Pope John XXIII

Pope John XXIII will be canonized at the Vatican. In the 1960s he convened the historic Second Vatican Council, which instituted such reforms as Masses in the vernacular, instead of Latin, to bring the church and the Gospel closer to contemporary believers. Pope Francis has lauded Vatican II for reviving the faith and described its modernizing work as “absolutely irreversible.”

Pope John XXIII, in an undated image, is carried down the Scala Regia on the way to St. Peter’s atrium.   (Luigi Felici / Associated Press)