Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Paul VI, has been
described by papal biographer Peter Hebblewaite as the
first modern pope. I am not sure that this is fair, either to
Pope Paul VI or to his two immediate predecessors. As we
have noted earlier, Pope Pius XII began reforms, which led
to John XXIII calling the Second Vatican Council. It fell to
Paul VI to conclude and then implement a council, which
he had not started.
Paul VI was born to a moderately prosperous family: his
mother came from the minor nobility and his father was a
sometime member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
Montini himself suffered from poor health and initially was
an extern student of the seminary, something of a rarity.
However, his intelligence stood him in good stead, and
once ordained he seemed to be destined for great things.
In the later 30’s he became an assistant to the Vatican
Secretary of State, soon to be Pope Pius XII. He served at
the Vatican until the mid 1950’s when he was sent to Milan
as Archbishop. He was viewed by some in the Curia as a
liberal, which may explain why he had to wait several years
before receiving the Cardinal’s hat, which almost always
accompanied the position of Archbishop of Milan. Although
a scholar by temperament (he took 99 cases of books with
him on the move from Rome to Milan) he threw himself into
pastoral activity once in Milan. He tried to lure people away
from the communists by inaugurating and encouraging
Catholic labour organizations. He worked closely with John
XXIII in preparing for the Council and took an active role in
the first session. It was Pope John XXIII who elevated
Montini to Cardinal, and perhaps because of their close
collaboration in preparing for the Council he was seen as
the natural successor to John XXIII. In any event, the
conclave following Pope John’s death ended on its second
day with the election of Montini as Pope Paul VI.
Montini chose the name Paul because as he said, he
wanted to be a “Pope to the Gentiles” even as St. Paul was
the Apostle to the Gentiles. And he became the most
traveled pope in history until John Paul II, traveling to the
Holy Land, to the U.S.A., Fatima, Istanbul, the Far East,
Australia and even Uganda!
Pope Paul VI impacted significantly on the everyday lives
of the Catholic Faithful as few other popes have ever done
before. We will take a look at that next week.