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He was seen in person by more people than anyone else in human history. Pope John Paul II brought the Catholic Church to the world as the second-longest serving pontiff, and was beloved for it. On the eve of his canonisation by the Vatican, we ask - what forces shaped this man? And what sort of legacy did he leave the world?

First in a two-part series on the two-part Papal canonisation that's about to take place in Rome. This week: Pope John XXIII, the man who fifty years ago began driving the locomotive of Catholic Church reform by inaugurating the Second Vatican Council. But who was he? And how is his influence being felt in the Church and in secular society today?

On a slow boat journey from Constantinople to Venice in the early 15th century, scholar and papal diplomat Nicholas of Cusa set modern scientific method in train when he conceived of the value of ignorance as a means towards knowledge. The more one learns of one’s unknowing the more learned one is.