An Allentown church plans a saintly display

At St. Stephen of Hungary Church in Allentown, a zucchetto, or skullcap, worn by John XXIII will be on display near the sanctuary

As Christians around the world celebrate Easter the faith's most important holiday, marking the resurrection of Christ Catholics are looking ahead a week to another joyous event.

Next Sunday, two of the most popular and influential popes in church history, John XXIII and John Paul II, will become saints in the first-ever simultaneous canonization of pontiffs.

While the festivities happen in Rome, people in the Lehigh Valley will be able to get close to one of the new saints, theologically speaking. At St. Stephen of Hungary Church in Allentown, a zucchetto, or skullcap, worn by John XXIII will be on display near the sanctuary.

How that came to pass is a story involving naturally Max Hess Jr., the department store king and publicity genius who probably made a bigger impact on Allentown than anyone but Harry Trexler.

Hess was Jewish but had a close relationship to the Diocese of Allentown and its first bishop, Joseph McShea. He also was a major supporter of capital campaigns in the diocese, which had been created in 1961 out of the northern sections of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Hess' contributions helped with construction of a number of Catholic high schools and with Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales, now DeSales University.

McShea was grateful. In 1963, he was in Rome for Vatican II, the council summoned by John XXIII that had opened the year before and would fundamentally change the church's relationship with the modern world.

The bishop bought a zucchetto from the Vatican's tailor and traded it for the one the pope was wearing. It's not an uncommon practice Pope Francis has swapped his zucchetto any number of times while greeting the faithful in St. Peter's Square.

When McShea returned to Pennsylvania, he presented the skullcap as a gift to Hess.

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An Allentown church plans a saintly display