Vatican
City, 3 June 2013
(VIS) – On 3 June 1963, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, popularly
referred to as 'the Good Pope', died after a five-year long
pontificate that left its mark on the Church with historic reforms.
His
might have seemed destined to be a transitional pontificate, but the
Good Pope John, elected after three days in conclave, “knew how to
rejuvenate the Church and resume dialogue with the modern world in
loving trust,” according to the words of John Paul II, who declared
him a Blessed in September of 2000.
Although
John XXIII was not able to see much of the fruit of the changes he
had proposed, they profoundly transformed the Catholic Church of the
time. He was a Pope who fought for peace in the world, as his 1963
encyclical “Pacem in Terris” (Peace on Earth) demonstrated. He
revolutionized the Church by convening the Second Vatican Council to
modernize and develop the institution of the Church and reformed the
Mass, which came to be celebrated ordinarily in the modern languages
rather than in Latin.
The
five years of his pontificate did not pass unnoticed and, even a half
century later, as he said himself at the time, it continues to
“throw open the doors and windows of the Church to let in the fresh
air”. It was a phrase that was recalled frequently during the
recent election of Cardinal Bergoglio, whom the international press
described as “the new Roncalli”.
Early
this evening, in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis will receive
2,000 pilgrims from the Good Pope's native province: Bergamo, Italy.
They will commemorate Blessed John XXIII, who earned the appreciation
and love of the faithful thanks to his generous, caring, and simple
nature.
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