Pope John XXIII Quotes

“appointed the first Vatican representative to the Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in New Delhi in 1961. This new association with the World Council of Churches constituted the Vatican’s first positive recognition of Protestant Christianity and the need to work together cooperatively with non-Catholic Christians.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

“Setting the tone for the popes who would follow him, he ignored many of the monarchic trappings of the papacy. He rarely wore the tiara and preferred practical shoes to the more usual silk slippers. Vatican officials were no longer required to approach the pope by bowing three times and addressing him on their knees. Nor did they need to leave the room backwards. Pope John roamed the Vatican exploring and making friends with everyone from gardeners to bureaucrats. He used mealtimes as social opportunities to meet with people he needed or wanted to see.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

“He took his mission as head of the Diocese of Rome very seriously and was more active and accessible within the diocese than past popes had been. This was in keeping with his affable personality and focus on pastoral responsibilities.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

“He who does not love does not know God’ (1 John 4:8). No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned. The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

“Early in 1959 he ordered the words “unbelieving” and “perfidious,” which were used with reference to Jews and Muslims, to be deleted from the Good Friday liturgy. Additional outreach followed. A pope had not met with the Archbishop of Canterbury for 400 years, ever since Elizabeth I had been excommunicated. Pope John met in the Vatican with the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, for approximately an hour on December 2, 1960. Then, for the first time in history, a Shinto high priest was received by a pope.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope

“Yet on Christmas Day 1958 Pope John stepped forth from the Vatican and became the first pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits in his own diocese of Rome. He visited two hospitals followed on the next day by a visit to a prison. There, he told the hardened but now weeping inmates that he was their brother, and he embraced a murderer.”
― Wyatt North, Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope