History in Colour: Fr Angelo Roncalli (Pope John XXIII)

by Admin · Published September 13, 2023 · Updated August 29, 2023

Young Fr Angelo Roncalli (seated), the future Pope John XXIII, as a lieutenant in the Italian army during World War I, with his younger brothers Francesco Saverio and Giuseppe.

Italy entered the war in 1915 on the side of the Allies against Germany and Austria. Fr Roncall — who had been ordained 1904 — was drafted into the Royal Italian Army as a sergeant, first serving in the medical corps as a stretcher-bearer and as a chaplain. He was later promoted to the rank of lieutenant and appointed chaplain of the military hospital in Bergamo, the seat of his diocese.

The three Roncalli brothers, sons of sharecroppers in the small northern Italian village of Sotto il Monte, survived the war. Francesco Saverio died in 1976; Giuseppe in 1981.

After the war, Fr Roncalli rose up the ranks in the Church. In 1925, Pope Pius XI appointed him apostolic visitor to Bulgaria, and in keeping with his diplomatic position was ordained an archbishop. In 1935 he was appointed apostolic visitor to Turkey. During World War II, Archbishop Roncalli used his diplomatic channels to save many Jews from the Nazi holocaust.

In 1944, Pope Pius XII appointed him nuncio to recently liberated France. The same pope named Roncalli patriarch of Venice in 1952, and made him a cardinal in January 1953.

In October 1958 Roncalli travelled to Rome to join his fellow cardinals in choosing a new pope. The conclave elected the 76-year-old Roncalli. Taking the name John XXIII, the new pope set out to renew the Church and called what we know as the Second Vatican Council. He’d preside over its first session in 1962. The following year he released his landmark encyclical on peace, Pacem in Terris. Two months later, on June 3, 1963 — 60 years ago this month — Pope John XXIII died at the age of 81. He was succeeded by Pope Paul VI.