Remembering an interesting Pope after 32 years

Pope Paul VI mets Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła , future Pope John Paul II!

Paul VI after his election with the first and only Catholic U. S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963~!

Servant of God Pope Paul VI, You will be remembered as the man who succeeding Blessed Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he presided over the majority of its sessions and oversaw the implementation of its decrees, thanks!remembering you 32 years later, may you rest in peace!

Pope Paul VI (Latin: Paulus PP. VI; Italian: Paolo VI), born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.

Montini served in the Vatican’s State Department from 1922 to 1954. While in the State Department, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential co-workers of Pope Pius XII, who named him in 1954 Archbishop of the largest Italian dioceses, Milan, a function which made him automatically Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after his death, Montini was considered the favourite successor.

He took on the name Paul, to indicate a renewed worldwide mission to spread the message of Christ. He re-opened the Second Vatican Council, which was automatically closed with the death of John XXIII and gave it priority and direction. After the Council concluded its work, Paul VI took charge of the interpretation and implementation of its mandates, often walking a thin line between the conflicting expectations of various groups within the Roman Catholic Church. The magnitude and depth of the reforms affecting all areas of Church life during his pontificate exceeded similar reform policies of his predecessors and successors.

Paul VI was a Marian devotee, speaking repeatedly to Marian congresses and mariological meetings, visiting Marian shrines and issuing three Marian encyclicals. Following his famous predecessor Ambrose of Milan, he named Mary to be the Mother of the Church during the Vatican Council. Paul VI sought the dialogue with the world, with other Christians, religions, atheism, excluding nobody. He saw himself as a humble servant for a suffering humanity and demanded significant changes of the rich in American and Europe in favour of the poor in the Third World.

His positions on birth control (see Humanae Vitae) and other issues were controversial in Western Europe and North America, but applauded in Eastern and Southern Europe and Latin America. His pontificate took place during sometimes revolutionary changes in the world, student revolts, the Vietnam War and other upheavals. Paul VI tried to understand it all but at the same time defend the Deposit of Faith as it was entrusted to him. Paul VI died on 6 August 1978, the Feast of the Transfiguration. The diocesan process for beatification Paul VI began on 11 May 1993.

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Montini was generally seen as the most likely successor to Pope John because of his closeness to Pius XII and John XXIII, his pastoral and administrative background, and his insight and determination. John, a newcomer to the Vatican at age 77, may have felt outflanked by the professional Roman Curia at times; Montini knew its most inner workings well.

Unlike the papabile cardinals from Bologna and Genoa, he was not identified with either the left or right, nor was he seen as a radical reformer. He was viewed as most likely to continue the Second Vatican Council which already, without any tangible results, had lasted longer than anticipated by Pope John, who had a vision but "did not have a clear agenda. His rhetoric seems to have had a note of over-optimism, a confidence in progress, which was characteristic of the 1960s." When John XXIII died of stomach cancer on 3 June 1963, Montini was elected to the papacy in the following conclave and took the name Paul VI.

Paul knew what was coming. He wrote in his journal: "The position is unique. It brings great solitude. 'I was solitary before, but now my solitude becomes complete and awesome.'" But he was not afraid of this new solitude which was expected of him. He recognized that it would be futile to seek much outside help, or to confide everything to others. He saw himself as alone, with God. The communication with him must be full and incommensurable.

Paul did away with much of the regal splendor of the papacy. He was the last pope to date to be crowned; his successor Pope John Paul I replaced the Papal Coronation (which Paul had already substantially modified, but which he left mandatory in his 1975 apostolic constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo) with a Papal Inauguration. Paul VI donated his own Papal Tiara, a gift from his former Archdiocese of Milan, to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. (where is it on permanent display in the Crypt) as a gift to American Catholics. In 1968, with the motu proprio Pontificalis Domus, he discontinued most of the ceremonial functions of the old Roman nobility at the papal court, save for the Prince Assistants to the Papal Throne. He also abolished the Palatine Guard and the Noble Guard, leaving the Swiss Guard as the sole military order of the Vatican.

Final months and death

On 16 March 1978, his friend from FUCI student days Aldo Moro, a Christian Democratic politician, was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, which kept the pope in suspense for 55 days.

On 20 April, Moro directly appealed to the Pope to intervene as Pope Pius XII had intervened in the case of Professor Giuliano Vassalli in the same situation The eighty-year old Pope wrote a letter to the Red Brigades:
I have no mandate to speak to you, and I am not bound by any private interests in his regard. But I love him as a member of the great human family as a friend of student days and — by a very special title — as a brother in faith and as a son of the Church of Christ. I make an appeal that you will certainly not ignore;.. on my knees I beg you, free Aldo Moro, simply without conditions, not so much because of my humble and well-meaning intercession, but because he shares with you the common dignity of a brother in humanity.... Men of the Red Brigades, leave me, the interpreter of the voices of so many of our fellow citizens, the hope that in your heart feelings of humanity will triumph. In prayer and always loving you I await proof of that Paulus PP VI."

Some in the Italian government accused the old pope for treating the Red Brigades too kindly. The Pope went on looking for ways to pay ransom for Moro but to no avail. On 9 May, the bullet riddled body of Aldo Moro was found in a car in Rome.

Pope Paul VI left the Vatican to go to the Papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo on 14 July 1978, visiting on the way the tomb of Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo who had introduced him to the Vatican half a century earlier. Although sick, he agreed to see the new Italian President Sandro Pertini for over two hours. In the evening he watched a Western on TV, happy only when he saw "horses, the most beautiful animals that God had created."

He had breathing problems and needed oxygen. Next day, Sunday the Feast of Transfiguration he was tired, but wanted to say the Angelus. He was not able or permitted to and stayed in bed, his temperature rising.

Tomb of Pope Paul VI

From his bed he participated in Sunday Mass at 6 p.m. After communion, the pope suffered a massive myocardial infarction, after which he kept on fighting on for three hours. On 6 August 1978 at 9.41 p.m., Pope Paul VI died at Castel Gandolfo.

Paul VI is buried beneath the floor of Saint Peter's Basilica with the other popes. In his will, he requested to be buried in the "true earth" and therefore, he does not have an ornate sarcophagus but an in-ground grave.

Cause for beatification
The diocesan process for beatification of Servant of God Paul VI began on 11 May 1993 by Pope John Paul II. The title of Servant of God is the first of four steps toward possible canonization.