Daily Ordo

Saint John XXIII

Life and historical context

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born on 25 November 1881 in Sotto il Monte, a small village in the Bergamo region of northern Italy, the third of fourteen children in a family of poor sharecroppers. The family worked land they did not own and lived in conditions of considerable simplicity. Angelo entered the diocesan seminary of Bergamo at the age of eleven and continued his theological studies in Rome, where he was ordained a priest on 10 August 1904.1

He served first as personal secretary to the Bishop of Bergamo and as a teacher in the diocesan seminary, where he developed the historical and pastoral instincts that would mark his entire ecclesiastical career. During the First World War he served as a sergeant medic and chaplain in the Italian Army. After the war he was called to Rome to direct the Italian branch of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and in 1925 he was consecrated titular Archbishop of Areopolis and sent as Apostolic Visitor and later Apostolic Delegate to Bulgaria, an Orthodox-majority country with a small Catholic minority.

Roncalli's diplomatic career took him through some of the most challenging Catholic missions of the twentieth century: ten years in Bulgaria (1925-1934), nine years as Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece (1934-1944), and ten years as Apostolic Nuncio to France (1944-1953) at the difficult moment of post-war reconstruction and de-Gaulle's government. During his time in Istanbul he worked actively to save Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, issuing baptismal certificates to thousands of Jews to enable their escape from Nazi-occupied territories. He was created Cardinal in 1953 and named Patriarch of Venice the same year.2

On 28 October 1958, after the death of Pope Pius XII, the seventy-six-year-old Roncalli was elected the 261st Pope. He was widely understood at the time of his election to be a transitional choice, an elderly figure who would offer the Church a brief pause before more decisive leadership emerged. He confounded these expectations almost immediately. Within three months of his election, on 25 January 1959, he announced his intention to convene an Ecumenical Council, the first since the First Vatican Council had been suspended ninety years earlier in 1870.

Theological and spiritual significance

The Second Vatican Council, opened by Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962, is the principal magisterial event of the modern Catholic Church. Pope John did not live to see its conclusion (the Council closed in December 1965 under his successor Pope Paul VI), but the Council's character was decisively shaped by the Pope who convened it. He instructed the Council Fathers to conduct their work in a spirit of aggiornamento (updating, bringing the Church into dialogue with the modern world) rather than of polemic, and he framed the Council's task as a pastoral renewal of the Church for the evangelization of contemporary humanity.3

His opening speech to the Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (11 October 1962), set the tone for the entire conciliar period. The Pope distinguished between the deposit of faith, which is unchanging, and the mode of expression of that deposit, which legitimately develops to address each historical age. He rejected the calls of those he called prophets of gloom who saw only catastrophe in the modern world, and he urged the Council to address the human family with the medicine of mercy rather than the severity of condemnation.

Pope John issued two encyclicals of enduring significance. Mater et Magistra (1961) developed Catholic social teaching for the post-war world, building on the foundation of Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) and Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno (1931). Pacem in Terris (1963), addressed for the first time to all men of good will (not only to Catholics or Christians), articulated a Catholic doctrine of universal human rights grounded in natural law and the dignity of the human person. The encyclical was issued in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 and addressed the moral foundations of international peace at the height of the Cold War.4

He died on 3 June 1963, less than five years into his pontificate, of stomach cancer. His final months were lived publicly under the pastoral concern of the world. His private spiritual diary, published posthumously as Journal of a Soul, revealed the depth of the personal interior life that had sustained his exterior simplicity.

Devotion and liturgical observance

Pope John XXIII was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 September 2000. He was canonized by Pope Francis on 27 April 2014, in a joint ceremony with Pope Saint John Paul II. Pope Francis dispensed with the requirement of a second confirmed miracle for the canonization, judging Pope John's evident sanctity and the universal recognition of his holiness sufficient for the formal proclamation. The feast of Saint John XXIII is celebrated on 11 October, the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, in the universal Roman Calendar with the rank of optional memorial.5

The principal pilgrimage destination associated with Saint John XXIII is the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, where his body lies in a glass-walled tomb in the right aisle of the basilica, near the altar of Saint Jerome. His birthplace at Sotto il Monte (now renamed Sotto il Monte Giovanni XXIII in his honor) is a major pilgrimage site for Italian and international visitors. His childhood home is preserved as a museum.

The traditional iconography of Saint John XXIII depicts him in white papal cassock with the pectoral cross, often holding a rosary or the conciliar documents. He is frequently shown smiling, in a manner uncharacteristic of papal portraits, reflecting the warmth and approachability that earned him the title Il Papa Buono (the Good Pope) among the Roman faithful during his lifetime.

Prayers and novenas associated with Saint John XXIII

The principal devotion to Saint John XXIII is the Novena to Saint John XXIII, prayed for the renewal of the Church, the success of ecumenical efforts, and the gift of pastoral simplicity in the Christian life. The novena is most commonly prayed in the nine days leading up to his feast on 11 October.

Pope John was personally devoted to the Holy Rosary, praying it daily throughout his pontificate, and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His own most-quoted prayer is the brief "Suscipe, Domine" prayer that opens his Journal of a Soul, expressing the soul's surrender to the divine will.

Catholics commonly pair Saint John XXIII devotions with the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the Memorare. For the broader theological context, see Communion of Saints, and for the close associate of Pope John in the work of the Council, see Saint John Paul II.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Peter Hebblethwaite, Pope John XXIII: Pope of the Council (1985, revised editions). The standard English-language biography. Saint John XXIII, Journal of a Soul (composed 1895-1963, published posthumously 1964). Catholic Encyclopedia entries on Pope John XXIII updated post-2014 are available in digital editions. ↩

  2. The diplomatic missions in Bulgaria, Turkey, and France are documented in Hebblethwaite, op. cit., and in the official Vatican biographical archive. The Holocaust rescue work in Istanbul is documented in the testimonies of Jewish survivors, including the records preserved at Yad Vashem. ↩

  3. Pope John XXIII, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (opening allocution to the Second Vatican Council, 11 October 1962). Available at vatican.va. Vatican II's documents (1962-1965), available at vatican.va. ↩

  4. Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (encyclical, 15 May 1961) and Pacem in Terris (encyclical, 11 April 1963). Both available at vatican.va. ↩

  5. General Roman Calendar, current edition, on the feast of Saint John XXIII on 11 October. Pope Francis, canonization homily of 27 April 2014. Available at vatican.va. ↩

Last reviewed: May 1, 2026. Sources verified.