QUOTE: "For you deal here above all with human life, and human
life is sacred; no one may dare make an attempt upon it. Respect for life, even
with regard to the great problem of the birth rate, must find here in your
Assembly its highest affirmation and its most rational defence. Your task is to
ensure that there is enough bread on the tables of mankind, and not to
encourage an artificial control of births, which would be irrational, in order
to diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life." [Pope
Paul VI to the UN General Assembly, October 4, 1965]
AUTHOR: The Venerable
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 Roman
Catholic Church and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches from 21 June 1963 until his
death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second
Vatican Council, he decided that it should continue. He fostered improved
ecumenical relations with Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many
historic meetings and agreements.
Montini served in the
Vatican's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of
State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most
influential co-workers of Pope Pius XII, who in 1954, named him Archbishop of
Milan, the largest Italian diocese, while not naming Montini a cardinal, a
designation that traditionally accompanies the position; Montini automatically
became Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference. John XXIII elevated him to
the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini
was considered one of his most likely successors.
Montini took the name
Paul to indicate a renewed
worldwide mission to spread the message of Christ. He re-convoked 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 Catholicism. 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 as the Mother of the Church
during the Vatican Council.
Paul VI sought
dialogue with the world, with other Christians, other religions, and atheists,
excluding nobody. He saw himself as a humble servant for a suffering humanity
and demanded significant changes of the rich in North America and Europe in
favour of the poor in the Third World. His positions on birth control (see Humanae
Vitae) and other issues were sometimes controversial, especially in Western
Europe and North America.
His pontificate took
place during some significant changes in the world e.g. student revolts, the Vietnam
War, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, the continued break up of the British
Empire, the push for civil rights in the southern states of the U.S. and the
advent of the contraceptive pill. Paul VI died on 6 August 1978, the Feast of
the Transfiguration. The diocesan process for beatification of Paul VI began on
11 May 1993, and so he was given the title "Servant of God".
On Thursday, 20
December 2012, Pope Benedict XVI, in an audience with the Cardinal Prefect of
the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, declared that the late Pope had
lived a life of heroic virtue, which means he can be called
"Venerable".
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