Religion: Council of Renewal

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Up from Diplomacy. There is no ideal background for a Pope any more than there is for a poet, but Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli came to the papacy with a rich blend of diplomatic and pastoral experiences behind him. Son of a Lombardy farmer, he won a scholarship to the topflight Pontifical Seminary in Rome, was ordained at 25, and served as a sergeant in the Italian army's medical corps during World War I.

Rome summoned him to do administrative work for a Vatican missionary organization in 1921, and four years later Pope Pius XI started him up the church's diplomatic ladder by naming him Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria. Roncalli spent ten years at Sofia, ten more as the Vatican's envoy to Turkey and Greece, took over one of the church's toughest jobs—Papal Nuncio to France—in December 1944. By all accounts, he did a remarkable job; in 1953, Pius XII elevated him to the rank of cardinal, and three days later named him Patriarch of Venice, where he quickly earned a reputation as one of the kindliest spiritual leaders the city had seen in decades.

Venice's cheerful patriarch was a hale but hoary 76 when the electoral conclave of cardinals chose him to succeed Pius XII as Pope in 1958. Because of his age, Vaticanologists guessed that he was picked as an interim Pope who would live long enough to rebuild—as John did —the depleted and senescent College of Cardinals, which was down in numbers to 52 and up in average age to 74.

Pius XII, the ascetic, mystical descendant of Roman aristocracy, was an intellectual who applied Catholic teaching to nearly every modern problem, from nuclear war to euthanasia. Although he has often expressed admiration for his predecessor, John XXIII has made the papacy into a different kind of job. "He is not intellectual and only an indifferent theologian," says one close friend. "But he is a man with a great pastoral bent, and overwhelming charity."

Open-Door Policy. As a pastor, John seems to have taken the whole world for his flock. He has received almost 250,000 annually in audiences—about twice the number Pius met in a busy year. Pius set the new papal custom of having formal but friendly chats with non-Catholic churchmen; the new era of good feeling in Catholicism has flowered under John XXIII, who has already met more Anglican and Protestant leaders—ranging from Negro Baptist Leader Joseph H. Jackson of Chicago to the Archbishop of Canterbury—than any Pontiff in history. Some Catholic prelates complain that "it's easier to see the Pope if you're a Methodist," but John has refused to curb the attentions he pays to Protestants. "It's all right," he tells aides. "Let's give them credit for their good intentions—and if they don't have them, why, I've one eye open to see clearly myself."

Occasionally, the Pope's modernizing ambitions have been thwarted by his execution of them. In 1960, he called Rome's 1,250 parish priests to the first diocesan synod in the Eternal City's history. Instead of making the major reforms that many Catholics in Rome believed necessary, John simply imposed a flurry of insignificant rules on clerical behavior and dress that the clergy now largely ignore. John is philosophical about the synod's admitted failure. "Well, at least we tried. Doing