, Journal of a Soul, Pope John also left notebooks (agende in Italian) in which he noted his activities for the day, persons he encountered, etc. While some of the entries are prosaic and banal, many of the notes Roncalli jotted down reveal his humanity and, I could make the case, his holiness. You see him analyzing himself and observing others; you see him struggle with life-long challenges, including his excessive weight. You see his humble piety, and the freedom and boldness it permitted. Often in reading diaries one has a sense that the diarist is very self-conscious and aware, perhaps even hoping, that someone else will some day read them. I don’t get that sense from these daily notes of Pope John.
Three large volumes of these notebooks, carefully edited and supplied with identifying notes, handsomely produced, have been published, two for the years (1945-53) he was apostolic nuntio to Paris and one for the years of his pontificate (1958-63). I do not know if an English translation is being considered, but for anyone who can read Italian and French (the introduction and notes for the volumes concerning France were done by Etienne Fouilloux, in French) should not overlook these precious sources.
And John XXIII did, of course, say that what he was doing was just a continuation of what Pius XII initiated. Pius XII it was who first bruited the possibility of a council.
From Zenit: “Pius XII must be remembered for his encyclical “Mediator Dei,” the great preparatory work that would flow into the conciliar liturgical reform. It is the same Pope who, in the encyclical “Humani Generis,” takes evolutionary theory into consideration. Pius XII also gave notable impetus to missionary activity with the encyclicals “Evangelii Praecones” in 1951, and “Fidei Donum” in 1957, highlighting the Church’s duty to proclaim the Gospel to the nations, as Vatican II would amply reaffirm”.
In his POLITICS AND AMERICAN FREEDOM, Garry Wills gives a good account of Pius XII as the transitional figure between Leo XIII’s labor encyclicals, and those of Pius X and Pius XI, to John XXIII’s PACEM IN TERRIS.