Pope John XXIII

Who is Pope John XXIII?

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in 1881 in Sotto il Monte, Italy, to a family of tenant farmers, and rose through a long career as a Vatican diplomat before his election as Pope John XXIII in 1958 at the age of 76. Though widely expected to be a brief, transitional "caretaker" pope, he surprised the world in January 1959 by announcing the Second Vatican Council, a landmark gathering of the world's Catholic bishops that opened in October 1962 and reshaped the Church's engagement with the modern world, its liturgy, and its relations with other faiths. Known affectionately as "Good Pope John" for his warmth, humility, and simple pastoral style, he also worked to ease Cold War tensions, notably intervening quietly during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and issued the encyclical Pacem in Terris in 1963, addressed for the first time not only to Catholics but to "all people of good will." He died in June 1963 before the Council he convened had concluded. He was canonized a saint by Pope Francis in 2014, and his tomb lies beneath the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica.

Sources: Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, encyclical (1963) · Peter Hebblethwaite, Pope John XXIII: Shepherd of the Modern World (1985) · Vatican Council II, Opening Address Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (11 October 1962)