Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.
Born in Concesio, Montini served in the Holy See's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954, and along with Domenico Tardini was considered the closest and most influential advisor of Pope Pius XII. In 1954, Pius named Montini Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese. Montini later became the Secretary of the Italian Bishops' Conference. John XXIII elevated Montini to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after his death, Montini was, with little to no opposition, elected his successor, taking the name Paul VI.
He reconvened the Second Vatican Council, which had been suspended during the interregnum. After its conclusion, Paul VI took charge of the interpretation and implementation of its mandates, finely balancing the conflicting expectations of various Catholic groups. The resulting reforms were among the widest and deepest in the Church's history.
Paul VI spoke repeatedly to Marian conventions and Mariological meetings, visited Marian shrines and issued three Marian encyclicals. Following Ambrose of Milan, he named Mary as the Mother of the Church during the Second Vatican Council. In January 1964, he flew to Jordan, the first time a reigning pontiff had left Italy in more than a century. His opposition to birth control was published in the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae. Paul VI described himself as a humble servant of a suffering humanity and demanded significant changes from the rich in North America and Europe in favour of the poor in the Third World.
Pope Benedict XVI, citing his heroic virtue, proclaimed him venerable on 20 December 2012. Pope Francis beatified Paul VI on 19 October 2014, after the recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession. His liturgical feast was celebrated on the date of his birth, 26 September, until 2019 when it was changed to the date of his priestly ordination, 29 May. Pope Francis canonised him on 14 October 2018.
Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini was born in the village of Concesio, in the Province of Brescia, Lombardy, Italy, on 26 September 1897. His father, Giorgio Montini (1860–1943), was a lawyer, journalist, director of the Catholic Action, and member of the Italian Parliament. His mother, Giudetta Alghisi (1874–1943), was from a family of rural nobility. He had two brothers, Francesco Montini (1900–1971), who became a physician, and Lodovico Montini (1896–1990), who became a lawyer and politician. On 30 September 1897, he was baptised with the name Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini. He attended the Cesare Arici school, run by the Jesuits, and in 1916 received a diploma from the Arnaldo da Brescia public school in Brescia. His education was often interrupted by bouts of illness.
In 1916, Montini entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest. He was ordained on 29 May 1920 in Brescia and celebrated his first Mass at the Santa Maria delle Grazie, Brescia. Montini concluded his studies in Milan with a laurea, the equivalent of a bachelor's degree, in canon law in 1922. He later studied at the Gregorian University, the University of Rome La Sapienza and, at the request of Giuseppe Pizzardo, the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles. In 1922, at the age of twenty-five, again at the request of Giuseppe Pizzardo, Montini entered the Secretariat of State, where he worked under Pizzardo together with Francesco Borgongini-Duca, Alfredo Ottaviani, Carlo Grano, Domenico Tardini and Francis Spellman. Consequently, he never had an appointment as a parish priest. In 1925 he helped found the publishing house Morcelliana in Brescia, focused on promoting a 'Christian-inspired culture'.
Montini had just one foreign posting in the diplomatic service of the Holy See as Secretary in the office of the papal nuncio to Poland in 1923. Of the nationalism he experienced there he wrote: "This form of nationalism treats foreigners as enemies, especially foreigners with whom one has common frontiers. Then one seeks the expansion of one's own country at the expense of the immediate neighbours. People grow up with a feeling of being hemmed in. Peace becomes a transient compromise between wars." He described his experience in Warsaw as "useful, though not always joyful". When he became pope, the Communist government of Poland refused him permission to visit Poland on a Marian pilgrimage.
Montini's organisational skills led him to a career in the Roman Curia, the papal civil service. On 19 October 1925, he was appointed a papal chamberlain in the rank of Supernumerary Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness. In 1931, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli appointed him to teach history at the Pontifical Academy for Diplomats; he was promoted to Domestic Prelate of His Holiness on 8 July of the same year. On 24 September 1936, he was appointed a Referendary Prelate of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.
On 16 December 1937, after his mentor Giuseppe Pizzardo was named a cardinal and was succeeded by Domenico Tardini, Montini was named Substitute for Ordinary Affairs under Cardinal Pacelli, the Secretary of State. His immediate supervisor was Domenico Tardini, with whom he got along well. He was further appointed Consultor of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation on 24 December, and was promoted to Protonotary apostolic (ad instar participantium), the most senior class of papal prelate, on 10 May 1938.
Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939 and confirmed Montini's appointment as Substitute under the new Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione. In that role, roughly that of a chief of staff, he met the Pope every morning until 1954 and developed a rather close relationship with him. Of his service to two popes he wrote:
It is true, my service to the Pope was not limited to the political or extraordinary affairs according to Vatican language. The goodness of Pope Pius XII opened to me the opportunity to look into the thoughts, even into the soul of this great pontiff. I could quote many details how Pius XII, always using measured and moderate speech, was hiding, nay revealing a noble position of great strength and fearless courage.
When war broke out, Maglione, Tardini, and Montini were the principal figures in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. Montini dispatched "ordinary affairs" in the morning, while in the afternoon he moved informally to the third floor Office of the Private Secretary of the Pontiff, serving in place of a personal secretary. During the war years, he replied to thousands of letters from all parts of the world with understanding and prayer, and arranging for help when possible.
At the request of the Pope, Montini created an information office regarding prisoners of war and refugees, which from 1939 to 1947 received almost ten million requests for information about missing persons and produced over eleven million replies. Montini was several times attacked by Benito Mussolini's government for meddling in politics, but the Holy See consistently defended him. When Maglione died in 1944, Pius XII appointed Tardini and Montini as joint heads of the Secretariat, each a Pro-Secretary of State. Montini described Pius XII with a filial admiration:
His richly cultivated mind, his unusual capacity for thought and study led him to avoid all distractions and every unnecessary relaxation. He wished to enter fully into the history of his own afflicted time: with a deep understanding, that he was himself a part of that history. He wished to participate fully in it, to share his sufferings in his own heart and soul.