Paul VI

Biography

Giovanni Battista Montini was born in 1897 in Concesio near Brescia, the son of a lawyer, journalist and Catholic politician. Ordained in 1920, he studied canon law and continued his studies in Rome at the Gregorian University, the University of Rome and the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles. In 1922 he entered the Holy See's Secretariat of State, where he would serve for more than thirty years.

Appointed Substitute in 1937, he worked daily with Pius XII, ran a wartime office that traced prisoners of war and refugees, and later shared the direction of the Secretariat as a pro-secretary of state. In 1954 Pius named him Archbishop of Milan, where he built more than a hundred churches and reached out to workers. John XXIII made him a cardinal in 1958.

Elected pope in June 1963, he reconvened the Second Vatican Council, closed it in 1965 and then carried out its reforms, including the new order of Mass. In 1964 he became the first reigning pope in more than a century to leave Italy, and in 1965 he addressed the United Nations in New York. He worked for closer ties with the Orthodox and Protestant churches. His 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, which upheld the ban on artificial contraception, caused lasting controversy. He died at Castel Gandolfo in August 1978 and was canonised in 2018.