One of my favorite days of the year, it started in lockdown in a hotel in a foreign country. This was the price to pay for sleeping within the security perimeter the night before a papal event. As much of a newsmaker as Pope Francis is — a mix of widely popular, maddening, and disconcerting, depending on who’s commenting — this influx into St. Peter’s Square wasn’t all about him. The tourist traps were selling all kinds of memorabilia with the image of a trinity of popes — this was the day that Pope Francis would recognize the heroic virtue of his predecessors Pope John Paul II and “Good Pope John,” the XXIIIrd.

I bring this up because shortly after returning, I reread what National Review founder William F. Buckley had to say in the pages of NR when John XXIII died. In NR’s official obituary for man baptized Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli began with admiration for his unmistakable goodness:

The manifestations of sincere grief over the death of Pope John are unparalleled in human memory. What has happened appears to be the solemnization of the old saw that all the world loves a lover: all the world loved Pope John, because he was one of the most convincing lovers of all mankind the world has ever known, and no one, anywhere, lived under the shadow of the doubt that Pope John loved him.

He cited the ecumenical chorus in mourning — not just a religious matter but uniting “democrats, monarchs, despots, totalitarians” as well having

joined the chorus of praise, making expressions of requited love, for the simple peasant who, carrying the heaviest crown on earth, went bravely to death, after trying hard, for five years, to teach the world how to live.

But what of trying to teach a tyrant how to live? Is it a fool’s errand? Is it inherently and dangerously naïve?

Well, probably. Writing in 1963, WFB noted some of the pope’s attempts at being a peacemaker.

Bill wrote:

Will it happen? Will John’s goodness melt ideology’s heart?
We fear not. We fear, rather, that his efforts will have proved vain, that his political sense will prove to have been invincibly innocent, that his strategical coordinates were awry, that the enemy’s cynicism will triumph over his altruism. We expect that only a return to the life of definition will equip us to resist the enemy as resolutely as the Pope resisted his adamant disease. But, paradoxically, in renewing the fight, and recovering our strategical balance, we can get sustenance from the valiant performance of the Pope, the human being. We can remember to keep our hearts open, to encourage the enemy whenever he shows any sign of moral or rational stirring; we can remember to have infinite faith in the infinite powers of the Definitive Ally; and to be joyful, and humble, in our personal lives.

We, in other words, need men like the sainted John XXIII. Heeding their calling us to our better angels would do us some good. We may not agree with their policy prescriptions for politics, but pray we don’t live absent such voices of conscience, alerting us, showing us good amidst evil.

I write this because it has been another long year. There is much that tempts us toward despair. But one of the great gifts of this time of year is the opportunity to consider who we are, who we are made to be, and what the greatest Truth and glory is.

On that matter, on Christmas, WFB also talked about “What Americanism Seeks to Be” in a 1979 speech, talking about the U.S. as having grown “out of a long, empirical journey, the eternal spark of which, of course, traces to Bethlehem, to that star that magnified man beyond any power of the emperors and gold seekers and legions of soldiers and slaves: a star that implanted in each one of us that essence that separates us from the beasts, and tells us that we were made in the image of God and were meant to be free.”

National Review is grounded in this. In a knowledge of the inherent dignity of man to which we are called. That’s why I’ve always considered it an honor to be here. And I pray you do, too. With what you click on and stay on and comment on, you invest in good stewardship. And, financially so, when you contribute.

WFB always asked you to support the work of National Review. I’d like to think he would be doing so today if he could.

Will you support this grounding, this stewardship, this ongoing work of National Review and National Review Online? Donate here. And when you do, please let us know what you are thinking, what you want to see more of.

And God bless you. Merry Christmas. You and your family have long been in my prayers. You remain so and will into the new year. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for supporting National Review and National Review Online.

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— Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online, and founding director of Catholic Voices USA.