St John XXIII's feast day is not the day of his death, but October 11, the day he opened Vatican II. Read more

Italian Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who served St John XXIII before and after he became pope, died in Bergamo, near Milan.

Cardinal Capovilla was born in Pontelongo, Italy, in 1915, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1940.

A journalist before starting to work for the future saint, he was an energetic and eloquent storyteller, drawing on his remarkable and vividly detailed memory.

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In an interview with Macleans.ca, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills said Francis hasn't asserted his power and to do so would be a "weakening" thing for him.

"Instead, he's yielding power constantly," Mr Wills said.

"He's trying to share power, which is really a way to keep it and a way to make change happen."

The historian cited the case of last year's extraordinary synod on the family, which, he said, Francis handled brilliantly.

"The marriage and family synod last fall seemed like a setback to a lot of people, but I think he handled it very well.

"Other synods didn't publish their results, their procedures or anything, and popes could just totally ignore what they said.

"Francis undercut the whole thing by saying, ‘Publish'."

Mr Wills said this sort of openness is reason for hope.

"That's not letting the Curia play its game of secrecy and backhanded action," he said.

"Secrecy was always a terrible aspect of the Church."

Mr Wills sees hope for the Church because he sees this Pope favouring change coming from the "bottom up", from the people.

"He's very similar to John XXIII, who called together the bishops at Vatican II, but issued no marching orders," Mr Wills said.

"He intervened only to prevent some bishops from being frozen out."

Mr Wills, who is Catholic himself, has just written a book called "The future of the Church under Pope Francis".

The book is aimed at Catholics who hold that the Church is immutable.

"It helps, in holding such a position," Mr Wills wrote, "not to know much history."

He cites a former Church ban on usury and attacks on democratic government, which were never formally renounced.

But the Church simply stopped talking about them after it saw the People of God had moved on.

Mr Wills sees the same process underway for contraception and confession.

Other recent books of his include "Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit" and "Why Priests? A Failed Tradition".

Sources

• MacLeans.ca
• Crisis Magazine
• Image: Crisis Magazine

During the Second World War, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli's efforts are believed to have helped save thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps

Archbishop Roncalli was elected Pope in 1958 and took the name John XXIII.

His pontificate lasted five years until his death in 1963.

While serving in Istanbul during the war, he distributed documents and papers to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis and seeking to make their way to Palestine.

Archbishop Roncalli sent thousands of such documents to the Vatican's ambassador in Budapest, Angelo Ratti, who was working with diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and others to save Jews from the Holocaust.

Archbishop Roncalli made available thousands of Baptism certificates without conditions.

He made it clear that this action to save Jews did not make a single Jew a Catholic.

On May 13, Knesset members also praised St John XXIII for laying the groundwork for Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, which was instrumental in improving Jewish and Catholic relationships.

The declaration repudiated former claims against the Jewish people, principally that they were guilty of Jesus' death.

"John XXIII should serve as an example for all men of the need to bring together peoples of different races, faiths and beliefs," former immigration and absorption minister Yair Tzeven said.

Israel's opposition leader Isaac Herzog spoke of the encounters between his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Hertzog, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, and Archbishop Roncalli.

"When the news from Europe first reached my grandfather, he did everything to save Jews," Mr Herzog said.

"As part of these efforts, he met many times with Roncalli and stated that at these meetings the archbishop wept.

"John XXIII made tremendous efforts to save Jews, and because of him thousands of Jews were indeed saved."

"He helped the Jewish people in every way through a deep feeling of responsibility," Mr Herzog continued.

"He was not afraid of taking responsibility, unlike the pope at the time of the Holocaust."

On April 27, Pope Francis declared Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II to be saints.

Sources

• Jerusalem Post
• Catholic News Agency
• Inside the Vatican
• Image: Eye of the Tiber

These two popes' personal narratives are inseparable from the Holocaust, and their reactions to the systematic genocide of the Jews played a critical role in the revolution in Catholic-Jewish relations during the last half century.

The annihilation of 6 million Jews — one-third of world Jewry — and Eastern Europe's towering Jewish civilization was an unparalleled tragedy enabled by nearly 2,000 years of Christian demonization of Jews and Judaism.

Too often, too many stood by as Jews were slaughtered like animals during World War II.

Like many Jews of my generation, it is both a national and personal horror.

My father's aunt and first cousins were murdered by the Nazis in the forest outside Bialystok, their hometown in Poland.

But if telling the Holocaust story ends there, it has not been fully told.

We also have a responsibility to tell the story of the many who risked their lives to save Jews.

Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial and museum, has identified more than 25,000 non-Jews who are called "Righteous Among the Nations."

Additionally, we should recognize the collective self-reflection of the churches in admitting Christian complicity and demonstrating a commitment to creating a world where the lessons of the Holocaust have been learned. Continue reading.

Rabbi Noam E. Marans is director of interreligious and intergroup relations for the American Jewish Committee.

Source: National Catholic Reporter

Image: Your Observer

I spoke with a small fraction of the massive crowd that filled the streets near the Vatican, but every one of them agreed: Two popes, two saints, two more reasons to be happy.

Much of the commentariat - and I include myself in that class — has found issues to explore in this double canonization: the fast-tracking of John Paul II, the waiving of the second miracle for John XXIII, the politics of saintmaking and the ongoing tensions over the Second Vatican Council.

I've maintained that the double canonisation is a unifying move by Pope Francis, an attempt to build a bridge between constituencies in the church who identify with the "liberal" John XXIII or the more "conservative" John Paul II.

I still believe that's true. But among those in today's crowd, and probably throughout the global Catholic population, that kind of analysis was not all that relevant.

"The were both good people, holy men. John XXIII was a man of vision. John Paul II was a man of action. But they had the same intention - to bring the church closer to the people," said Rosemary Fabregas, a Catholic from San Francisco who sat in front of a Jumbrotron screen outside St Peter's Square.

An Italian pilgrim, asked about the saints' differences, put it this way:

"Differences? I don't know. The important thing is that they were both very spiritual and they both loved the poor." Continue reading.

John Thavis is a journalist, author and speaker specialising in Vatican and religious affairs.

Source: John Thavis

Image: Salt&Light/YouTube

Mora will be on hand at Sunday's historic ceremony in St Peter's Square as Pope Francis canonizes both John Paul and Pope John XXIII, the Italian pontiff known as "Good Pope John."

The Costa Rican mother of four faced the world's media to explain how her inexplicable recovery was a miracle that had led to the popular Polish pope being declared a saint.

Two miracles have been attributed to John Paul's intercession with God, paving the way for his sainthood.

In 2011, Mora was suffering from persistent headaches and was told by doctors that her days were numbered. They said her aneurism was in a "delicate" area and her only option was treatment in Mexico or Cuba, but her family could not afford it.

"The doctors told me there was no sense to continue treatment because they had done everything and there was not much more we could do," Mora told a packed media conference.

"They said I only had one month to live and there was no hope."

Confined to bed, she lay holding a magazine with a cover photograph of the Polish pope in her home in Tres Rios de Cartago, 12 miles from the capital of San Jose.

Her husband, Edwin, urged her to pray. Continue reading.

Source: RNS

Image: La Nación

The Pope said this during his homily at a canonisation Mass at St Peter's Square on April 27 before an estimated 500,000 people.

A few minutes earlier, he had formally declared both popes to be saints of the Catholic Church.

"John XXIII and John Paul cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the Church in keeping with her original features, those features which the saints have given her throughout the centuries," Pope Francis said.

He called them men of courage and mercy.

Pope Francis said he liked to think of St John as "the pope of openness to the Spirit".

And the current Pontiff characterised St John Paul II as the "pope of the family".

Pope Francis said he was sure St John Paul was guiding the Church on its path to two upcoming synods of bishops on the family, to be held at the Vatican this October and in October, 2015.

Mercy was a major theme in Pope Francis's homily, which was delivered on Divine Mercy Sunday.

He has often pointed to the need for mercy in Church teaching on marriage and the family.

Among the concelebrants as the canonisation Mass were Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, 150 cardinals and 700 bishops.

Commentators have said that in canonising both popes together, Pope Francis is urging Catholics to look beyond liberal and conservative divisions to join together in following the Gospel.

Jesuit commentator Fr Thomas Reese wrote that making a former pope a saint is a way of strengthening his legacy.

This makes it more difficult for future popes to change policies the saint put in place.

"By canonising them together, Pope Francis is saying that all Catholics should be able to come together to celebrate the lives of these holy men," Fr Reese wrote.

Since these two are so different, it does not canonise so-called liberal or conservative models of being pope, the Jesuit wrote.

"So it leaves Pope Francis free to follow his own path."

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Catholic Herald
• Reuters
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Vatican.va