Saint Paul VI

Giovanni Battista Montini was the second of three sons born near Brescia in northern Italy. His father, Giorgio, was a lawyer, editor, and eventually a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. His mother, Giuditta, was  involved in Catholic Action.

After ordination in 1920, Giovanni did graduate studies in literature, philosophy, and canon law in Rome before he joined the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1924, where he worked for 30 years. In 1954, he was named archbishop of Milan, where he sought to win disaffected workers back to the Catholic Church. He called himself the “archbishop of the workers” and visited factories regularly while overseeing the rebuilding of a local Church disrupted by World War II.

The first of 23 cardinals named by Pope John XXIII, two months after the latter’s election as pope, Cardinal Montini helped to prepare Vatican II and participated in its first sessions. He was elected pope in June 1963 and continued the Vatican Council, Which concluded onon December 8, 1965. Also in 1965, he instituted the World Synod of Bishops.

He died at Castel Gandolfo on August 6, 1978, and was buried in Saint Peter’s Basilica. He was beatified on October 19, 2014, and canonized on October 14, 2018.