Pope Paul VI to be beatified today

by Edmond Weerapperuma

Pope Paul VI will be declared Blessed by Pope Francis today at the Pontifical High Mass at the closing session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family. The Synod commenced on October 5.

Pope Paul VI was the first Pope to visit Sri Lanka on December 4, 1970. The Pontiff held Mass with the then Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Thomas Cooray at the Bandaranaike International Airport.

The Catholic media reported that Pope Francis signed a decree on Friday recognising a miracle attributed to the intercession of Pope Paul, who led the Church from 1963 to 1978. The Holy Father has also approved October 19 as the beatification date. The miracle signified the birth of a baby in California in the 1990s. According to reports, a pregnant woman was advised by doctors to have an abortion because her life and that of her baby were at risk.

Instead, she sought prayers from a friend, an Italian nun, who placed on the woman's belly a blessed photograph of Pope Paul VI and a piece of vestment, the Venerable had worn. The baby was born healthy.

Pope Francis had signed a decree on May 9 recognising a miracle attributed to the intercession of Pope Paul V1.

When St John XXIII died in 1963, Pope Paul reconvened the Second Vatican Council, presided over the final three of its four sessions and oversaw the promulgation of all of the Council's documents. He also led the procedure of implementing the Council's reforms.

Pope Paul VI was the first pope in the modern era to travel abroad, visiting Jordan and Israel in January 1964, Lebanon and India in December 1964, the United Nations and New York in October 1965, the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugual in May 1967, Turkey in July 1967, Colombia and Bermuda in August 1968, Switzerland in June 1969, Uganda in July-August 1969, and Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoan Islands, Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka in November-December 1970.

Born Giovanni Battista Montini in 1897 in the northern Italian province of Brescia, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1920 and was named archbishop of Milan in 1954. Elected Pope in 1963, he died at the Papal Summer Villa in Castel Gandolfo on August 6, 1978.

[Pope Paul V1, the humble servant of God]

Pope Paul VI born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini on September 26, 1897 reigned from June 21, 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XX111 he continued the Second Vatican Councill which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms, and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.

Montini served in the Vatican Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954.

While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenco Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential co-workers of Pope Pius X11, who in 1954, named him Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian iocese, while not naming Montini a cardinal, a designation that traditionally accompanies the position; Montini automatically became the ecretary of the Italian Bishops Conference.

John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors. Paul VI was a Marian devotee, speaking repeatedly to Marian congresses and mariological meetings, visiting Marian shrines and issuing three Marian encyclicals. Following his famous predecessor Saint Ambrose of Milan, he named Mary as the Mother of the Church during the Second Vatican Council.