Saint Paul VI

Saint Paul VI, born Giovanni Battista Montini, was pope from 1963 to 1978. He brought the Second Vatican Council to its conclusion and put its decisions into practice, and he was the first pope of modern times to make apostolic journeys outside Italy. His memorial falls on May 29, the anniversary of his priestly ordination.

He was born on September 26, 1897, in Concesio near Brescia, the second son of Giorgio Montini and Giuditta Alghisi. Because of poor health he prepared for the priesthood at the seminary in Brescia without living there. He was ordained a priest on May 29, 1920, and then studied in Rome. In 1923 he worked for a few months at the apostolic nunciature in Warsaw.

In October 1924 he began working at the Secretariat of State, where for thirty years he assisted Popes Pius XI and Pius XII. From 1925 to 1933 he was also national ecclesiastical assistant of the Italian Catholic University Federation (FUCI). In 1937 he became Substitute of the Secretariat of State. During the Second World War he directed the Vatican information office for prisoners and missing persons and organized aid for the persecuted, especially for Jews.

On November 1, 1954, he was appointed Archbishop of Milan, and on December 12 of that year he received episcopal consecration in Saint Peter’s Basilica. On December 15, 1958, John XXIII made him a cardinal, the first of his pontificate. After the death of John XXIII he was elected pope on June 21, 1963, and took the name Paul, after the example of the Apostle of the Gentiles.

In January 1964, as the first successor of Saint Peter to do so, he visited the Holy Land and met Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in Jerusalem. He closed the Council on December 8, 1965; the day before, Rome and Constantinople had jointly lifted the mutual excommunications of 1054. He made nine apostolic journeys that took him to five continents, among them to India, to the United Nations headquarters in New York, and to Colombia, Uganda, and Australia.

Among other documents, he issued the encyclicals Ecclesiam suam in 1964, Populorum progressio in 1967, and Humanae vitae in 1968, and in 1975 the apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi on evangelization. He established the Synod of Bishops and the World Day of Peace, celebrated since 1968. He approved the liturgical books renewed after the Council, including the Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours, to make it easier for the faithful to take an active part in the liturgy.

He died on the evening of August 6, 1978, at Castel Gandolfo, on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. In accordance with his wishes he was buried simply, as he had lived, in the Vatican Basilica. Pope Francis beatified him on October 19, 2014, at the close of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family, and canonized him on October 14, 2018, in Saint Peter’s Square. In 2019 his memorial was inscribed in the General Roman Calendar.