I felt in fitting to open this article with Pope John XXIV's own words from his record of his story 'Why I did it- 'the story of a destroyed one' also known as 'David's records'
"To the person reading this, I offer my sincere apology and my hope that they will choose to accept it. If it was decided to keep those documents within the walls of the Vatican after they have been read, I ask only for an apology to released to the public, the wording and the vagueness of which I leave in the hands of the current pope, but if he has mercy in his heart I am begging him to do it. I did what I believed to be my best. I am sorry. I, currently, don't know why those papers are seeing the light of day again, the most probable options that I can think of are that-
1. At least sixty years have passed
2. The current pope or the believers have decided that this is the right time before then
3. My secret has been discovered/span/p
4. A burglar or a journalist have bypassed the security of those papers
since not all of those options require you to know the truth, I will state it clearly- I am not a christian. I was a true christian and a true catholic from ages seventeen to fifty-six. I was born Jewish. I converted to Christianity and catholicism sincerely. I started practicing Judaism again in secret at fifty-six, four years before I was chosen as pope. I was clear-minded and fully aware of the fact that I wasn't a christian when I accepted the position. I knowingly deceived the believers doing my papacy by keeping that fact from them. I had no malicious intent. I haven't lied once for the duration of the time I occupied the holy throne. I was not power-hungry. I was born, and intend to die, David Cohen, the son of Suzanne and Theodore Cohen Z"L from Copenhagen, Denmark"
*the words 'one hundred' have been crossed out by hand and were replaced with a handwritten sixty - considered to have been added after John XXIV has allowed public access (in contrast to the limited scholar access allowed before) to Vatican archival materials pertaining to Pope Pius XII's pontificate.
**another handwritten later addition, referenced in a later page.
One of the many questions that those opening passages raise is, who exactly was David Cohen before he became John XXIV?
Most of the record concerns his later life and his time as pope, so this section will contain less of David's record then the next, but I have gone to extensive measures to ensure the outside information is legitimate. In an interview with TIME, after being asked about the nature of his childhood he said "All I will say (of his childhood) is that it was a good one." In his record he elaborated on that statement, writing "I was lucky enough to have wonderful parents, I grew up happy and healthy, (other than mild childhood illnesses), I had a lot of friends, I did well enough in school, I loved (and still love) my little brother, I haven't lost anyone close to me until I was well into my twenties (my dear grandmother, Ruth, Z"L). In short- it wasn't tragedy that led me into the arms of the church." and later "My family was never religious. the first time entered a synagogue* was when I was ten, for my cousin's bar mitzvah, one of 4 visits I'd have done my childhood (the others being, once for my own bar mitzvah, and twice at historic synagogues on a vacation to Israel.)"
*the synagogue mentioned was most likely The Great Synagogue in Copenhagen, both by it being the main synagogue of the Jewish community in Copenhagen, and by a later mention of his synagog being a four-minute walk from the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen.
Suzanne Schwarz Cohen, a Copenhagen born Jewish Nurse, and her husband Theodore Cohen, a dentist of the same background as his wife, went together to the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, where they met, and married a year after Theodore's graduation with an orthodox rabbi. David was born a year after that, to an upper-middle-class family with two working parents, and by all accounts, his recollection of his childhood was accurate (including but not limited to some very underwhelming report cards), and by the number of broken arms and legs in his medical record from ages four to fifteen, we can conclude that he was a very active child and early teen.
For both his kindergarten, elementary, lower secondary education he attended Carolineskolen, a private Jewish day school in Copenhagen. There he first befriended his classmate, (Pf.) Ernest Adler, who were to become his lifelong friend, one of the three people whom he trusted with his secret during his lifetime (and one of the eight who knew about it), and later a professor of Architecture in the Sapienza University of Rome. When David was seven, his little brother, Jakob, was born. Jakob and David's relationship was very close, and they talked ether through phone or text at least two times a week through all of their adult life. ( Jacob later immigrated to Israel and became a teacher and a school headmaster). According to his passport, doing this period the Cohens visited Germany (twice), Switzerland, Israel, Greece, and Egypt.
David continued with most of his classmates to a higher secondary education, where he learned in Rysensteen Gymnasium, a public higher secondary school much closer to his house. It was in this school that he first founded himself interested in questions of theology-
"I never thought I'll find myself a spiritual life. When I was fifteen, on my first year in the gymnasium, one of my friends, Hans Andersen, like the writer, convinced me to take theology with him. That's when it happened. Most of my friends were in love with schoolmates, actresses, or singers that year. I fell head over heels for the Catholic church. I still, to this day, don't know what made me so enamored with it. In that I am not saying that the Catholic church has nothing to be enamored with. I became more enamored with her every day for most of my life. I am saying that I wasn't an extraordinary child, and I didn't yet understand religion fully enough to appreciate it properly, and yet, I was, truly, in love. I remember borrowing the new testament from a library and reading it from cover to cover in a single weekend. I read every book on the subject I could put my hands on, I was never so interested in anything in my life. I bullied my catholic friend, poor Mark, into letting me go with his family to church. My parents saw no problem in my new interest, I remember my mother saying "there is no harm in learning about it, the worst-case scenario, he will become a theologist." which today is, unfortunately, quite funny. later that year, on a Friday dinner I told my parents that I wanted to convert. They, very reasonably, told me that I was just 15, that I was a child, that it was too early, and eventually, to think hard about it, to read about other religions too, to hear the experience of people who converted, to wait. I did all that they told me, except wait. I read everything I could, I didn't sleep for an entire week, I visited the synagogue once a week for two months, I tried to believe it, but I couldn't. I did all that I could but nothing felt right. G-d wasn't the first to give me guidance and love, but he was G-d, and when G-d gives you guidance you follow. I was looked in the double-edged arms of faith. After that period my dad started to drive me to church. I became a catechumenate on my sixteenth birthday, when I proclaimed my desire and intention to become a Christian, I was sure in that as much as I was that first day almost a year before. I had all the motivation, I was clear-minded, and exited, and strong-willed, and I had tears in my eyes almost a year later when I proclaim that desire once more and was allowed to take the next step. I gave up chametz for my first Lent, and that Passover I had what I believed to my last Seder as a jew a few days before my baptism. I have never seen a church as beautiful as St. Ansgar's Church was that day. I gave my confirmation and finally received the holy* Eucharist. At the end of my mystagogy I asked the priest who guided me what should I do now, and he answered in a warmness I will never forget, even if my translation from Danish is lacking, "Now, kid, you do your best.". Two years later, in my yearbook, I and the Church had stolen the "most likely to marry first" from the couple of the year- Henrik Jensen and Birgitte Møller, and while did they did marry before I finished the priesthood training I started that year, they also separated long before my fallout with the church."