St. John XXIII Cup

Pope John XXIII was born as Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli on 25 November 1881. He was the fourth of fourteen children born to a family of sharecroppers in a village in Lombardy. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1904, and later served in Vatican diplomacy. In March 1925 he was nominated as Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria, serving local Catholic, but having also very close relations with the Orthodox population of the country. Among others, he organized a charity help to inhabitants of Plovdiv, after an earthquake that affected the city. He chose as his episcopal motto "Obedientia et Pax" ("Obedience and Peace"). In 1934 he was nominated a titular archbishop of Mesembria (Nesebar, Bulgaria), and Apostolic Visitor to Greece and Turkey, and in 1944 - apostolic nuntio in France. In 1953 Pope Pius XII nominated him Patriarch of Venice. After Pius's death, he was unexpectedly elected on 28 October 1958 as the new bishop of Rome, and he took the name of John XXIII. He then surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), that's first session was opened on 11 October 1962. Pope John XXIII didn't live to see the Vatican Council to completion. He died of stomach cancer on 3 June 1963, four and a half years after his election and two months after the completion of his final encyclical, "Pacem in terris" ("Peace on earth"). He was beatified in 2000 by Pope John Paul II alongside Pope Pius IX and three other persons, and was canonised by Pope Francis alongside Pope John Paul II on 27 April 2014.