Pope Paul VI
Paul VI inherited an unfinished council and spent his pontificate managing what it released. Born Giovanni Battista Montini in 1897 near Brescia, the son of a lawyer and newspaper editor who sat in parliament, he was ordained in 1920 and spent thirty years in the Secretariat of State, effectively as one of Pius XII's two principal deputies. He was sent to Milan as archbishop in 1954 without a cardinal's hat, which was widely read as a demotion, and worked hard there among the industrial suburbs. He was elected in June 1963, weeks after John XXIII's death, and immediately announced that the Second Vatican Council would continue. He steered it to completion in 1965 and then had to implement it, which was harder. The new Mass in the vernacular appeared in 1969; the curia was reorganised; a Synod of Bishops was created; and relations with Orthodoxy and Judaism were transformed — he met the Ecumenical Patriarch in Jerusalem in 1964 and lifted the mutual excommunications of 1054. He was the first pope in modern times to travel widely, visiting six continents. Humanae Vitae in 1968 defined his pontificate against his intentions. His own commission had recommended permitting contraception; he decided against it, and the encyclical produced open dissent from clergy and widespread non-compliance among the laity that has never been reversed. Populorum Progressio in 1967 argued that development is the new name for peace. He was distressed by the departure of thousands of priests, and died in 1978. He was canonised in 2018, and the arguments his pontificate opened are still open.
- Lived: 1897 CE – 1978 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, head_of_state
