Paul VI canonization in October

by Gabriele Cantaluppi

The faithful «today goes to the cinema, and everything appears clear to him; he goes to the theater and the same thing happens; he turns on the radio and television and everything is understandable to him", then "he finally goes to mass, and he understands nothing about everything that happens in front of him". These words, written in the letter on liturgical education for Lent in 1958, four years after his entry into the diocese, would be enough to give a glimpse of the soul with which Giovanni Battista Montini welcomed his commitment as archbishop of Milan. He recognized the specificity of Milan in the Italian national panorama, a city launched at breakneck speed towards modernity and economic development, in a very difficult historical moment, in which the economic problems of reconstruction, immigration from the south, the spread of atheism emerged and Marxism within the world of work. 

Milan was still in an era of substantial stability in Christian practice, but the new archbishop immediately understood the "material presence of Christians in the face of their spiritual absence", as he himself wrote, calling the metropolis the city of "time is money" (time is money). He therefore saw a Church "that must not follow, but guide and precede progress", because "Christianity must draw on its genuine sources, not replacing a small religion in a big way".

From Rome, on the rainy 6 January 1955, the day of his entry into the diocese, he had brought a wagon with ninety cases of books. He had been a deputy at the Vatican Secretariat of State and then a diplomat for thirty years in the Vatican, with a very brief period following the nuncio Monsignor Lorenzo Lauri in Poland: a pure intellectual? The facts would have demonstrated his strong pastoral sense.

«Non nova, sed nove»: in Milan we don't need new things, but a "new way", he declared while sitting on the Ambrosian chair and in his first speech he had his identity clear: «Apostle and bishop I am; pastor and father, teacher and minister of the Gospel; My role among you is no other." An unusual gesture for those times, which he would later repeat in his apostolic journeys as Pope, would mark the imprint of his ministry: he bent down to kiss the ground of his apostolate, as if to express an inseparable bond with it.

Modern man: who is «disorbitant, because he has lost his true orientation, which consists in looking towards the sky, is similar to someone who has left his house and has lost the key to get back in; in short, he is a blind giant": he therefore invited a dynamic and industrious city to "think of God", even in concrete activities. 

During the years of his Ambrosian episcopate he did not neglect to visit the numerous diocesan parishes, making himself widely present to the clergy and faithful. Moreover, already as a priest in Rome, he had always tried to be a priest, bringing charity and catechism to the Roman villages, confessing in the parishes, following the San Vincenzo, the mutilated of Don Gnocchi. 

He knew well and did not hide from his people the problems of the time, in a society that was heading towards the economic boom following the post-war period. He was aware that the Church had to take on a new missionary attitude in the coherence of everyone's Christian life and in the ministry of priests. To them he said: «I send you weak into a powerful world; I send you helpless into a strong world; I send you poor people into a rich world" and "into a world that at first seems not to understand you, not to desire you", a world that "will try to replace you in your own duties: of teaching, of education, of charity, of assistance. Let's open our eyes! Let's not delude ourselves with formulas: that everyone is good, that everyone is Catholic, that the Lord saves them all."

His was the style of listening and action: deepening and broadening "in the name of the Lord", as he chose in the episcopal motto. 

The Times called its most famous initiative “Fire in Milan”: the city mission of 1957, which remains the largest ever preached in the Catholic Church, 302 parish preaching offices, with 720 courses preached by 18 bishops, 83 priests, 300 religious, not only in churches but also in factories, courtyards, barracks, hospitals and offices. Yes, "the distant", for whom, well aware of the de-Christianization of the city, the Pastor conceived the mission of 1957, to "shake up the lukewarm and reach the great mass of the distant", precisely.

Perhaps, as Montini himself recognises, the objective was not achieved - "the door remained closed" - but the choice of evangelization remained a legacy of his Church. He revived the Milanese Church in a very difficult period, during which he became known as one of the most progressive members of the Catholic hierarchy. He started the construction of over 100 new churches, with the "New Churches Plan", in the areas where new urban agglomerations arose: 123 will be built.

He wanted an experience of the Church "of the people" and urged the transmission of the faith, to attract the "far away". And for this reason he always showed himself available, organizing the mission even for the photomodels, crossing the editorial staff of the Gazzetta dello Sport: in his diaries of the eight Ambrosian years there are eleven thousand names.

Also sensitive to ecumenical openness, from the beginning in 1956 the Archbishop met six Anglican Pastors.

The motive behind everything was certainly charity, even in the most ordinary initiatives, such as the lunch offered to the sixteen hundred poor on the day of his entry into the diocese. His actions were also largely hidden, such as his visits to the poor, dressed as a simple priest, without anyone knowing. One of the nuns who lived with him testified that the archbishop, going around his room, repeated: "I have too much stuff in my dresser: give it to the poor, give it to the poor."

Born and raised in a bourgeois family, when he was appointed bishop he was immediately close to the working class world: «If ever I have to pronounce a particular word on this theme [work] here, it is for the world of work that surrounds me here and which forms the pride and the characteristic of Milan, alive and modern." The attention to work will be a decisive feature of his entire Milanese period. Initially opposed to the left-wing Christian Democrat current (“the Base”), he did not rule out tactical alliances with the socialists in favor of the common good. It is in this climate that Milan's first centre-left council was born in 1961.

Montini places himself at the intersection of two phenomena that will influence the social and political panorama of Milan for the following sixty years: the opening to the left and the important presence of Comunione e Liberazione. He will write to Don Giussani, the founder of the Movement: "I don't understand his ideas and his methods, but I see the fruits of them and I tell you: carry on like this." And it is with the participation of Student Youth in the mission that perhaps the movement will begin to attenuate its bourgeois and elitist character of the beginning.

It was he who erected the Guanellian church of San Gaetano in Milan as a parish, annexed to the school of the same name for children, in an area that was then undergoing urban expansion: the consecration of the building remains one of his last pastoral acts, before being elected Pope .