Diocesan priest; Pope

St. John XXIII

Saint John XXIII was born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli at Sotto il Monte, near Bergamo in Italy, on 25 November 1881, the third of thirteen children of a farming family. He was ordained a priest in 1904 and spent his early years as a seminary professor, a chaplain to young people, and a soldier's aide in the First World War, always keeping the simple habits of the countryside he came from. For decades he served the Church as a diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey, and France, where he learned to love the peoples of the East and to make friends across every dividing line. Made a cardinal in 1953, he was elected pope on 28 October 1958 at seventy-six years of age, chosen as a gentle, temporary shepherd — yet within three months he announced the Second Vatican Council, which renewed the liturgy, the Church's life, and her way of speaking to the modern world. He called himself the pope of the good Jesus, wrote his famous encyclical Pacem in Terris on peace among all peoples, and visited prisoners on Holy Thursday, telling them he had come because he was one of them. Everyone loved him for his smile and his plain words. He died in Rome on 3 June 1963, was canonized on 27 April 2014 beside John Paul II, and his feast is kept on 11 October.

Patronage · Papal diplomats; Christian unity