(Continued from page 35)

• Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited disease that causes slow but progressive vision loss due to a gradual loss of the light-sensitive retinal cells called rods and cones. Patients experience loss of side vision and night vision, then central vision, which can result in near blindness.
• ___

• VATICAN CITY (AP) -- On the night of Oct. 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII did something so natural that it's astonishing it was so revolutionary at the time. He came to the window of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace and spoke to thousands of candle-bearing faithful below -- not in the arcane, scripted words of pontiffs past but in those of a father and pastor looking out for his flock.
• "Going home, you will find your children. Give them a caress and tell them 'This is the caress of the pope,'" John said to the torch-lit cheers from St. Peter's Square.
• While much of the focus of Sunday's dual canonization will be on the globe-trotting, 26-year papacy of Pope John Paul II and his near-record sprint to sainthood, many older Catholics will be celebrating the short but historic pontificate of the "Good Pope," John XXIII.
• John's words, delivered on the opening night of the Second Vatican Council, came to define his papacy. The speech epitomized how John captured the hearts of Catholics with his simple, paternal affection while using his intuitive cunning to launch Vatican II and bring the 2,000-year institution into the modern world. It's a combination embodied by the current pope, Francis.
• "He was courageous. A good country priest, with a great sense of humor and great holiness," Francis told reporters last summer when asked about John's attributes. "He was one of the greats."
•