Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) January 5, 2022: According to the Wikipedia entry about him, Giuseppe Angelo Roncalli was born on November 25, 1881, in Sotto il Monte, Bergamo, Kingdom of Italy. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on August 10, 1904. He was created a cardinal on January 12, 1953. On October 28, 1958, he became Pope john XIII. He surprised the world by calling the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), but he died before its completion on June 3, 1963. On April 27, 2014, he was canonized a saint by Pope Francis.
For a recent biography of Pope John XXIII, see Massimo Faggioli's book The Medicine of Mercy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014).
According to Wikipedia, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini was born on September 26, 1897, in Concesio, Brescia, Lombardy, Kingdom of Italy. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on May 29, 1920. He was created a cardinal on December 15, 1958. On June 21, 1963, he became Pope Paul VI. He died on August 6, 1978. On October 14, 2018, he was canonized a saint by Pope Francis.
It fell to Pope Paul VI to officially promulgate the decrees of Vatican II. But he is notorious for his 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, reaffirming the church's opposition to artificial contraception. However, Pope Francis likes Pope Paul VI's 1967 social encyclical Populorum progression and is extremely fond of his 1975 apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi (Wikipedia has an entry about it).
For a recent fresh English translation of six key documents of Vatican II, see the 2012 book Vatican II: The Essential Texts, edited by Norman Tanner, S.J.; translators identified in the headnote to each document; with "Introduction: What Has Been the Result of the Council?" by Pope Benedict XVI; "Introduction: The Beginning of Change: by James Carroll; prefatory material about each document by Edward P. Hahnenberg (New York: Image Books/ Crown Publishing Group/ Random House).
According to Wikipedia, Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was ordained a priest on December 13, 1969. He was created a cardinal in 2001. In March 2013, he became Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope.
Now, I have profiled the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis in my OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019):
You might think that the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis would not arouse the ire of American Catholic neoconservatives, eh? But you would be wrong. You see, Pope Francis takes the social teachings of the popes and of the Second Vatican Council seriously. But American Catholic neoconservatives tend to take exception to the social teachings of the popes and to Vatican II. Oops!
In 2018, Massimo Borghesi's book The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Intellectual Journey, translated from the Italian by Barry Hudock (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic) was published.
For further discussion of Borghesi's 2018 book about Pope Francis, see my OEN article "An Intellectual Biography of Pope Francis" (dated October 28, 2018):
In 2021, Massimo Borghesi's new book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated from the Italian by Barry Hudock (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic) was published.
By neoconservatism, Borghesi means, roughly, the same Americans that Peter Steinfels discusses in his 1979 book The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster) and that Gary Dorrien discusses in his 1993 book The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology (Temple University Press) and that Damon Linker discusses in his 2006 book The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (New York: Doubleday/ Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group/ Random House).
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