Monday, December 3, 2007

Pope John XXIII: A Spiritual Biography

Christian Feldman profiles Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963) who became the 262nd pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He will forever be remembered as the man who humanized the role and opened the door to the renewal of the church. He explained: "We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to tend a blooming garden full of life."



One of my favorite anecdotes that demonstrates the humility and faith of Pope Roncalli is the following: On the evening when he announced the opening of the Ecumenical Council, the first one since 1870, he couldn't get to sleep. Finally, he called himself to order: "Angelo, why aren't you sleeping? Who's running the church, you or the Holy Spirit? So sleep." And he did.

Pope John XXIII began his mission by promising to be "a good shepherd." He was the first pope in history "to pay tribute to the part played by women in public life and to the growing awareness of their human dignity." Best of all with the convening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII set in motion a spirit of reform that took seriously the wild abandon of the Holy Spirit. In September of 2000, this son of Italian peasants was beatified.

Jewish sociologist and political scientist, Hannah Arendt, dedicates a respectful chapter to Pope John. She recalls a Roman chambermaid who, when Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli lay on his deathbed, told her in stunned surprise: “Madame, this pope was a real Christian. How is that possible? And how could a real Christian ever get to sit on St. Peter’s chari? Didn’t he first have to be made a bishop, then an archbishop, then a cardinal, before he finally got elected pope? Didn’t anyone have any idea who he was?” (Feldman:115).

One of his favorite sayings (ahead of chaos theory) was, “Without a breath of holy madness the Church cannot grow” (Feldman:132). An example of this holy madness was the way in which he launched Vatican II. He was talking with some cardinals when suddenly he blurted out, “So why don’t we have a Council?” And when someone objected that a thing like that would be impossible to organize by 1963, as the pope had suggested, John laconically replied: “Good, then we’ll have it in 1962!” (Feldman:129).

And finally, this can’t be said often enough: He trusted the Holy Spirit. If it was God’s will, the bishops gathered in Rome would just take of the freedom that was theirs. “Who is actually organizing the Council?” the Belgian Cardinal Suenens, a “liberal” mentor, asked the pope, in some cnocern. “Nessuno,” answered John.ba “Nobody.” (Feldman:138).

On October 11, 1962, 2,540 Council Fathers marched across St. Peter’s Square to the opening of the Council. For the first time in history the Church Universal was actually gathering in Rome, with Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans from the young churches of the Third World (Feldman:139).