Figure 1.--Here Father Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, shows some Italian children a photograph of Pope John XXIII. The two men were at the heart of Vatican II.

Pope Paul VI was born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini in the small Lombard village of Concesio (1897). Montini took the pontifical name of Paul VI. He reigned as pope for about 15 years, a fairly long pontificate (1963-78). He succeeding Pope John XXIII, one of the most beloved of the modern popes. He continued the Second Vatican Council convened by John to a conclusion (1965). He then took on the daunting task of implementing the far reaching reforms adopted by Vatican II. It was not an easy task. There were conflicting interpretations and expectations of various groups making up the Catholic Church. The sheer magnitude of the reforms affecting all the vast activities of the Church and its mission were daunting. The changes were very wide spread and required considerable effort to implement into actual Church practice. The Vatican II reforms went far beyond similar reform efforts of both his predecessors and successors. Paul VI was a Marian devotee He following his meduevil predecessor, Saint Ambrose of Milan, and named Mary as the Mother of the Church during the Second Vatican Council. Paul VI sought dialogue with the world, with other Christians, other religions, and atheists, excluding nobody. Paul launched ecumenical efforts to foster relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestants. Historic meetings and agreements followed. This effort was especially important as reflected St. Paul's role in expanding Christisnity and tie scattered early churches together. Pope Paul VI was the first pope to fly. He traveled widely earing the appelage of 'the flying pope'. He always saw himself as a humble servant for a suffering humanity and in the name of the Church he insisted that the rich in North America and Europe help the poor of the Third World. The future Pope Francis would issue and even more forcefull call, virtully condeming capitalism. These two popes and many other churcmen seem unaware of the fact that it is the wealth generating dynamic of capitalism that make possible the donations that finance the Church's good work. And there seems to be even less awarness among the the Churchmen of the monumental wealth generation of capitalism which began to occur at the time of Pope Paul's pontificat. First with the Asian Tigers and then market reforms in China, India, and other countries. It is understandable that Pope Paul would not have been aware of it. Amazingly after capitalism has enabled more than a billion people to escape the bonds of poverty and enter the middle class in the ensuing genration, more people than in all of history, that Pope Francis is totally unaware of it. This was not just good work to alleviate the duffering of the poor, but the elimination of poveerty itself among a ohenomenal number of people., but this is just what has occured. Pope Paul maintained the Church's position on birth control, promulgated in the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae proved controversial in Western Europe and North America where liberals proved ready to accept the termination of life as a progressive value. Pope Benedict XVI declared that Pope Paul lived a life of heroic virtue and conferred the title of Venerable upon him. Pope Francis beatified after the recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession (2014).

Created: 3:45 AM 8/5/2016
Last updated: 3:45 AM 8/5/2016