Paul VI

Paul VI (1897–1978), Pope from 1963. Giovanni Battista Montini held office in the Papal Secretariat of State from 1922 for over thirty years, apart from a few months in Warsaw. In 1954 he became Abp. of Milan. John XXIII made him a cardinal and continually brought him forward at the Second Vatican Council; when John XXIII died he was elected Pope. He promised to continue the Council and pursue the same policy as his predecessor. During the Council, he announced that he would be establishing a ‘Synod of Bishops’ which would have deliberative as well as consultative powers at the Pope's discretion. [For the decrees of the Council, see VATICAN COUNCIL, SECOND].

The most far-reaching reforms of his pontificate were brought about through the Commissions he appointed to put into effect the wishes of the Council. These included the publication of a new Missal in 1970, with its accompanying lectionary, and a new Breviary in 1971; these involved a reordering of the Mass and Office, both of which could now be in the vernacular. His own encyclicals generally seemed more conservative; they include Sacerdotalis coelibatus (1967), insisting on the need for clerical celibacy, and *Humanae Vitae (1968), condemning artificial means of birth control. After 1968 he faced tensions within the Church.

In 1964 on a visit to the Holy Land he embraced Athenagoras, the Oecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and at the close of the Council he took part in a historical gesture of friendship with the Eastern Orthodox Church. He also established the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (1966). He was the first Pope to travel extensively abroad. He fixed a retirement age for bishops and clergy at 75, reduced the ceremonial pomp of the Papacy, and sold his tiara for the benefit of the poor.