Msgr. Lopez-Gallo continues his series on the eight Popes who forged his priesthood. This week, he recalls Pope Paul VI.
For long in poor health, John XXIII fell ill after the closing of the first session of the ecumenical council Vatican II in December 1962, and died on June 3, 1963.
In each papal election, we almost physically see the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Pius XII, surprisingly, had appointed Msgr. Giovanni Montini as Archbishop of Milan without making him a cardinal. When Pius XII died, Montini was not able to enter the conclave. Only cardinals do. The Roman Curia gossiped as to why the Pope would not have wanted him to be his successor – they said that Montini had mistreated Sister Pasqualina, that he had obliged Joseph Charbonneau, Archbishop of Montreal to resign in order to please the Prime Minister of Canada, Maurice Duplessis regarding the famous asbestos strike - and they conjectured that the next Pope would reign for at least fifteen or twenty years and by then Montini would be over 90 years old, or dead. Instead, the Pope elected, John XXIII, reigned for only four and a half years. Human predictions can be so wrong!
Here I want to quote Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, my mentor for over twenty years. “No other sovereign pontiff was ever better prepared for his sublime office than Paul VI, whose responsibilities have been constantly on the increase, especially in the last half-century, because of the growth in world population” (Paul VI, by Gonzalez and Perez, 1964).
Born near Brescia, the son of a lawyer, Paul VI was pope from 1963-1978. He was a sickly child but demonstrated an aptitude for reading. Entering the seminary he studied mostly from home and was ordained on May 29, 1920. He went to the Gregorian University in Rome and in 1922 worked in the Holy See Secretariat of State before serving briefly in 1923 in the Warsaw nunciature. He returned to the Secretariat at the Vatican, remained there, and devoted himself to teaching. In 1931 he taught diplomatic history in the Pontifical Academy for the noble clergy.
In 1937 he became assistant to Cardinal Eugenio Paceli (the future Pope Pius XII) accompanying him to the Eucharistic Congress at Budapest in 1938. Pacelli was elected pope the next year. Montini was named pro-secretary for the internal affairs of the Church. In 1952 he was pro-secretary of state, but declined elevation to cardinal.
As Archbishop of Milan, Montini proved both energetic and deeply concerned with the pressing social problems of that enormous see and the need to repair the terrible damage caused in the war. As soon as John XXIII was elected he named Montini cardinal and gave him a prominent place in the preparations for Vatican Council II. The day after his elevation to the papacy, Montini promised to continue the Council as John intended it. After more than two years of extensive deliberations, he closed the Council on December 8, 1965, and proclaimed an extraordinary Jubilee or Holy Year to be observed from January 1966 in order that the faithful might be familiarized with the teaching of the Council.
But he faced opposition from cardinals and prelates who resisted the changes and others who accelerated the process to such a degree causing serious disorientation in Europe and the United States. Paul VI also introduced changes in the Curia. Finances were reorganized, and he fixed the retirement age at 75 for priests and bishops. Cardinals over 80 years old should also retire and give up all curial offices. He convened the Synods of Bishops in 1971, 1974 and 1977. He also abolished many centuries-old traditions such as the Noble Guard.
In 1964 he visited Jerusalem, spoke at the United Nations, and attended the Eucharistic Congress in Bombay. I accompanied the Dean of Cardinals there, as his secretary. In 1970, in the Philippines, the Pope was nearly assassinated by a knife-wielding assailant but was saved by Msgr. Paul Marcinkus.
Paul VI’s encyclicals epitomised his position. To quote only a few – Ecclesiam Suam, Mysterium Fidei, Populorum Progressio, Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, and the last one, Humanae Vitae, on birth control, was to prove what some saw as a turning point in his pontificate. Paul VI was deeply troubled by crises in the Church, such as the stand of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the dissent over contraception, as well as international and political upheaval, most tragic of all being the kidnapping and murder of the Italian Christian Democrat, Aldo Moro, in May 1978. Paul’s last public appearance was, in fact, at the funeral of this good friend. The situation in Italy was so tragic that it was at risk of becoming a communist country.
The Pope’s health declined rapidly and he died at Castel Gandolfo on August 6, 1978. That year was to have three popes – Giovanni Battista Montini (Paul VI), Albino Luciano (John Paul I), and Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) who was the first Polish pope and the first non-Italian pontiff since the reign of Pope Adrian VI (1522-1523).
The 2000 years of the Church’s divine and human history is so sublime and fascinating!