POPES BEFORE JOHN PAUL II

In trying to look for online photos of John XXIII, I came across the TIME reportage of his election as Pope in the Nov. 10, 1958, issue. It is a good contemporary account that gives us surprising glimpses of a past that seems remote even it it was only 50 years ago. How devoid of skepticism the reporting was at the time!


"I Choose John . . ."

"Tu es Petrus" (Thou art Peter) sang the choir, and the ancient hymn set off a roar that swept across St. Peter's Square and down Via della Conciliazione to the Tiber's banks: "Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!" His Holiness John XXIII, Bishop of Rome, 262nd Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, paused at the entrance to the Basilica of St. Peter, a square, strong rock of a man beneath the jeweled miter and glistening white robes.

Twelve silver trumpets sounded, and the procession entered the vast church. Behind representatives of the ancient orders — Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines, Cistercians — walked dignitaries of Rome's churches, breastplated Swiss guardsmen, velvet-clad chamberlains of honor, honorary privy chaplains, patriarchs, mace-bearers and scarlet-mantled cardinals, fan bearers and Noble Guards.

In the chapel of St. Gregory, the cardinals made obeisance to the Pope, kissing his right hand. Then John XXIII was vested to celebrate his solemn papal Mass.

Three times during the procession to the main altar the Pope was halted by the master of ceremonies to receive a small brazier of glowing coals and a handful of flax that the Pope threw upon the fire. Then, as the flax flared up and was gone in a puff of smoke, the master of ceremonies looked into the Pontiff's eyes and intoned the ancient warning: "Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi" (Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world).

In the course of the Mass, an assisting cardinal placed on the Pope's shoulders the pallium, a white wool band symbolizing his authority as Bishop of Rome, and the sacristan performed the grim ritual of tasting the wine to be used, as reminder of the days when Popes often died by poison. At the conclusion of the Mass a silk purse containing 25 ancient coins was presented to the Pontiff, traditional payment for "a Mass well done."

Outside St. Peter's all Rome seemed to be assembled, kneeling and praying. Finally the new Pope appeared on the balcony and the papal tiara — the jewel-studded triple diadem that symbolizes the sanctifying, ruling and teaching powers of the church — was placed on the large, rugged peasant head of Angelo Roncalli.

He heard the ancient Latin formula: "Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art the father of princes and of kings, Pontiff of the whole world, and vicar on this earth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory, world without end."

Not on Tiptoe. Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was elected as a compromise candidate, at least compared to Pius XII, who was chosen unanimously in less than 24 hours.

Vatican insiders are reconstructing the three voting days of the conclave, with their suspenseful smoke signals, this way: two main groups faced each other, one faction under archconservative Cardinal Ottaviani, the other (including the French cardinals) supporting liberal, reform-minded Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna.

In the middle, fitting neither the "political" nor the "pastoral" label completely (since they had ample experience of both kinds), were Roncalli and Patriarch of the Armenians Agagianian. The fact that Agagianian is non-Italian, and too young (63) in the view of some cardinals who would prefer a shorter reign, finally swung the decision to Roncalli.

But if anyone expected Roncalli to be a mere caretaker Pope, providing a transition to the next reign, he destroyed the notion within minutes after his election — so much so that some Romans fondly recall the story told of Sixtus V (1585-1590), who in conclave seemed decrepit and ailing but, as soon as elected, threw away his cane, rose to his full height and announced in a vigorous voice: "Now I am Caesar."

Angelo Roncalli has no Caesarean ambitions, but he did not tiptoe into his reign; he stomped in boldly like the owner of the place, throwing open windows and moving furniture around.

When the portly Pope (robed in the too-tight papal vestments excited chamberlains had selected for him) appeared in a blaze of searchlights last week on St. Peter's balcony to administer his first Urbi et orbi blessing, he noticed many clerics who had left the sealed-off conclave area to watch the occasion.

Later he jokingly told them: "You have all just incurred excommunication. But I shall use my new authority to relieve you of it." Nevertheless he broke tradition by sending word to the astonished cardinals that instead of leaving the conclave, as is customary after the new Pope's election, he wanted them to remain there overnight.

First Message. Presumably, Pope John joined his cardinals that night — perhaps he addressed them, perhaps asked their views on some of the problems ahead. Instead of spending the next 24 hours in seclusion as had been expected, he was on the air next day with his first message to the world, broadcast by Vatican Radio in 36 languages. Appealing to "leaders of all nations," he asked:

"Why must the resources of human ingenuity and the wrath of nations be turned more and more to the preparation of arms — pernicious instruments of death and destruction — instead of improving the welfare of all classes, particularly the poorer classes? We know, it is true, that to bring about so laudable, so praiseworthy a proposition and to level the differences there are grave and intricate difficulties in the way, but they must be victoriously overcome, even if by force: this is, in fact, the most important undertaking, connected with the prosperity of all mankind."

Precedents Broken. Virtually everyone at the Vatican, of whatever faction, wants an overhauling of the Vatican's administrative machinery, which Pius XII allowed to grow rusty, and Pope John wasted not a second. Among other steps, he:

- Appointed Monsignor Domenico Tardini Pro-Secretary of State. Under Pius XII, who acted as his own Secretary of State, sagacious Diplomat Tardini had been merely Pro-Secretary of State for Extraordinary Affairs: the new appointment carries with it the virtual assurance of promotion to full Secretary of State and a red hat at the next consistory.

- Restored the practice of giving regular weekly audiences to the Curia cardinals, even if they have no pressing business. The custom was discontinued four years ago by Pius XII.

- Restored the tradition, abandoned by the last two Popes, of placing his red cardinal's zucchetto on the head of the secretary of the conclave, Monsignor Alberto di Jorio, thereby making him a cardinal.

- Designated a coronation date five days earlier than had been anticipated. Popes are traditionally crowned on a Sunday, but the Pope selected Tuesday, Nov. 4, instead of the following Sunday, because it is the feast day of St. Charles Borromeo, to whom the Pope is especially devoted.* [He has written a five-volume history of the 16th century saint, who spent years as archbishop of Milan, near Pope John's own town of Sotto il Monte.]

- Received non-Italian cardinals in a daily round of special audiences to take advantage of their presence in Rome. One of the first and most cordially received was the cardinal in the hottest spot of all — Poland's Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, a close friend of the Pope.

- Instructed Count Giuseppe della Torre, editor of the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano, to eliminate honorific phrases about the Pope, e.g., "The Highest Pontiff," "The Illuminated Holy Father," "As we gathered from the august lips." Said John: "It would be much better if you simply said 'The Pope has done this' and 'The Pontiff has said that.' "

- Announced his hope of traveling abroad (the last time a Pope left Italy was 1804, when a reluctant Pius VII went to Paris to crown Napoleon emperor). Last week the auxiliary bishop in Venice quoted the Pope as saying casually: "You know, I hope I'll be able to attend the closing of the centenary celebration of Lourdes, and I also hope to pay a visit to my beloved Venice."

The new Pope was also energetically shouldering his way through a massive cumulus of routine and ritual — reopening the papal study, which had been sealed on Pius XII's death, selecting his living quarters (the same three sparsely furnished rooms occupied by the last three Popes), meeting the household staff, learning his way around his tiny temporal kingdom of 108.7 acres, some 1,000 inhabitants.

Sanctity & Strength. Perhaps one of the Pope's most appealing and characteristic actions last week was his detailed explanation to the cardinals of why he had chosen the name John.

Said he: "I choose John ... a name sweet to us because it is the name of our father, dear to me because it is the name of the humble parish church where I was baptized, the solemn name of numberless cathedrals scattered throughout the world, including our own basilica [St. John Lateran]. Twenty-two Johns of indisputable legitimacy have [been Pope], and almost all had a brief pontificate. We have preferred to hide the smallness of our name behind this magnificent succession of Roman Popes.

"We love the name of John because it reminds us of John the Baptist, precursor of our Lord . . . and the other John, the disciple and evangelist, who said: 'My children, love one another, love one another because this is the grand precept of Christ.' Perhaps we can, taking the name of this first series of holy Popes,* have something of his sanctity and strength of spirit, even — if God wills it — to the spilling of blood."

*[John II (533-535) was the first Pope to take a different name on acceding to the papacy. The reason: his original name was the inappropriately pagan one of Mercury.]

John XXIII was born in a grey stone farmhouse on a November night in 1881. A couple of hours later, his mother rose from her bed and hurried with her husband and her first son to the little parish church of St. John.

The sleepy priest grumbled at the lateness of the hour, but they insisted — "Do you want us to take him all the way home again without baptism?" — and that night Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli became a member of the church he would rule one day.

For 500 years, the Roncallis have been working in the vineyards and wheat fields around the village of Sotto il Monte (Beneath the Mountain), eight miles from the Lombardy town of Bergamo.

Like his brothers and sisters, Angelo grew up to the life of a farmer — "At the age of ten," the 86-year-old church bell ringer remembered last week, "that boy worked in the fields with the sobriety of a grown man."

Angelo carried the same sobriety into his work at school; he was only eleven when he decided to be a priest, and though the expense meant a sacrifice for his parents, Angelo went to study at the seminary in Bergamo, the quiet, medieval "town of 100 churches." He won a scholarship to the Pontifical Seminary in Rome, was ordained at 25, and said his first Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

The Pope's Mirror. "I never aspired to be more than a country priest in my diocese," said Cardinal Roncalli later, but when he returned there it was as secretary to the Bishop of Bergamo, aristocratic Monsignor Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi, to whom he still refers as "my spiritual father."

Roncalli's ten years with the bishop gave him some of the polish that later helped make him a successful diplomat, and some of the intellectual zeal that turned him into a teacher and scholar. In addition to his secretarial duties, he organized Catholic Action groups, taught church history and apologetics at the Bergamo seminary.

Father Roncalli also organized a center for the guidance and protection of young students, and last week crowds thronged its old quarters in Bergamo's Palazzo Asperti to see "the Pope's mirror," beneath which is inscribed in Latin "Know Thyself," to remind students to check up on their appearance before going out.

For, though he wore plain priestly black on all occasions, Roncalli has always been sensitive to appearance. During his summer vacations in Sotto il Monte as a bishop and cardinal, he would receive the priests of the region dressed as they were, and noticed that one of them was habitually unshaven and another's collar was usually askew.

With characteristic diplomacy, Roncalli made no direct comment, but one day he casually produced a razor with the words: "I happen to have this extra razor — would you like it, Reverendo?" And on the other he pressed some collars: "These are getting a bit tight for me, Reverendo, but I think they'll do very well for you."

Father Roncalli was drafted into the Italian army during World War I, and turned up in Sotto il Monte one day in 1916 as a balding, bulky medical corps sergeant sporting a dashing cape and a fiercely bristling military mustache.

"I grew it in a moment of weakness," he confessed later, shaved it off when he became a lieutenant and a chaplain. At war's end he was back teaching at the seminary until Pope Benedict XV summoned him to Rome to help reorganize the administration of missionary work in the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.

Fancy Footwork. In 1925 Pope Pius XI made him an archbishop and gave him his first diplomatic assignment: Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria.

Five years later the Pope promoted this promising envoy to Nuncio, and in 1935 sent him to Turkey and Greece as Apostolic Delegate. For ten years Archbishop Roncalli lived in Istanbul, became a recognized expert on the Middle East and an adept at diplomatic fancy footwork, e.g., in neutral Turkey, during World War II, he managed to keep the respect and good will of both the Allies and the Germans.

One night in Istanbul, near war's end. Nuncio Roncalli received a coded cable from the Vatican, decoded it himself because his secretary was out. and decided at first that he must have made a mistake: he was ordered to proceed immediately to Paris as Nuncio to France.

When the order proved to be correct. Roncalli is said to have stopped off in Rome at the Secretariat of State. "Are you out of your minds?" he asked. "I can't handle a job like that." "It wasn't our idea." they replied. "It was the Holy Father's."

When he arrived in Paris January i, 1945, Nuncio Roncalli found the country in postwar ferment. Gaullists were unforgiving toward Vichyites and at odds with the Catholic-oriented M.R.P. The Communists were riding high.

Yet during his eight years' stay. Nuncio Roncalli became one of the most popular men in Paris. One example of his talent for smoothing out differences: only three Vichy archbishops lost their jobs, despite the Gaullists' bitter feelings about them as collaborationists.

In addition to respecting his ability, the French also liked his cuisine. Roncalli is known as what the Italians call "a powerful fork" (his filling favorites: raviolini, polenta with small birds, hare in salmi, chamois in salmi, deviled chicken, tripe Bergamasque).

Gondola Greeting. In 1953 came news that the Pope had made Archbishop Roncalli a cardinal. The heads of Catholic states have the privilege of awarding the red biretta to nuncios created cardinals while abroad, and Cardinal Roncalli received his biretta from his friend Socialist French President Vincent Auriol. thus underlining the good relations between church and state. Three days later the Pope appointed Roncalli Patriarch of Venice.

Venice welcomed its 44th patriarch and 139th bishop with a gala flotilla of gondolas, and Cardinal Roncalli welcomed Venice with something that sounded like a sigh of relief. In his first sermon from the pulpit of St. Mark's he said: "Do not look upon your patriarch as a politician, as a diplomat, but find in him a priest."

The Venetian clergy, smarting from the autocratic patriarchate of the late Cardinal-designate Agostini, called Roncalli "calm after the storm."

Venice was soon used to seeing his square, black figure almost everywhere, riding in the motor-launch buses and stopping for a chat in the cafes. His door was always open, and his secretaries disapproved of the amount of time he gave to visitors ("Let them come in," he would say. "They may want to confess").

At the Venice music festivals in 1953 and 1956, he filled St. Mark's with music such as the great cathedral had not heard since the 16th and 17th centuries, including the world première of Stravinsky's moving Sacred Canticle to Honor the Name of St. Mark.

Crocodiles & Tourists. Though an ardent supporter of Catholic Action and the Demo-Christian Party, Cardinal Roncalli won the admiration of many a Venetian leftist for his progressive outlook. He shocked conservatives by proposing that some marble panels be removed from the interior of St. Mark's to give worshipers a better view, but he was dead against a proposal to set up gambling facilities in St. Mark's Square.

Once he aimed a shaft of wit at the scantily clad tourists who swarm the city in the summertime: "People need not come to Italy in furs or woollens. They can come dressed in that modern American silk, fresh and soft, which is a veritable refrigerator at low cost. Italy, on the other hand, is not on the equator, and even there, by the way, lions wear their coats, and crocodiles are lined with their most precious hides."

Roncalli was often compared to St. Pius X (1903-1914), who like him came from a peasant family and like him was Patriarch of Venice. When Roncalli's friend Auriol visited him in Venice, the cardinal showed his guest the small, modest room where Pius had lived before his election.

"Maybe it is from here also that the successor to Pius X will come," said Auriol. Last week he recalled: "The cardinal smiled but did not answer."

Formidable Legacy. All over Venice, decked in flags to celebrate the second of its patriarchs to be elected Pontiff in 55 years, the word went round last week: "He will be a great Pope!"

In Sotto il Monte the three remaining Roncalli brothers. Zaverio, 75, Alfredo, 69, and Giuseppe, 64, were having supper after a hard day's work when the big news came over their old radio. The rice soup grew cold while they listened; then as excited neighbors poured from their houses, the brothers hurried upstairs to dress up for the occasion.

And in Sesto San Giovanni, a little town near Milan, Angelo Roncalli's sister Assunta was out buying bread when the news reached her. "My God, little Angelo!" she gasped.

"What's the matter?" asked the baker, and Assunta explained: "My brother's just been elected Pope. He will have to work so hard."

Everyone was aware of the burdens a septuagenarian was shouldering. The Pope's doctor, Paolo Venchierutti, has announced that the somewhat overweight Pontiff (205 Ibs.) "has a robust stamina unweakened by the years."

He generally sleeps no more than six hours a night — retiring at 10 and rising at 4. But however strong his body and short his sleep, the problems that confront his reign are a formidable legacy.

NEW CARDINALS. Most pressing matter before the new Pope is the need for more cardinals to shoulder the work of the church. Of the 53 present members of the college, twelve are more than 80, and only six are less than 60. England is without a red hat, and the U.S., which once had five, now has only two. Africa, The Philippines and Mexico would each like a cardinal.

So complex and widespread have the church's affairs become that many Vatican officials feel that the Pope should expand the college beyond the present limit of 70 (the Pope can raise the limit to any figure he sees fit).

Whether he chooses to fill up the college in one or two big consistories, or does it piecemeal in a series of small ones, Vaticaners feel that the new Pope, a clean-desk administration man without the procrastinating tendencies of his predecessor, will make this his first order of business.

THE CHURCH OF SILENCE. The church is responsible for 52,552,000 Catholics behind the Iron Curtain. Should it encourage religion there — and so increase the risk of persecution and torture —or should it do nothing and let the Communists try slowly to freeze Christianity? Or is there a possibility of compromise? Several third-hand feelers from the Soviet side were extended during the reign of Pius XII, and ignored.

SCHISM IN CHINA. Pope Pius XII was fearful of forcing the Catholics in China into deeper schism by excommunicating the Chinese bishops who are making valid but unauthorized consecrations, hence went no farther than deploring their action in one of his last encyclicals. Insiders are waiting to see whether. Pope John will take a tougher line.

LATIN AMERICA. With one-third of the world's Catholics (172,271,000), Latin America has the smallest number of priests per capita in the world — one to every 4,810 Catholics. In addition to the relatively low educational level of the churchmen there (even including bishops), the Catholic Church is threatened in Latin America by a major development of Protestant missions. Protestant missionaries in Latin America have increased since 1916 from 1,689 to 6,303, and the number of Protestants has gone up from 169,880 to 4,614,000.

Formidable as may be the new Pope's problems, they shrink somewhat when measured against past challenges to the papacy — an institution that spans Christian history from persecution under Nero to persecution under Khrushchev, has dealt with inimical philosophies from stoicism to existentialism, has survived dangers from its own corruption during the Renaissance to physical attack during the Italian Risorgimento.

Whatever threats Christianity will face under Pope John's reign will not necessarily be greater than the invasion of the Lombards from whom Gregory the Great (590-604) saved Rome. Whatever tests await Pope John's diplomacy will recall that behind him lies the record of Hildebrand (Gregory VII, 1073-1085), who kept Henry IV of Germany waiting barefoot in the snow for three days and established the spiritual authority of the church over the temporal power of monarchs.

And no schismatic efforts of the Chinese Communists to divide Chinese Catholics from the Church in Rome could result in a more apparently hopeless tangle than the Schism of 1378, which reached a climax with three competing Popes* three Colleges of Cardinals, three sets of bishops, priests and tax collectors.

*[In 1378 the College of Cardinals elected Urban VI Pope, but a large number repudiated him five months later and elected Clement VII. Nations took sides, positions became entrenched, no one knew who was rightful Pope. To break the deadlock, cardinals from both camps convened on their own (hence invalidly) in 1409, "deposed" both Popes and elected a third, who died within a year, was succeeded by Balthazar Cardinal Cossa, who called himself John XXIII. Neither "deposed" Pope recognized the new one. Four years later, the Council of Constance met, made itself valid by having Urban's successor, Gregory XII, convene it and immediately abdicate. Thereupon the council deposed the other two Popes and started things off on the right foot again with Martin V (1417-31).]

To judge from his record so far, Pope John XXIII will face the dangers and confusions of his era with the patience expressed by his favorite maxim of government, and probably with more force than it suggests.

The maxim: Omnia videre, multa dissimulare, pauca corrigere — to see everything, to turn a blind eye on much of it, to correct a little.