On the evening of October 11, 1962, at the end of the first day of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII looked out his window onto St. Peter’s Square and improvised a speech filled with words of love, including: “Returning home, you will find children, give a caress to your children and say: this is the Pope’s caress. You will find some tears to wipe away: say a good word. The Pope is with us, especially in the hours of sadness and bitterness.”
You can well understand why he is one of the most beloved popes, this man who was born and remained simple but was able to launch in just five years of his pontificate the foundations of a profound transformation of the Catholic Church with the Second Vatican Council.
His birthplace has become a small museum collecting mementos of his life, and since Pope John XXIII became a saint in 2014, it has been increasingly visited and pilgrimaged by the faithful.
The birth house of John XXIII is a farmhouse with a classical structure, that is, with a large arched portico and a wooden staircase leading to the rooms.
In one of these, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the future Pope, was born on November 25, 1881: a double bed, a dresser-desk and a painting of the Virgin Mary were the spectators of his coming into the world.