In Adelaide recently, I found a quaint old bookstore in the Barrossa Valley. I spent an hour rummaging around and came out with I Will Be Called John, a 1973 biography of Pope John XXIII by Lawrence Elliott.

To my mind, the wonderful Pope John is really the only pope worth bothering about in living memory–but that’s just me. The story of his life only enhances the opinion I had already formed of him.

The current pope’s recent encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, is about ‘Love’ and that’s commendable. But Pope John was universally loved and, not unlike the Dalai Lama, taught us more by example than exhortation.

Anyway, I had heard this quote of his before and was pleased to read it again in his biography. It’s one of my favourites. It is said that wherever he had gone he excercised his authority according to his personal style which was:

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