While much of the focus of Sunday's dual canonization will be on the globe-trotting, 26-year papacy of Pope John Paul II and his near-record sprint to sainthood, many older Catholics will be celebrating the short but historic pontificate of the "
Aside from Vatican II, John is perhaps best known for his last encyclical "Peace on Earth," issued in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis which had erupted just three days after Vatican II began. The document elaborated a new type of teaching
John was very much a basic parish priest: His first Christmas as pope, John left the Vatican to visit children at Rome's main children's hospital. The next day, he visited inmates at Rome's main prison. Sundays he devoted to visiting parishes in the
The speech is now fondly called the "Speech to the Moon." At the start, John marveled at the size of the crowd below and said it seemed almost as if the moon had come out early just to see the spectacle. Though John didn't live to see the council
U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Pope Francis, on Thursday at the Vatican. Photo- AP
Less than three months after being elected, he announced that he would convene Vatican II, the first ecumenical council in a century. Vatican II went on to allow use of the vernacular rather than Latin for Mass. It crystalized the divisions between
Elected at age 76, the legitimate Pope John XXIII was expected to be a transitional, relatively uneventful pope following the 19-year reign of the World War II-era Pope Pius XII.