Religious books
Spirit of the age
Thomas Corbishley S3
Pope John XXIII Paul Johnson (Hutchinson £3.50) One of the titles applied to the Pope is that of Summus Pontifex, Sovereign Pontiff. It is not without significance that the commonest English derivative is the verb to "pontificate" — to pronounce authoritatively, usually with a sense of pompous self-satisfaction. Yet the root, meaning of the Latin is bridge-builder, one who spans divisions. But again, all too often, the only bridges built by Roman Pontiffs in modern times have been drawbridges, either raised to withstand a siege or lowered to enable sorties to be made into "hostile" territory. It was the great achievement of Angelo Roncalli who, as John XXIII occupied the Vatican for less than five years that he was a genuine builder of bridges, across which he might go himself or, in turn, welcome those from outside.
Not the least fascinating aspect of the story of this great and good man, recounted by Paul Johnson in a fascinating book, is the way in which, during the years when he was, in effect, kept away from the centre of things by the careerists in the Curia, they were giving him the opportunity to develop into the sort of man who was later to outflank them. Much more than that, of course. He was to initiate a revolutionary movement throughout the Church as a whole. Whilst he was the Pope's representative in Bulgaria, Istanbul, Greece
and other remote regions he came to see that the world outside the jurisdiction of the Roman Church had a value and an importance in its own right, whatever Rome-might think of it. He was later to base much of his policy on a simple belief in the dignity of the human person. In the Sofia of Boris and the Istanbul of Ataturk he had made friends with and learnt to appreciate the qualities of men of different religious affiliations or none.
It had all looked so improbable. Born of a farming family on the edge of the Lombard plain, educated in seminaries at a time when ecclesiastical teaching was uninspired and unadventurous, reared on a spiritual diet that was wooden and impersonal, he seemed destined to become a worthy priest — perhaps the bishop of some minor diocese which he would administer with prudence, dedication and unimaginative zeal. To a great extent it was that very traditional training, not least in its ascetic aspects, which made him the selfless, disciplined, single-minded person who was to capture the imagination of a whole generatiOn. He remained uncorrupted by the temptation to hanker after preferment in the Church to a degree which marked him out from so many of his contemporaries, and enabled him to profit from the trials of obscurity and subtle persecution.
Why, in the end, was Roncalli, in his seventy-seventh year, elected Pope? Any answer to that question must be a matter of speculation. Paul Johnson suggests that many of the Cardinals from outside Italy wanted. someone from outside the Curia, forwardlooking, with experience of the larger world, to occupy the chair of Peter. The Italians knew and liked Roncalli. The curialists hoped for someone who would work along with them, unlike Pius XII in his later years. The wind of change was beginning to blow through the Church. The intellectual stagnation which had set in after the witch-hunt that was such a
disgraceful feature of the Modernist "crisis" was ending. There was a growing recognition of the need for a more genuinely ecumenical attitude. Above all, the siege-mentality of the post-Reldrmation period was beginning to evaporate. Whatever the motivation, Cardinal Roncalli appears to have taken an early lead in the balloting at the 1958 conclave and he was duly elected at the end of October. He chose the name John primarily because it was the name of his father.
Almost at once he began, in his own words, to blow off the dust from the throne of Constantine which has been lying too long on the throne of Peter." He created something of a sensation and certainly shook the Curia by his decision to hold a General Council, an inspiration which had come to him very soon after his elevation. Experience had taught him that the Church needed a greater measure of decentralisation. This he achieved not by directly challenging the power of the central bureaucracy — it was left to his successor to make structural and administrative changes there — but by strengthening the power and increasing the prestige of the world-wide episcopate. For a time the curial freemasonry, seeing a threat to its predominance, hoped to delay the start of the Council. When that move failed, they attempted to control it by flagrant .manipula/ion of the conciliar procedures. They were not only out generalled by the bishops; they were further discredited in the eyes of the Pope himself. The 'very resistance of the Curia strengthened the determination of the bishops, so that, in the end, the Second Vatican Council • turned out to be more forward-looking than it might have been. Although John did not live to see the end — he died between the first and second of its four sessions — its success was already assured.
There are, of course, those in the Roman Catholic Church who regard the Council as a disaster and the election of John as almost wholly regrettable. Their attitude is based almost entirely on a dislike and fear of change. But, in the words of Augustine; Securus judicat orbis terrarum. World opinion has recognised in John a truly charismatic figure, whose death was lamented by many for whom the Church was, and remains, an anachronism. It was part of John's aim to make it less so. If it is to become and to be seen as modern as well as ancient this will depend on the degree to which the decrees of the Council are sincerely accepted and genuinely implemented.
Paul Johnson's study will certainly raise hackles in some Roman Catholic circles. There is no false reverence about his judgements on the most exalted personages in the Church, which Makes his obvious admiration for John all the more impressive. Apart from rather too many howlers in his bits of Latin and the entertaining Spoonerism of Gesta Sediatoria for Sedia Gestatoria, it is difficult to fault the book. It is a frank, perceptive, knowledgeable and well rounded treatment not merely of a man but of an age.
The man who emerges from these pages is a shrewd, modest, down-to-earth, humorous but above all humane personality. In some ways he was unremarkable. It was perhaps the contrast between the exalted position he occupied and the ordinariness of his bearing which made him so outstanding. Here was no hieratic figure, removed from reality by the Byzantine aloofness of papal tradition — an aloofness to be studiedly interrupted by stylised appearances. There was nothing stylised about his visit to the Regina Coeli prison, soon after his election. "You can't come to me" he said to the convicts -so I have come to you." And when a murderer serving a life-sentence asked if he would find forgiveness, John simply put his arms round him and kissed him on both cheeks. The book ends with a remarkably apt quotation from Francis Bacon: "Certainly, it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth."
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