JOHN XXIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, 1881–1963) was a pope of the Roman Catholic church (1958–1963). Born in Sotto il Monte, near Bergamo in northern Italy, on November 25, 1881, to a family of sharecroppers, Roncalli attended the local grammar school, was taught Latin by the parish priest, and entered the minor seminary at age eleven. Given a scholarship to the Roman seminary (the Apollinare), he was ordained a priest on August 10, 1904, after completing a year of military service. The following year he obtained a doctorate in theology (with Don Eugenio Pacelli, the future pope Pius XII, on his examining board) and became secretary to the bishop of Bergamo, Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi, an ecclesiastical activist in the social, economic, and political movements of the area. Roncalli accompanied the bishop on his visitations in the diocese and on frequent visits to France, Milan, and Rome, and so became acquainted with influential ecclesiastics, including...