The popes of the 20th century deserve special mention., especially Paul VI

The popes of the 20th century deserve special mention., especially Paul VI (1963-1978) and John Paul II, that fill the last decades of the century, and whose pontificates have determined with special intensity the historical course of the Church. Some have said, somewhat frivolously, that Paul VI was the first modern pope.. The truth is that Juan Bautista Montini had a very clear perception about the need for a change in the Church., so that this, whose fundamental vocation was the missio ad gentes, never resemble a mere spiritual refuge for good souls. He knew well that a Church without a world necessarily produced a world without a Church., and therefore without Gospel. Paul VI was a man of culture and, At the same time, of traditional instincts, very aware of what the papal ministry meant inside and outside the Church. He kept open the windows that John XXIII opened, but he kept looking at the thermometer, to avoid temperature drops. He accepted the papacy with enthusiasm and a high awareness of his mission and what needed to be done.. But he sensed that his pontificate was going to be stormy and difficult.. In an early speech to the cardinals and bishops of the Curia, Paul VI recalled that the red color that many of them wore in their clothing was an allusion to the fact that the prelates of the Church had to be ready for martyrdom., If that was the path arranged by divine providence for them to fulfill their mission. It has been spoken about afterwards, the pontificate having already concluded, of the martyrdom of Paul VI, because he himself had to accept and live a bloodless and silent ???????, with the spirit lacerated by the evils of the Church, that I could hardly have imagined. John Paul II has completed the change initiated by Paul VI in the papal style of governing the Church. His has already been a pontificate as decisive as it was turbulent.. The populist tone of direct contact with the reality of the world and of Christians, It is symbolized and expressed in