Pope Saint Paul VI (1897-1978)

History long reduced Paul VI to a half-toned portrait: the “Hamlet” pope, melancholic and tormented, crushed between the boldness of his predecessor John XXIII and the stature of his successor John Paul II. This image, popularized by his opponents on both sides, is misleading. Behind the apparent hesitation lies a ruler of rare clarity, who for fifteen years undertook the most thankless task in recent Church history: to bring a council from words to deeds.

For the entire drama of his pontificate lies in an equation only he could solve. John XXIII had opened the windows; it was Montini’s task to hold the house steady in the draft. To realize Vatican II without betraying it either by rupture or by obstruction; to hold together a Church torn between an impatient reformist wing and a worried traditionalist wing; to face simultaneously the cultural collapse of the West, the hemorrhage of vocations, and the pressure of a secularized world — this made his pontificate one of the most difficult and decisive of the 20th century.

To understand Paul VI is therefore to hold together three figures wrongly opposed: the Roman diplomat versed in the Curia’s secrets; the social pastor who had traveled the factories of Milan; and the courageous doctor who dared, in the worst circumstances, to defend unpopular truths. None of these figures erase the others: it is their union that makes the originality — and the hidden greatness — of his reign.

Before entering the narrative, it is important to identify the sources on which our knowledge of this relatively recent pontificate is based.

The sources are both primary — texts and speeches of the pope himself, preserved in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis and on vatican.va — and secondary: historical biographies (Yves Chiron, Philippe Chenaux), testimonies from close associates such as the philosopher Jean Guitton, who collected his confidences. For politically sensitive episodes — the Moro affair, figures of dissent — it will be noted when data are estimates.^[14][15]

A Son of the Catholic Bourgeoisie of Brescia

Giovanni Battista Montini was born on September 26, 1897 in Concesio, in the province of Brescia, the second of three sons of Giorgio Montini and Giuditta Alghisi.^[16][17] His father was no ordinary notable: a lawyer, journalist, director of the Catholic daily Il Cittadino di Brescia, leader of Catholic Action, he was one of the founders of the Italian Popular Party of Don Luigi Sturzo and a deputy in Parliament until fascism removed him.^[18][19] From this household where faith mingled with civic engagement, the future pope retained a lasting conviction: Catholicism must dialogue with the modern city, not withdraw from it.

Of fragile health, young Montini partly studied at home and with the Oratorians of Brescia. Ordained a priest on May 29, 1920 — a date that would later become his liturgical feast — he was immediately sent to Rome for advanced studies at the Gregorian University and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Holy See’s diplomatic school.^[20][21]

Chaplain of the FUCI and Friend of Aldo Moro

Before disappearing into the offices of the Curia, Montini carried out an apostolate that would mark his entire life: in 1925 he became national chaplain of the FUCI, the Italian Catholic University Federation.^[22] For eight years, he formed the Catholic intellectual elite of the country, preached retreats, published, and traveled throughout Italy. It was there that he forged decisive friendships — including that of a young lawyer destined to become one of the major statesmen of postwar Italy, Aldo Moro, prime minister and leader of Christian Democracy.^[23]

This youthful companionship is not anecdotal: it explains the personal anguish that would seize the pope half a century later when the Red Brigades kidnapped and assassinated this friend. In 1933, judged too close to a social Catholicism disfavored by the fascist regime, Montini had to leave the FUCI to devote himself entirely to the Secretariat of State.^[24]

Thirty Years at the Secretariat of State (1924–1954)

Entering the Secretariat of State in 1924 — after a brief posting at the Warsaw nunciature in 1923 —, Montini remained there for thirty years, climbing the ranks of the Holy See’s diplomatic apparatus.^[25] In 1937, he was appointed substitute (Sostituto) for Ordinary Affairs: he became one of the closest collaborators of Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII.^[26][27]

During the war, he coordinated the vast assistance work of the Vatican — the Prisoners’ Information Office, aid to refugees and persecuted Jews. Tireless and discreet worker, he became in 1952 pro-secretary of state for Ordinary Affairs, one of the two men who, under Pius XII deprived of a cardinal secretary of state, effectively governed the Curia.^[28] This long immersion made him the best connoisseur of the Roman machinery — a decisive asset for one who would one day have to reform it.

Archbishop of Milan (1954–1963)

In November 1954, to general surprise, Pius XII sent his closest collaborator to occupy the largest diocese in Italy: Montini was appointed archbishop of Milan.^[29][30] Many saw this as a disguised disgrace, because the post came with a strange fact: Montini did not receive the cardinal’s hat, although the see of Milan traditionally carried it. He remained archbishop for four years without being a cardinal.

In Milan, the diplomat revealed himself as a pastor. In an industrial metropolis won over by communism, he made numerous visits to the world of labor, led a vast “mission of Milan” — the largest urban mission ever organized in the Catholic world — and had 123 new churches built.^[31] It was only at the election of John XXIII that the situation was resolved: at his first consistory, on December 15, 1958, the new pope created Montini cardinal — at the top of the list.^[32]

A Brief and Anticipated Conclave

When John XXIII died on June 3, 1963, leaving his council unfinished, Cardinal Montini emerged as the natural favorite. He had participated in the first session of Vatican II, aligning himself with the reformist majority; he knew the Curia from within; and he had the trust of the last two popes.^[33] The conclave opened on June 19.

After six ballots, on June 21, 1963, Montini was elected — with no official tally ever published, conclave secrecy never having been lifted: figures sometimes put forward are unverifiable speculation.^[34] The stakes of the election were clear to all electors: to choose the man capable of successfully carrying forward the council. By electing the most conciliar of the Curial candidates, the Sacred College made a choice of continuity.

The Choice of the Name “Paul”

The new pope chose to be called Paul — a name no pope had taken since Paul V (who died in 1621). The choice was a program. By taking the name of the Apostle of the Nations, the great traveler of the Gospel, the missionary who brought Christ to the heart of the pagan world, Montini announced a pontificate oriented toward proclaiming the faith to the modern world and toward dialogue with those distant from the Church.^[35] His entire first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, would unfold this program under the theme of “dialogue.”

The Last Crowned Pope — and the Gift of the Tiara

Crowned on June 30, 1963, Paul VI was the last pope to date to have received the tiara, the triple crown symbolizing pontifical power.^[36] The gesture that followed became famous. In November 1964, before the Fathers of the council, the pope placed his tiara on the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica and donated it to the poor, announcing it would be sold for charity: in reality, the tiara was never sold — entrusted to the Church in the United States, it has been on display since 1968 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.^[37] None of his successors would be crowned. This voluntary renunciation — which also anticipated his wish to be buried in a simple wooden coffin, without a catafalque — summed up a central intuition of his reign: a papacy that renounces the signs of temporal power to retain only service.

Continuing John XXIII’s Work

Paul VI’s very first decision, announced the day after his election, was to continue the council.^[38][39] Nothing was certain: a pope could have closed or suspended the assembly opened by his predecessor. Paul VI chose the opposite. He reopened the second session on September 29, 1963, and to streamline sometimes stalled debates, he established a college of four cardinal moderators charged with directing the work. Under his authority, the council produced its major texts: the constitution on the liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, the constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, the constitution on Revelation Dei Verbum, and the most debated text, Gaudium et Spes, on the Church in the modern world.

The details of the decrees, debates, and doctrinal significance belong to the article dedicated to the Second Vatican Council itself. What belongs specifically to the pontificate is the art of governance Paul VI deployed to bring to a successful conclusion an assembly of over two thousand bishops marked by tensions: arbitrating between majority and minority, refusing to let one side overwhelm the other, having a nota praevia (prior explanatory note) attached to a text to guarantee the orthodoxy of its interpretation.^[40]

Mary “Mother of the Church” (November 21, 1964)

On November 21, 1964, at the close of the third session of the council and upon promulgating Lumen Gentium, Paul VI performed an act dear to him personally: he solemnly proclaimed the Virgin Mary “Mother of the Church.”^[41] Before the standing and applauding assembly, he declared:

“For the glory of the Blessed Virgin and for our consolation, We declare Mary most holy Mother of the Church, that is, of the whole Christian people, both of the faithful and of the pastors.” — Paul VI, closing address of the third session of the council, November 21, 1964^[42]

The title was not an invention: it consecrated Mary’s spiritual motherhood over the redeemed. But by proclaiming it at this precise moment, the pope wished to root the conciliar reform in traditional Marian devotion, fearing that an overly horizontal reading of the Church might obscure its supernatural dimension.

The Closing on December 8, 1965

On December 8, 1965, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Paul VI closed the Second Vatican Council with a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. The council ended with a series of messages to humanity — to rulers, scientists, artists, women, workers, the poor, and the sick — expressing the pope’s desire to open the Church to the world without compromising the faith.^[43] The day before, December 7, the lifting of the excommunications of 1054 had been proclaimed (see below). From then on, Paul VI faced a task even heavier than the council itself: implementing it.

Far from being the hesitant pope of legend, Paul VI was a prolific doctor of the Church who knew how, at the most critical moments, to issue firm magisterial acts. The table below summarizes the main ones.

Ecclesiam Suam (1964): The Church in Dialogue

The first encyclical of the pontificate, dated August 6, 1964—exactly fourteen years before his death—Ecclesiam Suam provides the key to his entire reign. The pope proposes the notion of dialogue (colloquium) as the Church’s method of presence in the world: a dialogue that starts from the truth, unfolds in concentric circles—with all people, with believers of other religions, with separated Christians, and within the Catholic Church itself—but never relinquishes the mission to proclaim Christ.^[44] Paul VI’s dialogue is not a dilution of doctrine in the spirit of the times: it is a missionary strategy.

Mysterium Fidei (1965): Defending the Real Presence

As early as 1965, while new theological theories circulated in some circles reducing the Eucharistic presence to a mere “transsignification” or “transfinalization,” Paul VI published Mysterium Fidei to reaffirm the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.^[45] The encyclical recalls that the bread and wine truly, substantially become the Body and Blood of Christ, and that the Church’s dogmatic language—including the very word transubstantiation—must be maintained. This was the first major act of doctrinal firmness of the pontificate, issued in the midst of the council.

The Credo of the People of God (1968)

On June 30, 1968, to close the “Year of Faith” convened on the occasion of the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, the pope proclaimed on St. Peter’s Square a Credo of the People of God, a solemn profession of faith that reprises and explicates the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.^[46] In the face of rising doubts about original sin, the Real Presence, the virginity of Mary, or the reality of the afterlife, Paul VI wished to give a firm foundation to the faith of the simple faithful. The text reaffirms, one by one, the contested articles of the Creed—proof, if any were needed, that this “modern” pope intended to concede nothing on dogma.

Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (1967) and Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975)

Two other texts deserve mention. By Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (June 24, 1967), Paul VI upheld the celibacy of Latin-rite priests at a time when many were calling for its abolition, extensively explaining the spiritual and ecclesial reasons for this discipline.^[47] And through the exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (December 8, 1975), the fruit of the 1974 Synod, he delivered what Pope Francis — in his address to the pilgrims of the diocese of Brescia on June 22, 2013 — hailed as “which is for me the greatest pastoral document written to this day”: a masterful reflection on evangelization, where he reminds that “contemporary man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers.”^[48]

The Commission and the Anticipation

The heaviest dossier of the pontificate was undoubtedly that of birth regulation. John XXIII had created a study commission on the matter; Paul VI expanded it, bringing in theologians, doctors, demographers, and married couples.^[49] The advent of the contraceptive pill led many to hope for a relaxation of doctrine. However, the commission’s work was leaked to the press in 1967: it was revealed that a majority report had come out in favor of relaxing the teaching. The expectation of a reversal became immense.^[50]

Paul VI’s Decision

Against this majority, after months of inner agony and prayer, Paul VI decided otherwise. The encyclical Humanae Vitae, dated July 25, 1968, reaffirmed that every conjugal act must remain open to the transmission of life and condemned artificial contraception, distinguishing it from natural methods of spacing births.^[51] The pope refused to base morality on a calculation of opinion: the Church, the mere guardian and interpreter of the moral law and not its master, could not in his eyes declare lawful what is opposed to man’s true good^[52], and he foresaw with prophetic clarity the consequences of a dissociation between sexuality and fertility — trivialization, instrumentalization of women, state pressure on couples.^[53]

The Storm

The reaction was unprecedentedly violent. Entire episcopal conferences expressed reservations; theologians published manifestos of dissent; part of the clergy and the faithful openly dissented. This open revolt lastingly marked the reception of the pontifical magisterium in the West.^[54] Paul VI was deeply wounded by this: he published no further encyclicals during the last ten years of his reign. But he never retracted.

The First Travels of a Modern Pope

No pope had left Italy for centuries. Paul VI broke with this immobility and became the first “pilgrim pope” of the modern era, visiting all six continents.^[55] As early as January 1964, he traveled to the Holy Land — an unprecedented pilgrimage following in the footsteps of Christ. Then came Bombay for a Eucharistic Congress (December 1964), New York and the UN (1965), Fatima (1967), Istanbul and Ephesus (1967), Bogotá (1968), Geneva (1969), and especially Uganda in July 1969 — the first papal visit to sub-Saharan Africa.^[56] Finally, from November 26 to December 5, 1970, he made his last international journey: a major tour of Asia and the Pacific — Tehran, Dacca, Manila, Samoa, Sydney, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Colombo.^[57] By making the pope a traveler, Montini invented a form of governance that John Paul II would bring to its peak.

The Speech at the UN (October 4, 1965)

The pinnacle of this diplomacy was the speech delivered at the United Nations podium on October 4, 1965, on the twentieth anniversary of the organization. Before representatives from around the world, in the midst of the Cold War and as the Vietnam War intensified, Paul VI made a famous appeal:

“Never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, that must guide the destiny of peoples and all humanity!” — Paul VI, speech at the United Nations, October 4, 1965^[58]

He pleaded for disarmament, for the defense of the weakest, for a brotherhood of nations founded not on fear but on law. The pope of Rome spoke to the world as a moral conscience of humanity — a role the papacy has not relinquished since.

The Manila Assassination Attempt (1970)

Not all travels were peaceful. On November 27, 1970, at Manila airport, a Bolivian painter, Benjamín Mendoza, disguised as a priest, lunged at the pope with a dagger.^[59] Paul VI was slightly wounded in the chest: his secretary Mgr Pasquale Macchi, who had repelled the attacker, attested to it later before the UPI agency.^[60] With remarkable composure, he continued his program without showing any sign — the Vatican, which had denied any wound at the time, only acknowledged its existence after the pope’s death, in 1978.^[61] The episode speaks volumes about the quiet courage of this man reputed to be timid.

Among the most prophetic gestures of the pontificate was the rapprochement with the Christian East. In January 1964, in Jerusalem, Paul VI met the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I: this was the first meeting between the primates of Rome and Constantinople since the Council of Florence (1439).^[62] The embrace of the two men, their exchange of gifts—a golden chalice for a pectoral cross—captured imaginations.

The culmination came on December 7, 1965, the eve of the Council’s closing. Through a joint declaration read simultaneously in Rome and at the Phanar (seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, in Istanbul), Paul VI and Athenagoras decided to erase from the Church’s memory the mutual excommunications of the year 1054—the very acts that had consummated the schism between Catholics and Orthodox.

“[Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras] regret the offensive words, the unfounded accusations, and the condemnable acts which, on both sides, marked or accompanied the sad events of that time, [and] also regret and remove from the memory and midst of the Church the sentences of excommunication.” — Joint Declaration of Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras, December 7, 1965^[63]

The gesture did not restore full communion—it lifted a symbolic obstacle nine centuries old and opened the way for theological dialogue. It was, on Paul VI’s part, a measured boldness: advancing toward unity without ever compromising the faith.

The Reform of the Curia (1967)

The Council had called for a reform of the Church’s central administration. Paul VI implemented it through the apostolic constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae of August 15, 1967, one of the three major Curial reforms since the Council of Trent.^[64] He internationalized the dicasteries, which had been predominantly Italian; limited the terms of department heads to renewable five-year mandates; opened participation in Roman congregations to diocesan bishops; and created new bodies, including a Secretariat for Non-Believers. The Curia ceased to be a purely curial body and became the instrument of a universal Church.

The Synod of Bishops

To continue the collegial spirit of the Council, Paul VI established on September 15, 1965, by motu proprio Apostolica Sollicitudo, the Synod of Bishops: a representative assembly of the worldwide episcopate, regularly convened to advise the pope.^[65] Several synods were held during his reign, including the 1974 synod on evangelization, which produced Evangelii Nuntiandi. The institution survives today as one of the most enduring legacies of his pontificate.

The Reform of the Conclave (1970)

Concerned to prevent papal elections from being dominated by overly elderly cardinals, Paul VI took an unprecedented step in 1970, by motu proprio Ingravescentem Aetatem: from the age of eighty, cardinals lose the right to vote in the conclave.^[66] By the constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo of October 1, 1975, he further set at one hundred and twenty the maximum number of electors.^[67] These measures, initially unpopular among those affected, remain in force: all conclaves since 1978 conform to them.

First Women Doctors of the Church (1970)

A gesture of considerable symbolic importance, Paul VI proclaimed in 1970 the first two women Doctors of the Church: Saint Teresa of Avila on September 27, and Saint Catherine of Siena on October 4.^[68] Until then, this title—reserved for eminent masters of doctrine—had never been conferred on a woman. By recognizing the doctrinal authority of two great mystics, the pope honored the place of women in the Church’s spiritual tradition long before the issue became a societal debate.

Populorum Progressio (1967)

The encyclical Populorum Progressio, dated March 26, 1967, is one of the pinnacles of the Church’s social doctrine in the 20th century. Expanding the perspective of Rerum Novarum from Western labor conflicts to the imbalances between rich and poor nations, Paul VI affirms that development cannot be reduced to economic growth: it must be integral, meaning it promotes the whole person and all people.^[69] The phrase that summarizes the encyclical has become famous:

“If development is the new name for peace, who would not wish to work for it with all their strength?” — Paul VI, encyclical Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967, no. 87^[70]

The text called on wealthy nations to show solidarity, denounced “unbridled liberalism” generating “international imperialism of money,” and advocated for global cooperation.^[71] It remains a major reference in Catholic social teaching.

Octogesima Adveniens (1971)

For the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Paul VI published in 1971 the apostolic letter Octogesima Adveniens, in which he analyzed the new challenges of industrial societies—urbanization, the role of youth and women, the environment, ideologies—and invited Christian communities to discern for themselves, in the light of the Gospel, the concrete commitments to undertake in their situation.^[72] He distanced himself both from liberal ideology and Marxism, refusing to bind the Church to any system.

Vatican Ostpolitik

On the geopolitical front, Paul VI, through his diplomat Agostino Casaroli, initiated a policy of cautious opening toward the communist regimes of the East: the Vatican Ostpolitik.^[73] The goal was to obtain minimal concessions from governments—such as the appointment of bishops and the survival of Catholic structures—in countries where the Church was persecuted. This diplomacy of the lesser evil was criticized by those who saw it as compromise; in reality, it aimed to maintain a Catholic presence where everything pushed toward its extinction, awaiting better days.

The last third of the pontificate unfolded in an atmosphere of crisis. The implementation of the council sometimes degenerated into widespread dissent: massive abandonments of the priesthood and religious life, doctrinal challenges, accelerated secularization of Western society, liturgical abuses. On the opposite side, a traditionalist faction around Mgr Marcel Lefebvre rejected the reforms and slid toward rupture.^[74] Paul VI found himself caught in a vise, accused of betrayal by some and weakness by others.

It was in this context that the pope delivered, on June 29, 1972, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a homily that became famous, in which he gave his darkest diagnosis:

“I have the feeling that, through some fissure, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.” — Paul VI, homily for the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 1972^[75]

Far from being a denunciation of the council—which he defended to the end—this statement targeted the forces that, in his view, sought to stifle the fruits of Vatican II. The pope saw it as the work of a supernatural action of evil, not merely human disorder. This clarity about the spiritual battle at work in the Church’s crisis is one of the keys to his governance in his final years.

The most heartbreaking trial at the end of his life was not ecclesial but human. On March 16, 1978, the Red Brigades kidnapped in Rome Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democracy party and a childhood friend of the pope, after massacring his escort. For fifty-five days, Paul VI multiplied secret efforts to save him. On April 22, 1978, he published an open and moving letter to the kidnappers:

“I beg you on my knees: release Mr. Aldo Moro, simply, without conditions.” — Paul VI, letter to the Red Brigades, April 22, 1978^[76]

The appeal was in vain. On May 9, 1978, Moro’s body was found riddled with bullets in the trunk of a car in Rome. On May 13, despite his illness, the eighty-year-old pope personally presided over the funeral Mass at Saint John Lateran and addressed God with a prayer of rare boldness, revealing the revolt of wounded friendship:

“At this moment, our lips [...] want to open to express the “De profundis,” that is, the cry and lament of the unspeakable pain of the recent tragedy, which stifles our voice. Lord, hear us! And who can hear our lament, if not You again, O God of life and death? You did not grant our plea to spare from death Aldo Moro, that good, gentle, wise, innocent man and friend [...].” — Paul VI, prayer for Mr. Aldo Moro, May 13, 1978^[77]

This cry of a pope daring to tell God that he was not heard remains one of the most poignant texts ever spoken from the papal chair. Those close to the pope agree: this mourning hastened his death less than three months later.

Weakened by arthritis and hardships, Paul VI passed away on August 6, 1978, the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, following a heart attack, at the age of eighty.^[78][79] In accordance with his wishes, his funeral was strikingly simple: no elevated catafalque, but a plain wooden coffin placed directly on the floor of St. Peter’s Square, topped only by the book of the Gospels, its pages turning in the wind.

His spiritual testament, read after his death, expressed his clarity about the contradictions of his time and his ultimate trust:

“I close my eyes on this painful, dramatic, and magnificent earth, calling down upon it once more Divine Goodness.” — Paul VI, Spiritual Testament written on June 30, 1965 and published after his death^[80]

He was buried, as he had requested, in the bare earth of the Vatican grottos, without a monumental tomb.

The cause for Paul VI’s beatification was opened in 1993. On December 20, 2012, Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtue of his life, declaring him Venerable.^[81] The miracle accepted for the beatification concerned an unborn child in the United States: affected by brain malformations detected before birth, while abortion was being advised to his mother, he was born healthy — his mother having refused abortion and sought Paul VI’s intercession through a relic entrusted by a religious sister — and remained in good health until adolescence. The diocesan inquiry, closed in 2006, was judged “medically inexplicable” by the medical board on December 12, 2013, approved by the theologians on February 18, 2014, then by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on May 5, 2014; the decree was promulgated on May 9, 2014.^[82] The Holy See has published the identities of neither the child nor his mother. The beatification took place on October 19, 2014, by Pope Francis, at the conclusion of the Synod on the Family — a highly symbolic choice for the pope of Humanae Vitae.^[83]

A second miracle — the healing of an unborn child in Northern Italy in late 2014, after a premature rupture of membranes around the fifth month of pregnancy — was approved by the theologians on December 13, 2017, then by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on February 6, 2018; the decree was signed on March 6, 2018 and announced on March 7.^[84] There again, the Holy See has published no identity. Paul VI was canonized on October 14, 2018, in St. Peter’s Square by Pope Francis—the same day that Archbishop Oscar Romero was canonized.^[85] The Church set his liturgical feast day on May 29, the anniversary of his priestly ordination in 1920.^[86] Once thought to be a transitional and hesitant pope, he is now counted, alongside John XXIII and John Paul II, among the saints who guided the Church through the twentieth century.

• The Second Vatican Council, the central work of his pontificate, which he brought to completion and implemented
• Pope Saint John XXIII, his predecessor, who convened the council and made him a cardinal
• Pope John Paul I, his immediate successor, with a pontificate of thirty-three days
• Pope Saint John Paul II, who brought the traveling papacy he invented to its peak
• Venerable Pope Pius XII, with whom he closely collaborated in the Secretariat of State
• The Liturgical Movement, whose reforms were implemented during his pontificate
• Rerum Novarum and Social Doctrine, which Populorum Progressio extended on a global scale