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Official portrait of Pope Paul VI, 1969
(Credit : Catholic News Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
On May 29th, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of Saint Paul VI, who is recognized as a great defender of life and family. He is best known for concluding the Second Vatican Council, the most important ecclesiastical event of the 20th century.
Early life
Born near Brescia in northern Italy, Giovanni Battista Montini was the second of three sons. His father, Giorgio, was a lawyer, editor, and eventually a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. His mother, Giuditta, was very involved in Catholic Action.
Mission
After ordination in 1920, Giovanni did graduate studies in literature, philosophy, and canon law in Rome before he joined the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1924, where he worked for 30 years.
In 1954, Fr. Montini was named archbishop of Milan, where he sought to win disaffected workers back to the Catholic Church. He called himself the “archbishop of the workers” and visited factories regularly while overseeing the rebuilding of a local Church tremendously disrupted by World War II.
Vatican II Completion
In 1958, Montini was the first of 23 cardinals named by Pope John XXIII, two months after the latter’s election as pope. Cardinal Montini helped in preparing Vatican II and participated enthusiastically in its first sessions. When he was elected pope in June 1963, he immediately decided to continue that Council, which had another three sessions before its conclusion on December 8, 1965. The day before Vatican II concluded, Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras revoked the excommunications that their predecessors had made in 1054. The pope worked very hard to ensure that bishops would approve the Council’s 16 documents by overwhelming majorities.
Major Milestones
Pope Paul VI had stunned the world by visiting the Holy Land in January 1964, and meeting Athenagoras, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in person. The pope made eight more international trips, including one in 1965, to visit New York City and speak on behalf of peace before the United Nations General Assembly. He also visited India (1964), Colombia (1968), Uganda (1969), and seven Asian countries during a 10-day tour in 1970.
Also in 1965, he instituted the World Synod of Bishops, and the next year decreed that bishops must offer their resignations on reaching age 75. In 1970, he decided that cardinals over 80 would no longer vote in papal conclaves or head the Holy See’s major offices. He had increased the number of cardinals significantly, giving many countries their first cardinal. Eventually establishing diplomatic relations between the Holy See and 40 countries, he also instituted a permanent observer mission at the United Nations in 1964. Paul VI wrote seven encyclicals; his last one in 1968 on human life—Humanae Vitae—prohibited artificial birth control.
Death and Canonization
Pope Paul VI passed away on August 6, 1978, at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, after suffering a massive heart attack and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica. He was beatified on October 19, 2014 by Pope Francis, and canonized on October 14, 2018.
Since 2019 his liturgical feast has been celebrated on May 29, the anniversary of his priestly ordination (May 29, 1920). Pope Francis established this date for the optional memorial in 2019 to celebrate his life and service, as the date of his death (August 6) is the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Article by Catholic Time Staff
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