Chris Patten on Pope John XXIII

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chris Patten, Lord Patten of Barnes, nominates a great life who was born a peasant and became a Pope. Pope John XXIII did well at school but was no star. He wasn't a striking figure of a man and struggled to keep his weight under control. There was nothing about him that stood out and his election as Pope took many by surprise. But he was the man who began to push the Roman Catholic church into the modern world. Presenter: Matthew Parris. With Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge. Producer: Perminder Khatkar First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2017.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Great Lives is a download from Radio Fall.
0:02.7	We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear.
0:05.8	Today's Great Lives started to outward appearances
0:09.2	as a common man.
0:10.8	He did well in school but was no star. He wasn't a strikingly fine figure of a man and struggled to keep his weight under control.
0:18.0	Yet he went on to be canonised, a saint, and is widely seen today as having begun the big push to
0:25.7	ease the Roman Catholic Church into the modern world. Pope John the 23rd is the
0:31.5	great life chosen by my guest Lord Patton of Barnes, best known as Chris Patton,
0:36.4	and at different times, Chairman of the Conservative Party, a senior cabinet minister in John Major's
0:41.6	government, Governor of Hong Kong, Chairman of the BBC Trust,
0:45.7	author and still Chancellor of Oxford University.
0:49.8	Or I could quote assorted and erstwhile Chinese government sources.
0:53.7	A tango dancer who has opened his legs to President Clinton
0:57.5	and speaks like a Buddha but thinks like a Serpent.
1:01.2	Lord Patton speaking like a Buddha. Lord Patton speaking like a Buddha. Why have you chosen Pope John the 23rd?
1:08.0	Oh a lot of reasons. First of all because of his extraordinary human qualities.
1:13.3	Anyone who does have religious views
1:15.9	thinks that that should mean in a human being.
1:18.4	He was kind and genial and gentle
1:21.5	and loved all the right things. Secondly, he enormously appeals to me because
1:27.0	he was so underestimated. I think like Helmut Cole, whom in terms of girth he slightly resembled, or Angela Merkel, or even in our own country,
1:36.6	John Major, he went a long way, partly because he was so underestimated.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.