Numbers and stories. From the very brief pontificate of Pius III to the very long one of John Paul II

16 October 1978. John Paul II, the Polish Karol Wojtyła, was elected – the first non-Italian Pope in four and a half centuries. His long pontificate, the third longest in history (after those of Saint Peter and Pius IX), was marked by numerous firsts: suffice it to say that his public speeches, fourteen encyclicals and more than one hundred texts – including exhortations, apostolic letters and other writings – take up more than ninety thousand pages in the series "Teachings of the Popes"; that the number of saints and blessed he proclaimed exceeds that of all his predecessors over the last four centuries; that he undertook more than one hundred apostolic journeys—excluding those within Italy—to every part of the world, during which he visited 129 different countries and even the most remote lands, delivered more than three thousand speeches and met tens of millions of people; that millions more of the faithful from all over the world listened to him during more than one thousand general audiences; and that he created 231 cardinals.

The pages on the Holy See’s official website dedicated to statistical data on his pontificate are astonishing. However, even more significant than the statistics are the numerous acts carried out by John Paul II which had a significant impact on the world of his time and left a profound mark in the years that followed: amongst these, the acknowledgement of and subsequent request for forgiveness for certain faults in the Church’s past, initiatives involving prayer alongside representatives of other religions, certain landmark events such as the visit to the Synagogue in Rome (the first ever by a Pope), where he described the Jews as ‘our elder brothers’, memorable encounters such as that with young people during the Great Jubilee of 2000, the establishment of World Youth Days, some original theological and pastoral reflections such as those devoted to the ‘theology of the body’, far-reaching ecumenical initiatives, profound reforms within the structure of the Curia, two new Codes of Canon Law (one for the Eastern Churches), his constant commitment to combating all forms of violence and war in every region of the world, and even the peaceful upheaval of the global political balance – these are just a few examples.

18 October 1503. Pius III, Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini of Siena, died. He was the nephew of Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who allowed him to take his surname, took him into his home and sent him to study law in Perugia. When his uncle became Pope Pius II, he appointed Francesco, who was 21 years old, Archbishop of Siena and later a cardinal. A learned man of firm principles, during the pontificate of Alexander VI Borgia he was the only cardinal to protest against the Pope’s proposal to entrust vast papal territories to his son Juan. He was elected Pope after Alexander VI, but his pontificate lasted less than a month and his plans for reform (and probably also for convening a council) were never realised.