VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis beatified Pope Paul VI on
Sunday at the end of a remarkable meeting of Catholic bishops discussing family
life, marriage, divorce, sex and gay unions. Paul VI oversaw the Second Vatican
Council, the 1962-65 world-wide church meetings which brought the Catholic
Church into modern times. The parallels between Francis and Paul, and the
divisive issues both men confronted, are significant. Here are 5 Things to Know
about Paul VI.
BIO
Paul VI was born Giovanni Battista Montini near Brescia in
northern Italy on Sept. 26, 1897. After joining the Vatican's secretariat of
state in 1922, he became one of Pope Pius XII's closest collaborators,
instrumental in the Vatican's efforts to save Roman Jews from Nazi persecution
during World War II. In 1954 he became archbishop of Milan. During the conclave
of June 1963, Montini was elected to succeed the popular John XXIII and took
the name Paul, seen as an indication that his papacy would be missionary and
outward looking. He was the first pope to travel outside Italy, making nine
trips, including the Middle East, United States, India, and the Philippines,
where in 1970 he survived an assassination attempt. He died unexpectedly while
at the papal summer residence near Rome on Aug. 6, 1978.
SIMILARITIES TO POPE FRANCIS
Shortly after his installation, Paul sold the tiara with
which he was crowned and donated the proceeds to the poor. Also quietly but
systematically, he trimmed down the pomp and circumstance of the papacy, doing
away with the noble guards at the Vatican though he retained the throne that
popes were carried around on. Francis has followed in his footsteps, living in
the Vatican hotel rather than the papal apartments, wearing simple vestments
and restricting the honorary titles of "monsignor" for prelates.
During Sunday's Mass, Francis wore a simple chausible given to Paul VI for his
80th birthday and he used Paul's simple silver staff. Both men suffered from
health problems: Paul VI's health was so frail he lived at home during his
seminary years; Francis lost most of one lung to an infection when he was a
young man.
VATICAN II
Vatican II, the 1962-65 world-wide church meetings, opened
the way for Mass to be said in local languages instead of in Latin. It also
encouraged more involvement of the laity in the life of the church and
revolutionized its relations with other Christian communities and Jews.
"Nostra Aetate" was the transformative council document that
repudiated centuries of Christian teaching that Jews bore collective guilt for
Christ's death. Paul also inaugurated the synod system of consultation of the
early church that Vatican II called for. Francis has reinvigorated the synod
system to make it a truly freeing debate. The ideological divisions that split
the council fathers during Vatican II were very much on view during Francis'
first synod that just ended.
BIRTH CONTROL
Paul disappointed many Catholics who were hoping for
liberalization of church teaching on sexuality as a result of Vatican II. Paul
reserved the issue to himself and commissioned experts to report back, and the
majority favored an opening in the church's position on artificial birth
control. But after much personal anguish and prayer, Paul enshrined the
church's opposition to artificial contraception in the 1968 encyclical
"Humanae Vitae" ("Of Human Life"), which remains its
teaching to this day. In his final testament, he dedicated his pontificate to
the "protection of the faith and the defense of human life."
ALDO MORO
One of the greatest pains of Paul's life was the kidnapping
and killing of his life-long friend and former Italian premier, Aldo Moro, in
the spring of 1978 by the Red Brigades terrorist group. Paul penned a
heart-felt letter to the kidnappers, "on my knees" begging them to
release his friend "without condition." His bullet-ridden body was
eventually found in the back of a car in downtown Rome. The Moro family, upset
at the plea for an unconditional release, refused to attend the state funeral
in Rome's St. John Lateran basilica, which Paul presided over.
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