Pope John XXIII and a Christian's Unfinished Business

By Don Clemmer

When Pope Francis approved the canonization of Pope John XXIII, one reason given was that he is already universally proclaimed a saint around the world. Canonization is one way the Church says "this is a Christian life well lived and worth imitating." John XXIII offered much in that department: joy, humility, simplicity, patience, creativity and confidence, among other virtues.

The life of Angelo Roncalli also bears another hallmark of life: unfinished business. For much of his ministry, Father, then Archbishop, then Cardinal, then Pope Roncalli repeated several steps:

• Step 1: He would receive a difficult new assignment, often in a place very far away.
• Step 2: He won people over with the holiness of his witness, hard work, and personal charm.
• Step 3: Just as things are starting to hum along nicely, he'd get another new assignment.

Examples abound:

• As a young priest in the Diocese of Bergamo, Father Roncalli was happily enmeshed in the life of his diocese when the letter came in 1920 that Pope Benedict XV was calling him to Rome to be the director of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith in Italy. This was a surprising assignment that called the young priest away from his home diocese and brought him, for the first time, into the Vatican's orbit.
• Five years later, Roncalli's life abruptly changed again when he appointed the first apostolic delegate to Bulgaria. While this meant he would be consecrated a bishop (which he was on March 19, 1925), it also meant he would leave a comfortable life in Rome for a strange new land fraught with political conflict and a divided Christian community of Bulgarian Orthodox, Byzantine and Roman Catholics, with the Catholics comprising a scattered minority. Archbishop Roncalli set to work, preaching love for one another and reaching out not only to the local Catholics but to the Orthodox as well. When Roncalli was appointed apostolic delegate to Turkey and Greece in 1934, he left a far more harmonious scene in his wake, with both Catholic and Orthodox sorry to see him go.
• When Roncalli got to Turkey in 1935, he faced another unfamiliar country, a government hostile to the Church, an Orthodox Church hostile to Catholics and a Catholic community fractured into numerous rites hostile to one another. In 1938 he was able to arrange a visit to Ecumenical Patriarch Benjamin I in Istanbul, which was a historic breakthrough for the times. In Greece, he faced another scattered, impoverished Catholic community. During these years, he also worked to save many Jewish refugees from the Nazis. Again it came as a surprise to him when he was abruptly named nuncio to France in 1944.
• In France, Roncalli faced the extremely situation of navigating a divided episcopacy, some of whom had resisted under Nazi occupation and some of whom had cooperated. Once again, it was his good humor, superb diplomacy and authentic loving concern for all people that empowered him to navigate perilous waters.

The only "cushy" assignment he ever got was what he assumed would be his retirement as Cardinal Patriarch of Venice. Of course God had other plans.

Elected pope on October 28, 1958, Roncalli was once more handed an impossible task: renewing the entire Church and readying it to face the challenges of the modern world. True to form, he immediately set about initiating change that no one would have thought possible in such a short time, announcing an ecumenical council only months after becoming pope and planting seeds of reform on issues including the liturgy, ecumenical and interfaith matters, and the role of the laity.

Also true to form, he was once more called away just as the work began to bear fruit, dying in June of 1963.

"In this life, all symphonies remain unfinished," said the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, who played an influential role at the Council. Pope John's life reflects this mystery, that Christians are called to serve God in their daily lives, but more often thatn not, what we start will inevitably end up someone else's concern. John XXIII had the holy serenity to see that the big, final picture was in God's hands alone.

CNS Photo/Catholic Press Photo

Many biographical details for this post were gathered from "A Man Named John," by Alden Hatch, Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1963.

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Don Clemmer is the USCCB's Assistant Director of Media Relations

Church Social Media Rule: Let’s Talk

The social media phenomenon offers both challenge and opportunity for the church. Social media reaches people – millions are on Facebook and Twitter every day. The church cannot ignore them. They are interactive, however, and don’t work when conversations are one-way. They involve dialogue, something not always welcome by clergy, teachers and other leaders.

“Because I said so” doesn’t cut it in social media, a fact regretted by parents and leaders who for ages have resorted to the phrase when exasperated with the petulant “But …” and plaintive “Why?”

For oldsters, such dialogue takes getting used to. A few years ago I took a course in church social teaching. It was to be an intellectual treat – until I got into the classroom with students who sought to debate the prof. The lecturer loved the interactivity, but I groaned inwardly at each sidestep. A former teacher, I appreciated the back-and-forth that helps minds expand, but I wanted the teaching clear-cut and wanted to soak up all the renowned prof had to offer. It may have been my inner dinosaur peeking out.

The church has a solid history of such top-down didacticism. It has libraries of tomes that explore theological truths. But that is only one part of the church.

Another side of the church – the pastoral side – is open to dialogue. It has validated such conversations as far back as the Gospels (see woman conversing with Jesus at the well). On the one-on-one level, the dialogue that ensues after a “Can we talk?” encounter has been an integral part of the church for years, a comfort to worried parents, frustrated spouses, abused workers and confused children.

Perhaps social media can help the church engage more in such dialogue. It is not easy. It takes energy, especially emotional energy. Talk – or dialogue – is work.

Many business leaders boast they have a web presence, but don’t take questions and avoid interactivity, though they might send an auto-reply: “Thanks for your message.” Better they post comments on a billboard, with the honest implication that they don’t want feedback. To be genuine on social media you have to answer questions. You have to discuss. You have to accept and even embrace being challenged.

At the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we have Facebook and Twitter accounts. They offer opportunities to share, but also give rise to points of contention inherent in all dialogues. Some people agree with you, some don’t. Some want to fight. All of them, however, belong to our virtual community and so deserve respect. Some people who post ask the community to share in their sorrow, perhaps over the death of a spouse. Others muse on the feast or Scripture reading of the day, giving others a new twist on a moment in the church. Some are ready for a fight and evoke the urge to push “delete.” We try not to do that since the whole point of the virtual community is dialogue. If a virtual scrimmage breaks out, we hope all, including virtual bystanders, come away more enlightened. It is a risk worth taking. Virtual conversations grow in importance as church attendance decreases and fewer have relationships with a parish to which to tether themselves in life’s storms.

The Internet, of course, cannot replace the community at Mass, where you know strangers by the pew they choose and as their children grow. There’s nurturing warmth even in the nodding acquaintance with those with whom you pray every week.

Social media has a place in the 21^st century church, though some oldsters may have to be drawn into it, collars, veils, rosaries and lapel crosses askew. Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be worthy instruments of the Gospel to nurture our faith life, though some are just warming up.