Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Paul VI, the man who cracked down on free love during the 1960s and carried out sweeping changes to the Church, became a saint Sunday, along with slain Salvador archbishop Oscar Romero. Giovanni Battista Montini, a softly spoken cardinal from northern Italy, was elected pope in 1963 and held Saint Peter's chair for 15 years in a difficult period for the Roman Catholic Church, which saw many believers and priests up sticks as populist rebellions swept across the West. His papacy was marked by a growing secularisation and liberation of morals, and while the polarisation of Cold War politics did little to ease his rule he was also hampered by a reputation for being weak and overly cautious. But Paul VI is credited with being one of Pope Francis's models, a humble man in many ways, to whom the Argentine pope frequently refers in his speeches. The intellectual Paul VI continued the Second Vatican Council launched by his predecessor Pope John XXIII in 1962, winding it up in 1965 and implementing its numerous reforms, including efforts to dialogue with other religions and a greater role for lay people. He was a pope of great initiative. The first pilgrim pope -- crossing continents on his trips to meet the faithful, he was also the first to attempt to reform the Vatican's powerful Curia, the first to hold weekly general audiences with the common man in Saint Peter's Square and seek the opinions of non believers. He is most famous, however, for reaffirming the Church's ban on artificial contraception -- despite the fact that his own birth control commission, set up to advise the Vatican, voted overwhelming to lift the prohibition. The decision enraged many Catholics at a time when believers were embracing sexual freedom and women were demanding the right to use the birth control pill. - Refusing the papal tiara - Paul VI's path to sainthood began in 2013 when the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved his first miracle, the apparent healing of an unborn child in 2001 in the United States who had a high risk of brain damage. Story continues Doctors offered the mother an abortion, but she refused and instead prayed for Paul VI's intercession using a fragment of the pope's clothing given to her by a nun. Her child is now thirteen and appears to be healthy. Having made saints of John Paul II and John XXIII in a lavish do in 2014, Francis will canonise Montini in a ceremony aimed at honouring a man who, like the 81-year-old current pope, shunned pomp and the spoils of power. Just as Francis refused to wear the traditional gold cross, Paul VI set aside the jewel-encrusted papal tiara shortly after his election in 1963, laying it on the altar of Saint Peter's Basilica and donating its value to the poor. The ceremony coincides with a meeting of the world's bishops, for it was Paul VI who introduced the tradition of holding such synods. The current meeting is being held as the Church struggles to emerge from a series of abuse scandals. Francis was in his late 20s when Paul VI was elected and while it is yet to be seen whether he will stand firmer than the Italian pope, the pair share a sense of humility and openness towards people of all backgrounds. Some of Francis's actions have also echoed those of Paul VI before him, from the latter's historic 1964 encounter in Jerusalem with the Patriarch of Constantinople to his 1965 speech to the United Nations in which he cried out an appeal for "no more war, never again!"<doc-sep>ROME — Pope Francis canonized seven new saints Sunday, including Pope Paul VI, who concluded the Second Vatican Council, and Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated while celebrating Mass in 1980. Paul VI was pope from 1963 to 1978 and oversaw the close of the Second Vatican Council, which introduced sweeping changes in the church, including the introduction of the use of local languages in the liturgy and a rapprochement between Catholics and other religions, notably the Jews. The pope’s most controversial move during his turbulent, 15-year pontificate was the publication of the 1968 encyclical letter titled Humanae Vitae (“On Human Life”), which confirmed the church’s longstanding teaching regarding the immorality of the use of contraceptives to avoid pregnancy. Many inside and outside the church had expected Paul to overturn traditional teaching on contraception, along with the majority of the members of a special commission Paul had set up to study the question. Pope Francis chose the year 2018 — the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae — for the canonization of Paul VI. Francis has often voiced his personal regard for Paul VI and has held up Humanae Vitae as a critically important document for today’s world. In his 2016 letter, Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), Francis cited Humanae Vitae four times, insisting that the teaching of Humanae Vitae “ought to be taken up anew in order to counter a mentality that is often hostile to life.” A crowd of some 70,000 pilgrims, visitors, and dignitaries overflowed Saint Peter’s Square onto the Via della Conciliazione for the outdoor ceremony Sunday that took place under sunny Roman skies. Among those attending the canonization Mass were Queen Sofia of Spain and the presidents of Italy, Chile, El Salvador, and Panama. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was also present. Pope Paul VI is venerated among Anglicans, having reopened ecumenical dialogue with the Anglican communion in 1966 through a historic meeting in the Vatican with the archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey. For his part, Archbishop Oscar Romero was a controversial figure for his outspoken criticism of the Salvadoran military government during the 1970s. Touted as a champion of the poor for his denunciation of oppression, critics considered him to have crossed the bounds between pastoral leadership and partisan politics. In his homily during Mass, Pope Francis said that Paul VI “spent his life for Christ’s Gospel, crossing new boundaries and becoming its witness in proclamation and in dialogue, a prophet of a Church turned outwards, looking to those far away and taking care of the poor.” Even in the midst of fatigue and misunderstanding, Francis said, “Paul VI bore witness in a passionate way to the beauty and the joy of following Christ totally.” “Today he still urges us, together with the Council whose wise helmsman he was, to live our common vocation: the universal call to holiness. Not to half measures, but to holiness,” he said. For his part, Archbishop Romero, the pope said, “left the security of the world, even his own safety, in order to give his life according to the Gospel, close to the poor and to his people, with a heart drawn to Jesus and his brothers and sisters.” Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome<doc-sep>next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 The Latest on Catholic Church canonizations on Sunday (all times local). 10:45 p.m. Pope Francis has declared Pope Paul VI and slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero saints, reciting in Latin the rite of canonization at the start of Mass in St. Peter's Square. After hearing brief biographies of Paul, Romero and five other people canonized Sunday, Francis declared them saints and "decreed that they are to be venerated as such by the whole church." The crowd of thousands in St. Peter's Square applauded as Francis pronounced the rite. Among them were some 5,000 Salvadoran pilgrims who traveled to Rome to honor their hero, Romero, who stood up to El Salvador's brutal military dictatorship to defend the rights of the poor and was slain as he said Mass. ___ 8 a.m. Pope Francis is presiding over the canonization of two of the towering figures of the 20th-century Catholic Church: Pope Paul VI, who oversaw the modernizing church reforms of the 1960s, and Archbishop Oscar Romero, a human rights icon who was murdered for his defense of El Salvador's poor. In a sign of the strong influence both men had on history's first Latin American pope, Francis wore the blood-stained rope belt that Romero wore when he was gunned down in 1980 and also used Paul VI's staff, chalice and pallium vestment. As Francis processed in at the start of Mass, portraits of the two men fluttered in the breeze from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, along with five others being canonized in a service aimed at showing young people that holiness can be achieved in every walk of life. Some 5,000 Salvadoran pilgrims travelled to Rome and tens of thousands more Salvadorans stayed up all night at home to watch it on giant TV screens outside the San Salvador cathedral where Romero's remains are entombed. For many it was the culmination of a fraught and politicized campaign to have the church formally honor a man who publicly denounced the repression by El Salvador's military dictatorship at the start of the country's 1980-1992 civil war.<doc-sep>The embroidered banner-portraits of the seven people Pope Francis will proclaim saints already hang on the façade of Saint Peter’s Basilica ahead of the solemn ceremony Sunday. The new tombstone and mosaic portrait of one of them, Pope Paul VI, the somber, timid pope of the turbulent 60s, is already in place in the crypt of St. Peter’s with his title changed from “Beatus” (blessed) to “Sanctus” (saint) above his name. Among those who will be canonized Sunday with Pope Paul are four religious figures: Mother Catherine Kasper, the German founder of a religious congregation; Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa, the Spanish founder of another order; and two Italian priests, Father Francesco Spinelli and Father Vincenzo Romano. Added to the list in July, after the ceremony had already been announced, is a teenager, Blessed Nunzio Sulprizio, who died in Naples in 1836 at the age of 19 after a life of pain and suffering. This high church ceremony is taking place during the month-long synod of bishops in the Vatican, which has gathered over 200 bishops, including about 50 cardinals, and nearly 40 young people to discuss youth, faith and vocations. Sulprizio was beatified — the first step to sainthood — by Pope Paul VI in 1963, and they will both become saints in the same ceremony. But the focus of many attending the ceremony will be on Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was murdered in March 1980 while celebrating mass in his church. Nobody was ever convicted for the crime but strong evidence indicates he was assassinated by an extreme right-wing death squad. Romero is already revered as a saint and hero by Catholics across the Americas and around the world. A large crowd of about 7,000 Salvadorans have come to the Vatican for the vigil ceremony Saturday night and canonization ceremony Sunday. Celebrations are also planned in El Salvador and in other cities around the world especially in Los Angeles, which has the largest community of Salvadorans outside the country. Romero is considered to be a hero of the church of the poor as he spoke out against social injustice and violence during a time of deep upheaval and divisions in his country. A crowd of more than 100,000 people were attending Romero’s funeral when the military fired on the crowd, killing dozens of mourners. Romero’s sainthood cause, which was started in 1997, had been blocked for years during the papacies of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI by the Roman curia and South American cardinals for political and theological reasons. Francis, the first Pope from the Americas, formally decreed in 2015 that Romero had been assassinated as a martyr and Romero was beatified in San Salvador in May of that year. Recognizing Romero as a martyr-saint will probably lead to the canonization of other murdered Latin American bishops including Enrique Angelelli, assassinated in 1976 during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Both Pope Paul and Romero are very significant figures for the present Pontiff and Pope Paul VI was the pope during Romero’s life. He was also Pope during Francis’ youth and that of many of the older bishops and cardinals gathered in the Vatican for the synod. Pope Paul VI is mainly remembered as the Pope who closed the Second Vatican Council in 1965, followed through with the reforms of the Catholic church and for his encyclical Humanae Vitae, published in 1968, which spelled out the Catholic position on birth control. He was also known for his attention to the church in Latin America and for his focus on helping the poor.<doc-sep>
Pope Francis has made saints of two of the most contentious Roman Catholic figures of the 20th century – the murdered Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Romero and Pope Paul VI, who reigned over one of the church’s most turbulent eras and enshrined its opposition to contraception. In a ceremony before tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Francis declared the two men saints along with five other lesser-known people who were born in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both Romero, who was shot by a rightwing death squad while saying mass in 1980, and Paul, who guided the church through the conclusion of the modernising 1962-65 second Vatican council, were controversial figures both within and outside the church. Both had a lasting influence on the current pontiff, Francis, Latin America’s first pope. In his homily, Francis called Paul “a prophet of an extroverted church” who opened it up to the world. He praised Romero for disregarding his own life “to be close to the poor and to his people”. Romero, who had often denounced repression and poverty in his homilies, was shot dead on 24 March 1980, in a hospital chapel in San Salvador. Romero’s murder was one of the most shocking in the long conflict between a series of US-backed governments and leftist rebels in which thousands were killed by rightwing and military death squads. Romero consistently denounced violence by the Salvadoran military and paramilitary against civilians, and urged the international community to stop the oppression. Crowds in the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador, celebrate Óscar Romero’s canonisation. Photograph: Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images The 1979-1992 war in El Salvador between the US-backed army and the Marxist guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which later became the ruling party, left 75,000 dead and 8,000 missing. Romero became an icon for Latin America’s poor, appearing on T-shirts similar to those bearing the image of Che Guevara, but his sainthood ran into stiff opposition in the Vatican and among powerful conservatives in the Latin American church. Both feared that Romero had become too political in life and even more so in death. The process languished for decades. Francis speeded it up after his election in 2013, and in 2015 the Vatican declared that Romero had died a martyr, killed out of hatred for the faith. Paul VI, a shy man described by biographers as a sometimes indecisive figure, guided the church through the conclusion of the second Vatican council, which had started under his predecessor, and the implementation of its reforms. He was elected in 1963 and died in 1978. Francis often quotes Paul, showing that he is committed to the reforms of the council, which allowed mass to be said in local languages instead of Latin, declared respect for other religions and launched a landmark reconciliation with the Jewish people. Ultra-conservatives in the church do not recognise the council’s teachings and blame Paul for starting what they see as a decline in tradition. Pope Francis leads the canonisation mass. Photograph: Giuseppe Lami/EPA Despite his many reforms, Paul is perhaps best known for his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), which enshrined the church’s ban on artificial birth control, saying nothing should block the possible transmission of human life. The ban, which Paul issued against the advice of a papal commission, became the most contested church ruling of the 20th century and is widely disregarded by Catholics. Paul is the third pope made a saint by Francis since his election in 2013. The others are John XXIII, who died in 1963, and John Paul II, who died in 2005.