Pope Paul VI

I should not seek outside help to absolve me from my duty; my duty is too plain: decide, assume every responsibility for guiding others, even when it seems illogical and perhaps absurd. And to suffer alone… Me and God.

Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms, and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.

Quotes

Pope Paul VI after his election with the first and only Catholic U.S. president with whom he visited as pope, John F. Kennedy, 2 July 1963

• We find sin the perversion of human freedom, and the deep cause of death, because it is separation from God, the source of life...and then, in its turn, the occasion and effect of an intervention in us and in our world of an obscure agent, the Devil. Evil is not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting. A terrible reality. Mysterious and frightening. It is contrary to the teaching of the Bible and the Church to refuse to recognize the existence of such a reality, or to regard it as a principle in itself which does not draw its origin from God like every other creature; or to explain it as a pseudoreality, a conceptual and fanciful personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes.
  • "Deliver Us from Evil", General Audience of Pope Paul VI, November 15, 1972
• I was solitary before, but now my solitariness becomes complete and awesome. Hence the dizziness, the vertigo. Like a statue on a plinth-that is how I live now. Jesus also was alone on the cross. I should not seek outside help to absolve me from my duty; my duty is too plain: decide, assume every responsibility for guiding others, even when it seems illogical and perhaps absurd. And to suffer alone… Me and God. The colloquy must be full and endless.
  • private note to himself of the solitude that infallibility and the papal office

• HUMANAE VITAE tradendae munus gravissimum, ex quo coniuges liberam et consciam Deo Creatori tribuunt operam, magnis semper ipsos affecit gaudiis, quae tamen aliquando non paucae difficultates et angustiae sunt secutae.
  • HUMANAE VITAE
  • Translation: The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships.
    • Official Vatican translation.

• Nemo sane christifidelium eat infitias, ad Ecclesiae Magisterium interpretationem legis moralis naturalis spectare.
  • HUMANAE VITAE
  • Translation: No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law
    • Official Vatican translation.

• De propaganda prole quaestio, non secus atque quaelibet quaestio humanam vitam attingens, ultra particulares alias eiusdem generis rationes - cuiusmodi eae sunt, quae biologicae aut psychologicae, demographicae aut sociologicae appellantur
  • HUMANAE VITAE
  • Translation: The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life, involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology.
    • Official Vatican translation.

• L'arte di Ibrahim Kodra è un messaggio di pace.
  • Ibrahim Kodra's art is a message of peace. Fondazione Ibrahim Kodra

• Sacro autem baptismate ablutis, matrimonium eiusmodi praeditum est dignitate, ut gratiae sacramentale signum exsistat, cum Christi et Ecclesiae coniunctionem designet.
  • HUMANAE VITAE
  • Translation: The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church.
    • Official Vatican translation.

• Ad hoc, coniugalis amor et fidelis et exclusorius est, usque ad vitae extremum;
  • HUMANAE VITAE
  • Translation: Married love is also faithful and exclusive of all other, and this until death.
    • Official Vatican translation.

• Si deinde ad impulsus innatos et ad animi affectus spectamus, paternitas conscia necessariam declarat dominationem, quam ratio et voluntas in eosdem exerceant necesse est.
  • HUMANAE VITAE
  • Translation: With regard to man's innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man's reason and will must exert control over them.
    • Official Vatican translation.

• It is as if from some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.
  • June 29, 1972 homily.

• Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes.
  • SACERDOTALIS CAELIBATUS

• If evils increase, the devotion of the People of God should also increase.
  • CHRISTI MATRI

About Pope Paul VI

• Was Paul VI's papacy a heroic one? In a way, I think the answer is yes. But his heroism was essentially tragic.

• I for one find it much easier to sympathise with the Arnoldian gloom of Paul looking quietly at the ruin of the Church than with the glad-handing U2 world-tour optimism of St. John Paul II,

• • Matthew Walther, The Consoling Gloom of Paul VI

See also

• Nostra aetate

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Pope Paul VI on Wikipedia
• Media related to Paulus VI on Wikimedia Commons