Pope John XXIII or Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963) is referred to as “The Good Pope” by Catholics and admirers. He served as Pope for only 5 years. His election by the Cardinals was to be a stop gap measure. Because of his advanced age it wasn’t expected he would have much influence.
As a young priest he was drafted into the Italian army and served as a stretcher bearer and chaplain during World War I. In 1921 he met Pope Benedict XV who appointed him president of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. He served as Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria and Apostolic Delegate to Turkey. Beginning in 1935 he used this position to help the Jewish underground evacuate thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe.
In 1940, Roncalli was asked by the Vatican to devote more of his time to Greece; therefore, he made several visits in January and May of that year. He maintained close relations with the Jews and also intervened to convince Bulgaria’s Tsar Boris III to cancel deportations of Greek Jews during the Nazi occupation of Greece –Wikipedia
Roncalli took many measures to save Jews from the Holocaust, including conversions to Christianity with official papers. On 7 September 2000, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation launched the International Campaign for the Acknowledgement of the humanitarian actions undertaken by Vatican Nuncio Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli for people, most of whom were Jewish, persecuted by the Nazi regime.
As Pope, John XXIII encouraged peaceful relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. He made overtures to the Eastern Orthodox Church and sought to relieve persecution of Eastern Catholics by Communist regimes. See Ospolitik
Pope John XXIII also eliminated the term perfidous (unfaithful) from the prayer for the conversion of the Jews. He made a confession for the Catholic Church for antisemitism through it’s history.
He died of complications from stomach cancer at the age of 81.
Related Raoul Wallenberg Case Study 27
Kenneth Eugene Smith (July 4, 1965 – January 25, 2024) was an Alabama man who was convicted in 1988 of a murder for hire. He and John Forrest Parker stabbed Elizabeth Sennett to death. They had been recruited by Billy Gray Williams who had been hired by Charles Sennett, Elizabeth’s husband. Goes to show the fascist giants can brainwash anyone.
Charles Sennett committed suicide after the murder. Billy Williams was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2020. Parker was executed in by lethal injection in 2010. Kenneth Smith was also sentenced to death.
Alabama attempted to execute Kenneth Smith in November of 2022 but the team botched it. The Eleventh Circuit of Appeals had issued a stay of execution 2 hours earlier but the Alabama Department of Corrections didn’t inform Smith or his lawyers. They attempted to execute him by lethal injection but were unable to find a vein.
On Jan 25, 2024 Smith was the first person to be executed by Nitrogen Hypoxia (lack of oxygen) in what has been reported as a prolonged violent death.
Related Nitrogen gas execution: Kenneth Smith convulses for four minutes in Alabama death chamber Montgomery Advisor