The Good Pope: The Making of a Saint and the Remaking of the Church--TheStory of John XXIII and Vatican II

The Second Vatican Council is one of the most historic church councils and its legacy still reverberates through the Catholic Church today. Many now take for granted the changes it ushered into the church: Mass being presented in English with the priest facing the congregation, the study of the Bible by both clergy and laity, and the wide use of laity in leadership positions in the church. In this book Greg Tobin follows the Good Pope, Saint John XXIII's, footprints throughout the twentieth century, from his upbringing and church career to his surprise election as pope and the event that stunned the entire world: convoking the epochal meeting of all the world's bishops at the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Through Vatican II, Pope John advocated that the Catholic Church play a positive, humanising and spiritual role in transforming this new world and saving it from looming self-destruction. Now, for the first time, Tobin presents a major and authoritative biography of John XXIII and argues that the rejection of Pope John's reforms directly resulted in the many criseses within the Church today.