Thursday, October 11, 2012
#372 10 Ways to Remember John XXIII
Even if most Catholics have forgotten about Vatican II, or are simply too young to remember it, now is the time to recall the hero behind the Council.
Today-- October 11, 2012--is the big day.
Every year the Roman Catholic Church celebrates October 11 as the feast of Blessed Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli). But this October 11 also marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II--what historian John O’Malley, SJ, has called “the biggest meeting in history.”
And since the Council was John XXIII’s idea, it makes sense to name some reasons why this man’s memory is worth preserving and celebrating.
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| John XXIII's Coronation |
2. A life-long diplomat. Despite his humble origins from a Bergamo peasant family, Roncalli spent most of his career in the Vatican diplomatic corps, serving as emissary to Istanbul and to Paris. This career kept him out of Vatican circles and allowed Vatican officials to judge him only from afar--and those judgments proved far off indeed.
3. Chronically underestimated. Roncalli’s style was to work quietly but effectively, never to impose himself, never to attempt impressing others. His self- effacing manner (along with his short, portly figure) allowed him to accomplish a good deal without drawing much attention to himself. As with another round man, John Le Carre’s fictional hero George Smiley, this induced many around him to underestimate his intelligence, his skill, and eventually, even his power.
Even today, his memory is obscured by shadows cast by his successors, especially John-Paul II. But none of their papacies could have happened without John and his council.
4. Willing to break the rules. I have noted in an earlier article how Roncalli was prepared to go outside the box when his own judgment told him something more important than protocol was at stake:
Those certificates were frauds—but Roncalli saved lives. Later, in Paris, he broke ranks again to support the controversial worker priest movement.
The cardinals who elected him should have known to expect more from John than a mere caretaker pope.
5. His episcopal motto: “Obedience and Peace.” This motto reflected his persona as a company man who would not rock the boat or break ranks. But as the World War II incident showed, this did not mean he would be timid in exercising his own authority. And once he was elected pope, the motto’s true meaning emerged: for now he had no one to obey but himself and his God. No need to rock the Barque of Peter, since he could now take over as its pilot and steer his own course.6. Our funniest pope. Admittedly, “papal humor” is nearly a contradiction in terms, but nonetheless John XXIII stands out as someone whose personal modesty and impatience with formality protected him from taking himself or the Vatican too seriously.
After protesting that the College of Cardinals had elected a man too old for the job, he observed, “Here I am at the end of the road and at the top of the heap.”
Some time after his election he also admitted; “It often happens that I wake up 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.”
And once while walking in the street he overheard a woman comment “My God, he’s so fat!” and he turned around and said, “Madam, I trust you understand that the papal conclave is not exactly a beauty contest.” These examples suggest that most of John’s humor was about self-effacement. It was part of what made him so beloved, and part of the reason he was so powerful in giving the Catholic Church a warm human face to the rest of the world. With his humor, he made the papacy popular.
7. A man of vision and hope. In January 1959, on the feast of St. Paul only three months after his election, Pope John invited 18 Curia cardinals to accompany him to a ceremony at St. Paul Outside the Walls.
He had big news to announce: he had decided to convene a Council! It would be the first in a century, it would be the biggest ever, and it would focus on renewing the Church itself. This idea literally took the cardinals’ breath away. They did not protest, they did not applaud, they did not even comment. They were too stunned by the news to do anything, so they stayed speechless, probably thinking “What does this seat-warmer think he is doing?”
Looking back, it is still breathtaking to think that this man saw the truth of history: that Catholic life was languishing, failing to communicate its vast ancient wisdom to the modern world. John not only had the vision to recognize the challenge, he also had hope enough to face it.
8. Forged a historic friendship with Giovanni Battista Montini. By the time John XXIII became pope, he had known then Archbishop Montini for more than 20 years. It was Montini who notified Roncalli of his appointment as papal nuncio to Paris. It was Montini who also asked him if he were willing to become patriarch of Venice.
They corresponded frequently over the years, well beyond the demands of protocol, and one biographer says that Montini became Roncalli’s “Roman confidant.” It was Montini who became the first new cardinal appointed by John. It was Montini whom John invited to stay in the papal apartments during the first session of Vatican II. And it was Montini who delivered John’s family to the pope’s deathbed in June 1963.
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| Msgr. Montini |
Why does this friendship matter? Because Montini, for whom John was supposed to be keeping the papal throne warm, would in fact become John’s successor—Paul VI--in the summer of 1963. By that point, Vatican II had barely broken the surface of its massive agenda. A new pope might well have abandoned the effort, and Vatican II would have melted into obscurity.
9. Committed to change. I have already written how, even before announcing his plan for the Council, John had begun to break with the status quo:
Feeling confined within Vatican City, he developed the habit of quietly slipping outside its walls at night so he could wander the streets of Rome. This earned him an affectionate nickname among the Swiss guards and Vatican personnel who were privy to his nocturnal strolls. They called him “Johnnie Walker.” These walks now stand as a metaphor for how John XXIII changed the papacy forever.
Perhaps his most famous joke was at the expense of the Vatican itself, and expressed his impatience with anyone treating the Church as a mere bureaucracy conducting its “business as usual.” Asked by a reporter how many people worked at the Vatican, he quickly replied “about half of them.”
When he opened the Council, he deliberately scolded church leaders who were rutted in a pessimistic view of the changing world around them. He called them “doomsayers,” and suggested it was time for a renewal that would embrace a brighter future. “The Council now beginning,” he said, “rises in the church like the sunrise, the forerunner of most splendid light.”
As the Council’s first session ended in December 1962, he predicted that the Council’s work would be so transforming that it would require a “vast effort of collaboration” around the world at all levels of the church to fulfill the Council’s vision. He was right: after 50 years, that effort remains unfinished.
10. A man of courage. When he announced his plan for the Council, even Montini was disbelieving. “This old boy does not know,” Montini said, “what a hornet’s nest he is stirring up.” There were two reasons for this. First, there was a lot to fix if Catholic life was to equip itself for the next century. Second, they were powerful forces of resistance that wanted to make sure that such fixing would never happen.
John was not deterred—even after he knew he could not finish the job. John had wanted the Council to finish in a single session, but both the Council’s massive of agenda and the strong resistance to it made such fast action impossible.
John’s courage in persevering is reflected in a truth the public did not know at the time: he had cancer, and was dying, and must have felt, a bit like Martin Luther King, that although the Council would reach its destination, “I may not get there with you.”
Vatican II took three more sessions (1963-1965) under Paul VI. And yet John left us with his vision for the future of the Church still strong in his heart:
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012
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