John XXIII, The Long Journey of a Peacemaker
John XXIII, The Long Journey of a Peacemaker. From the fields of Bergamo to a world on the brink of nuclear war
Before Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli became Pope John XXIII, he spent decades learning how to enter unfamiliar places, listen across religious boundaries, and keep conversations alive when distrust threatened to close them.
His journey suggests that peacemaking begins long before a crisis. It grows through the patient work of becoming someone others can trust.
The affectionate name “Good Pope John” captures his warmth. Yet behind that warmth stood an experienced diplomat, a careful observer of history, and a man whose gentleness could carry considerable courage.
The first landscape: a farming family and a life of prayer
Angelo Roncalli was born in 1881 at Sotto il Monte, near Bergamo, into a large family of sharecroppers. Family life, parish worship, and the example of older relatives formed his earliest understanding of faith. As a seminarian, he began keeping spiritual notes, a practice he continued throughout his life; these later became known as Journal of a Soul. He was ordained in 1904. vatican.va
There is something revealing about that combination: a life increasingly occupied with public responsibilities, accompanied by a private examination of the heart.
We cannot build peace solely through an agreeable manner. We also need to notice our impatience, vanity, fear, and desire to prevail.
Roncalli’s spiritual journey invites us to consider how much of our public conduct begins in these quiet, largely unseen habits.
Learning what war does to people
During the First World War, Roncalli served in the Italian medical corps and as a chaplain to wounded soldiers. His encounter with war included the injured body, the frightened young man, and the suffering that remained after political speeches had ended. vatican.va
We can read his later appeals for peace against this background. When leaders speak of military necessity, someone must also remember the hospital bed.
His early service beside Bishop Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi had already brought him close to social questions and the difficulties of working people. These experiences helped form a pastoral outlook attentive to the conditions in which people actually lived. vatican.va
Bulgaria: an apprenticeship in patient friendship
In 1925, Roncalli was sent to Bulgaria as an apostolic visitator and consecrated bishop. He chose the episcopal motto Oboedientia et Pax—“Obedience and Peace.”
Among a small Catholic population in a predominantly Orthodox country, he cultivated relationships with other Christian communities and offered assistance after the devastating earthquake of 1928. vatican.va
This was a setting in which Catholic authority could not simply assume that everyone would listen. Friendship required presence, respect, and practical concern.
A spiritual interpretation of these years is that Roncalli learned to meet people without making religious difference the whole meaning of the encounter.
Someone could belong to another Church and still become a neighbour, a friend, a partner in relieving suffering.
That lesson would eventually matter far beyond Bulgaria.
Istanbul: diplomacy becomes a means of rescue
During the following decade, his mission took him to Turkey and Greece. His work brought him into contact with Orthodox Christians, Muslims, diplomats, and refugees.
During the Second World War, he used diplomatic and ecclesiastical channels to assist Jews threatened by Nazi persecution. Surviving correspondence records interventions concerning refugees, immigration documents, and appeals through other papal representatives. His contacts included Haim Barlas of the Jewish Agency. These records show concrete efforts to help people escape, although precise totals of those saved should be treated cautiously. raoulwallenberg.net
Here, diplomacy takes on a very practical meaning. A letter might open a route. A document might permit a journey. A trusted contact might act while there was still time.
His example asks a demanding question of anyone holding influence: whose safety becomes possible because I am willing to use the access I have?
France: peace after the fighting
Appointed papal nuncio to France in 1944, Roncalli entered a country emerging from occupation, collaboration, resistance, and profound political division.
His responsibilities included negotiations concerning bishops accused of collaboration with the Vichy regime, relations with the French state, and assistance to prisoners of war. He also helped German prisoners preparing for priesthood continue their theological studies. pas.va
Postwar reconciliation was morally difficult. Accountability mattered, and so did the possibility of rebuilding a shared life.
Roncalli’s work illustrates the less dramatic side of peacemaking: arranging meetings, finding workable agreements, preventing disagreements from becoming permanent estrangement.
A ceasefire can happen on a particular day. Learning to live together again takes much longer.
An elderly pope opens a new journey
After serving as Patriarch of Venice, Roncalli was elected pope on 28 October 1958, approaching his seventy-seventh birthday. Within months, he announced his intention to summon an ecumenical council. vatican.va
The Second Vatican Council opened on 11 October 1962. In his opening address, John XXIII advocated a pastoral approach marked by the “medicine of mercy,” while preserving the substance of the Church’s teaching. Vatican News
His diplomatic experience helps us appreciate this choice. He had spent years discovering what becomes possible when people are approached with respect rather than habitual suspicion.
The Council was an act of trust that the Church could engage the modern world, examine its manner of speaking, and pursue Christian unity without abandoning its faith.
October 1962: a voice at the edge of catastrophe
Only days after the Council opened, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union dangerously close to nuclear war.
On 25 October, John XXIII broadcast an appeal through Vatican Radio. Speaking in French, he urged those responsible for the fate of nations to hear humanity’s anguished desire for peace and to prevent a war with horrifying consequences. His appeal addressed the confrontation involving President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. archivioradiovaticana.va
His intervention offered moral support for stepping back from confrontation. It would be an exaggeration to say that he single-handedly prevented nuclear war: the resolution depended on negotiations, decisions in Washington and Moscow, and several channels of communication.
Yet his contribution deserves attention. He spoke in a way that both sides could hear. He appealed to their responsibility for human lives and gave public dignity to the choice of restraint.
The spiritual insight is searching: peace sometimes requires helping an adversary find a way to change course without humiliation.
That does not remove responsibility for wrongdoing. It recognises that a workable path away from disaster must remain open.
Pacem in Terris: giving peace a foundation
On 11 April 1963, John XXIII issued Pacem in Terris—Peace on Earth. Addressed beyond the Catholic community to all people of goodwill, it grounded peace in truth, justice, charity, and freedom.
Its vision was concrete. Human beings possess rights and duties; public authority must serve the common good; relations between nations must respect human dignity. It called for disarmament and argued that lasting security requires mutual trust rather than dependence on an arms race. vatican.va
These principles give substance to the word peace. Truth requires honesty about suffering and responsibility. Justice requires attention to whose rights are denied. Charity recognises a shared humanity. Freedom protects people from coercion.
Read together, they challenge any settlement that merely silences the vulnerable.
His place in the Church’s history
John XXIII died on 3 June 1963, leaving a pontificate of less than five years and a Council still unfinished. vatican.va
Paul VI continued Vatican II, which concluded in 1965. Its major documents were the work of the assembled bishops and many collaborators; they should not all be attributed personally to the pope who called it. John’s distinctive contribution was to initiate the Council and give it a generous pastoral direction. newyorker.com
His place in Church history rests partly in that willingness to begin something he would not live to complete.
His diplomacy also helped make dialogue an increasingly visible expression of papal service: engagement across Christian divisions, practical concern for endangered people, and appeals to a common humanity across political boundaries.
What his journey asks of us
The journey from Sotto il Monte to Rome passes through military hospitals, Orthodox communities, refugee appeals, diplomatic offices, and a world frightened by nuclear weapons.
Across those settings, a recognisable discipline emerges: listen carefully, preserve contact, act concretely, and refuse to let hostility become the only imaginable future.
We may never negotiate between nations. We still encounter moments when a word can deepen a division or leave room for repair.
John XXIII’s life invites us to prepare for those moments through prayer, honesty, and patient attention to others.
God of peace,
give us the patience to listen and the courage to act.
Keep us attentive to those whose lives depend on decisions made far away.
Help us speak truth without contempt, seek justice without hatred,
and leave open a path toward reconciliation.
Bless all who labour quietly for peace.
Amen.
References
For further reading on John XXIII’s life, diplomacy, and work for peace:
- Vatican biography of John XXIII — An overview of his journey through Bulgaria, Turkey, France, Venice, and the papacy.
- Pacem in Terris — Peace on Earth (1963) — His central teaching on peace, human rights, disarmament, and relations between nations.
- Vatican Radio: John XXIII and the Cuban Missile Crisis — An account of his appeal of 25 October 1962, with historical commentary and audio.
- International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation: Documentary Sources — References to correspondence documenting Roncalli’s interventions for persecuted Jews and refugees.
- Peter Hoffmann, “Roncalli in the Second World War” — A scholarly study of his peace initiatives, humanitarian efforts, and response to Jewish persecution, published in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (1989). Full access may require a subscription.
From village paths to diplomatic bridges and a voice for peace—John XXIII’s journey of faith, courage, and patient friendship.
