St. Paul VI

Who they were

Giovanni Battista Montini became Paul VI in 1963 with the Second Vatican Council open, its author dead, and every faction certain of what St. John XXIII would have wanted. He chose continuation: reconvened the Council, steered it, closed it, and then spent thirteen years implementing it through storms from both directions, which is the work he was canonized for.

The firsts were vivid. The first pope to fly, a pilgrim to six continents, the man who embraced Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem after nine centuries of cold silence, and who told the United Nations in 1965 that there must be no more war, never again war. Populorum Progressio reframed development as a matter of justice. Humanae Vitae in 1968 reaffirmed the Church's teaching on contraception into a headwind, and the storm over its reception is part of his history rather than a footnote to it. He sold the papal tiara for the poor and never wore one again. He died on the Transfiguration in 1978 and was canonized in 2018. His feast is his ordination day.

Why people turn to St. Paul VI

Everyone finishing a predecessor's work, with St. Matthias, which is the particular loneliness of the successor: you did not choose the vision and you are the one who has to land it. Leaders governing a divided house. Travellers, by the pilgrim firsts.

How to ask their intercession

At the handoff, for his specific grace: fidelity to a vision you did not originate, steered without surrendering it to either flank.