Former Papal Secretary

Some see youth and are blinded to its future. A combination of youth and “sickly” appearance caused one advisor to express skepticism to Cardinal Angelo G. Roncalli: the job of secretary to the patriarch of Venice would be to much for the 37-year-old priest.

“Then he'll die as my secretary,” replied the future pope, now known as Blessed John XXIII.

Archbishop Capovilla is 96 now and a storehouse of numerous stories of the blessed pope and more. “The archbishop was privy to some of the pope’s first remarks, only a few days after his election in 1958, about what would become the Second Vatican Council.” 

Read this week’s CNS “Vatican Letter.”

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Wiki-image by Robert Prummel of Capovilla Coat of Arms used by CC BY-SA 2.5.