Pope St. Paul VI, 1963 – 1978

Today, June 29, is the Memorial of Pope St. Paul VI, who was pope from 1963 to 1978.

Pope Paul’s claim to fame, if you will, was his overseeing the last three sessions of the Second Vatican Council and his attempt to implement the norms of the Council in the life of the Church during the 1960s and 70s. The debate is still ongoing as to whether he succeeded in that effort.

Giovanni Cardinal Montini, then patriarch of Milan, was summoned by Pope St. John XXIII to be a member of the commission that would plan for the Second Vatican Council. The first session, from October to December, 1962 was called to order and overseen by “Good Pope John.” John had recognized the need for a Council to open the windows and allow fresh air into the Church, which he felt had become moribund in her thinking and actions in the world. A new, dynamic world had sprung from the ashes of World War II, a world with increased opportunities, but also significant dangers, most apparent being the possibility of nuclear war. Not only nuclear war, but poverty, political freedom, basic human rights, were all threatening or being threatened by political movements, especially in the East, but not excluding the West. Within the Church herself, a new way of thinking and interacting with the world needed to be adopted if the Church was going to be relevant in addressing these new opportunities and threats. The Church needed to speak to a contemporary world with a contemporary voice, while not surrendering the truth of the ages.

Unfortunately, there are always those who exploit every honest effort at reform into an agenda for radical and swift change, no questions asked. As such, much of the Church, including that of the United States, came too much under the influence of those more interested in talking about and acting on modern politcial and social issues than they were in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why does it always seem to go that way? People in the Church want genuine, meaningful change in society, and for some reason think they have to surrender the core of the gospel, the Church’s mission, to achieve that goal. Pope St. Paul VI proved that such was not necessary. Two of his most important encyclicals demonstrate that the mission of the Church is to both improve the lives of those living in this temporal order, and the responsibility to carry out the mission of proclaiming the gospel without fear or hesitation.

In 1967, Paul VI promulgated Populorum progressio, an encyclical that promoted the development of an economy that is centered on the priority of people rather than profits. This is not to say that profit is bad. Businesses exist to make profit so they can support the family of the business owner and employees. But excess profits ought to be dedicated to human needs, the social, spiritual, educational, and material needs of humans, and not to simply making owners or investors more and more money. Paul wrote that, while private property is a right, it is not an absolute right. No one has a right to hoard resources while others lack basic needs. Wealthy nations, the saintly Holy Father insisted, have a responsibility to assist impoverished nations in the efforts to advance. This would involve paying fair prices for imported goods.

While speaking to the real temporal needs of the human community, Paul did not neglect the primary mission of the Church: to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 1975, Pope St. Paul promulgated Evangelii nuntiandi to address the need for the Church to look to Jesus as the model evangelist, to embrace the proclamation of the good news of Jesus as the primary mission of the Church, to live lives of authentic witness to the good news of Jesus (no sour-faced saints, here!), and to recognize that evangelization, ultimately, is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Sadly, many in the Church have forgotten these important contributions by Paul VI. Populorum progressio is an important contribution to the Church social teaching and Evangelii nuntiandi still inspires Catholics committed to the ministry of evangelization.

Pope Paul’s other claim to fame is his encyclical Humanae vitae, in which he reiterated the Church’s teaching on contraceptives and that the teaching would not be changed. The encyclical has been judged largely a failure. Catholics contracept at about the same rate as non-Catholics. But that’s nothing new. In the fifth century, St. Jerome lamented how few Catholics followed the Church’s ban on the use of contraceptives. The document itself is a masterpiece on the matters of human dignity and sexuality. It is now seen as prescient in predicting the consequences of a wide acceptance of contraceptives, including:

1. lowering of moral standards, especially an increase in marital infidelity
2. governments forcing contraceptives on women and married couples
3. general loss of respect for women, and
4. a loss of humility in the face of nature, with humans believing they can become masters with “unlimited dominion” over their own bodies, even altering the natural designs of their bodies.

I think only the most obtuse would deny that each of these predictions has come true. Infidelity remains a huge problem among married couples. While research doesn’t support the claim that physical cheating has risen over the decades, new types of cheating, such as emotional affairs, sexting, etc. have entered the scene and are widely practiced. Also, let’s face it, when people talk about infidelity these days, they’re just as likely talking about unmarried, dating couples who are sexually active and cheating on each other as they are of married couples. There is also the phenomenon of multiple marraiges, which would certainly constitute cheating in the Church’s eyes, having become accepted, perhaps because of our celebrity culture, where multiple marriages are almost common and the couple that stays together are the exception. Research on the question focuses on people who have been married three or more times. Rates of multiple marriages have not increased, but the acceptance of divorce and remarriage has increased. And, while it’s true that the divorce rate in the U.S. has held steady, it’s also true that the rate of people getting married has dropped significantly. In the 1970s, two-thirds of Americans were married. Today, that percentage is less than half (though a majority still hope to wed). Also, while cohabitation remains rare (only 8% – though in 1970 it was essentially zero), it has become widely accepted, another indicator of a weaker moral foundation in society. The number of children born out of wedlock, most with no father in their lives, is an especially dangerous trend.

While there are no reports of governments passing laws requiring the use of contraceptives today, China, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and plenty of others, including the U.S., have a history of such, and the expectation of using contraceptives is strong in our culture, even to the point of doctors pressuring patients to use contraception. General loss of respect for women? Let’s see, men are now allowed to play in girls and women’s sports, and motherhood is certainly denigrated by many in our country. Women, at the very least, do not feel respected, and that’s a problem. Perception is everything. When society tells you that men can get pregnant, and you’re expected to go along with that pretense, I can see how that might make a woman feel less than respected. Finally, a loss of humility among people in the face of nature is testified to in the trend of people claiming their own truth, the manipulation of genes to create designer babies, and the charade that surgery and hormonal therapy can change a man into a woman, or vice verse.

Whether or not they are the result of the wide acceptance of contraceptives may be debated, of course. But there can be no doubt that each of these were predicted by a pope who warned against the widespread acceptance of contraceptives, and that each of these is now our reality. As such, Paul VI may have been as much a prophet as a pope.

Today, however, we look to Pope Paul VI as a saint. We look to his humility, his spirituality, and to his suffering. It is said he suffered greatly as pontiff. I can imagine. He put so much work into contributing ideas to make the world a better place, a more peaceful place, a fairer place, and a place more imbued with the values of the gospel. Yet, did he succeed? He must have looked back on the years of his pontificate and wondered what good he had accomplished. Then again, as a saint, he might just as well have looked back on the years of his pontificate with confidence that Jesus is the Lord of history, and that fact alone is our only hope.

Prayer: Pope Saint Paul VI, you were a faithful servant of Christ and His Church. You prayerfully sought to share the ancient and glorious faith of the Church with the whole world in any way you could. Please pray for me, that I will also be a faithful servant of Christ’s Church, doing all I can to further its mission of bringing the grace and mercy of God to all. Pope Saint Paul VI, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You. (from: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/saint-paul-vi/)

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.