In the first meeting (10 April), Fr. Ezio Bolis presented his book, Only a Good Pope? The Spirituality of Pope John XXIII. In the Introduction to the text, he says, “Pope John’s spirituality was both new and old. New because it was prophetic and at the same time courageously open to the future; concrete and also profoundly in touch with human realties and frailties. It was old in that it was permeated by the sweet fragrance of the Gospel and nourished by living contact with the Church.”
During the encounter on 15 April, journalist-writer Renzo Agasso presented the book, My John Paul II, which he co-authored with Archbishop Renato Boccardo. The text offers readers a new view of the Pope through the memories of Bishop Boccardo, who worked closely with Pope John Paul II from 1992 up until his death in 2005.
In the Introduction to the book, Agasso writes: “Perhaps never before as in the time of John Paul II has the command of Jesus to preach the Gospel to the whole world been carried out so thoroughly. Perhaps no other messenger of the Good News has taken this mandate so literally, visiting almost all the peoples and countries on earth. And I was a personal witness to all those journeys.”