The man who said no to free love: Paul VI becomes saint
Jean-Louis de la Vaissiere,AFP
5 hours ago
Giovanni Battista Montini, a softly spoken cardinal from northern Italy, was elected pope in 1963 and held Saint Peter's chair for 15 years in a difficult period for the Roman Catholic Church, which saw many believers and priests up sticks as populist rebellions swept across the West.
His papacy was marked by a growing secularisation and liberation of morals, and while the polarisation of Cold War politics did little to ease his rule he was also hampered by a reputation for being weak and overly cautious.
But Paul VI is credited with being one of Pope Francis's models, a humble man in many ways, to whom the Argentine pope frequently refers in his speeches.
The intellectual Paul VI continued the Second Vatican Council launched by his predecessor Pope John XXIII in 1962, winding it up in 1965 and implementing its numerous reforms, including efforts to dialogue with other religions and a greater role for lay people.
He was a pope of great initiative. The first pilgrim pope -- crossing continents on his trips to meet the faithful, he was also the first to attempt to reform the Vatican's powerful Curia, the first to hold weekly general audiences with the common man in Saint Peter's Square and seek the opinions of non believers.
He is most famous, however, for reaffirming the Church's ban on artificial contraception -- despite the fact that his own birth control commission, set up to advise the Vatican, voted overwhelming to lift the prohibition.
The decision enraged many Catholics at a time when believers were embracing sexual freedom and women were demanding the right to use the birth control pill.
- Refusing the papal tiara -
Paul VI's path to sainthood began in 2013 when the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved his first miracle, the apparent healing of an unborn child in 2001 in the United States who had a high risk of brain damage.
Doctors offered the mother an abortion, but she refused and instead prayed for Paul VI's intercession using a fragment of the pope's clothing given to her by a nun. Her child is now thirteen and appears to be healthy.
Having made saints of John Paul II and John XXIII in a lavish do in 2014, Francis will canonise Montini in a ceremony aimed at honouring a man who, like the 81-year-old current pope, shunned pomp and the spoils of power.
Just as Francis refused to wear the traditional gold cross, Paul VI
set aside the jewel-encrusted papal tiara shortly after his election in
1963, laying it on the altar of Saint Peter's Basilica and donating its
value to the poor.
The ceremony coincides with a meeting of the world's bishops, for it was Paul VI who introduced the tradition of holding such synods.
The current meeting is being held as the Church struggles to emerge from a series of abuse scandals.
Francis was in his late 20s when Paul VI was elected and while it is yet to be seen whether he will stand firmer than the Italian pope, the pair share a sense of humility and openness towards people of all backgrounds.
The ceremony coincides with a meeting of the world's bishops, for it was Paul VI who introduced the tradition of holding such synods.
The current meeting is being held as the Church struggles to emerge from a series of abuse scandals.
Francis was in his late 20s when Paul VI was elected and while it is yet to be seen whether he will stand firmer than the Italian pope, the pair share a sense of humility and openness towards people of all backgrounds.
Some of Francis's actions have
also echoed those of Paul VI before him, from the latter's historic 1964
encounter in Jerusalem with the Patriarch of Constantinople to his 1965
speech to the United Nations in which he cried out an appeal for "no
more war, never again!"
7 comments:
Recently when I opened a form letter I had received from a group of missionary sisters who serve in a number of places including Ecuador.
After a recent earthquake in that country, some of the sisters came across a young girl who was in shock, covered in dirt, and standing next to a collapsed structure. She was also clutching an old t-shirt.
The sisters took her in, washed her, and clothed her. She would not give up the t-shirt though. When someone tried talking her in giving it to them, she would clutch it tighter. Months later it was noticed that she still had it.
Eventually the sisters found why the shirt meant so much to her. It turned out that it was all she had left of her father who had perished in the earthquake. Her father had meant the world to her and so she continued to cling to the one thing she still had of his. A story such as this can cause us to ponder and reflect on the value of every human life and that each of us was created in the image and likeness of God Himself.
When we consider how this child felt toward her father, doesn't this serve as an example of how optimally, our relationship to God should be? That no matter what, we will not succumb to anyone or anything that would disrupt, take us away from, or bring about an end to our relationship with Him and His Church.
I re-submitted my original comment with corrections. That's what happens when
one gets in a hurry.
I wonder what Paul VI would have thought of Cupich of Chicago thinking it's just fine for gay couples to present themselves for Holy Communion? In my opinion, we are in schism and the greatest enemies of Christ and His Church are found from within.
Long after our temporal existence has ceased, when in some future day the liturgy is celebrated in whatever form that is allowed and permitted, Humanae Vitae will stand as a salient testament, a sure and true proclamation of Eternal Truth; a refutation of the unholy excesses and effluvia permeating the ethos of our time.
Interesting, at least to me, film of Pope Saint Paul VI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2OjXwbOftA
Pax.
Mark Thomas
When someone has 'a high risk' of developing brain damage, but doesn't, that's not a miracle. That's like saying if the weatherman says there's an 80% chance of rain and all we get is partly cloudy, it must be divine intervention.
The hierarchy's credibility is bad enough, what with financial corruption and rampant sexual perversion. It's only worsened by these bogus canonisations.
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