Pope John XXIII

About Pope John XXIII

Angelo Roncalli was born in 1881 into a family of poor farmers in northern Italy, the fourth of thirteen children. He served as an army chaplain in the First World War and as a Vatican diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey and France. In Istanbul during the Second World War he helped save thousands of Jews by issuing transit papers.

Elected in 1958 at seventy-six, he was expected to be a caretaker pope who would change nothing. Less than three months later he announced an ecumenical council — Vatican II — in order, in the image that became famous, to open the windows and let in fresh air. He wrote Pacem in Terris during the missile crisis, addressed not only to Catholics but to all people of good will.

Ordinary people called him the good pope for his plain, unceremonious manner. He died in 1963, before the council he opened had finished, and was canonised in 2014. His feast is 11 October.

A message from John XXIII is sent to older relatives, to anyone who lived through the council years, and for the birthdays of grandparents and godparents.

How it works