Pius XII to John XXIII: a change in style

(Vatican Radio) Veronica Scarisbrick brings you an archive interview with Father Martin Nolan, one time Prior General of the Augustinian Order, who was in Saint Peter’s Square when Cardinal Angelo Roncalli was elected to the See of Peter on the 28th of October 1958.

Listen:

A moment, Father Martin Nolan recalls, which left many including himself baffled as they'd never heard of him before. It seems too, he says, that at the time many felt the newly elected pope could not live up to the impressive grandeur of the figure of his predecessor Pius XII: “We could see this tiny figure who could barely look over the parapet”...

But as it turned out Father Nolan remarks, these same people gradually learnt to discover and appreciate the new style of papacy inaugurated by John XXIII. One which may have been almost the opposite to Pius XII but brought with it a breath of optimism.

People, he goes on to say in this archive interview, who soon learnt to love the warmth of the new pope's personality, to appreciate the more human side to his papacy. A human side, in Father Martin Nolan's opinion, which Pius XII had not surfaced during this Pope’s long pontificate.

In this interview you can also listen to Father Nolan recount a few stories regarding John XXIII’s ability to be close to the people, beginning at home in the Vatican with his own staff. But also stories relating to his ability to break with the past for example when he left the Vatican walls to preside over Lenten liturgical functions in Rome's station churches. And on one occasion even travel further afar like the time he went by train from the Vatican station to Loreto and Assisi, in an effort to entrust the Second Vatican Ecumencial Council he had surprised everyone by calling, to Our Lady and to Saint Francis .

Listen to Veronica Scarisbrick's archive interview with one time former Prior General of the Augustinian order, Father Martin Nolan.