Pope John XXIII
Iwas a great day for the Church of Rome 'when Angelo Roncalli, a peasant, soldier, army chaplain and ecclesiastical diplomat in the Balkans, became its Pope. Those who watched the ceremony of his consecration at St. Peter's were astounded at his infor- mality and friendliness; not at all abashed by the pomp, or all the TV cameras, he con- tinued to greet his friends and pat them on the back, .make jokes and generally behave as if that, for him, was a day like any other. He was a tertium quid Pope, two other favourites proving unacceptable to impor- tant factions who chose this pious nonen- tity, as was at the time widely thought, for fear,of letting in their opponents' candidate. The more conservative wing at the Vatican must subsequently have bitterly resented it. For Pope John behaved at all times like a man who has a mission from God; he was never distracted by protocol; though a con- siderable ecclesiastical diplomat himself, he was always ready to put the first last as well as the last first. One day he gave a long audience to a very old Anglican priest, and he wanted to give this old man a present— a breviary. But instead of giving him a new one, he gave him his own, old and marked and with intercession lists in it—because this gift would be a more costly and there- fore a more real one. He may or may not have been a great Pope; he was certainly a holy man.
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