Pope John XXIII, that short-serving but consequential pontiff – he was in office for less than five years, but was responsible for convening the Second Vatican Council – was by all accounts a gentle, pacific and kindly man. It was almost certainly an unpleasant surprise to him, therefore, to discover in the Vatican apartments an SS dagger which had, apparently, been gifted to his predecessor Pius XII by a repentant Nazi who had originally planned to attack Pius with it.
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