When John Paul I stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in August 1978, he didn't just inherit a title. He inherited a crisis. He was "The Smiling Pope," a breath of fresh air after years of heavy theological lifting. But if you really want to understand that moment in history, you have to look at the man who held the keys right before him. Who was pope before John Paul I? That would be Paul VI, born Giovanni Battista Montini.
He was complicated. Honestly, he was probably the most misunderstood figure of the 20th-century Catholic Church.
While John Paul I is remembered for his thirty-three days of smiles and sudden death, Paul VI reigned for fifteen grueling years. He wasn't a "smiling" guy by nature. He was an intellectual. A diplomat. A man who looked like he carried the weight of the entire world on his narrow shoulders, mostly because he did. He took over in 1963, right in the middle of the Second Vatican Council, and spent the rest of his life trying to keep the Church from flying apart at the seams.
The Montini Legacy: More Than Just a Predecessor
To understand Paul VI, you have to understand the mess he walked into. His predecessor, John XXIII, had opened the windows of the Church to "let in some fresh air." By the time Paul VI took over, that fresh air had turned into a hurricane.
He wasn't a populist. He was a skinny, intense man from Lombardy who had spent decades in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. He knew where all the bodies were buried. When he was elected in 1963, he didn't just have to be a priest; he had to be a CEO, a politician, and a peacemaker. He was the first pope to fly in an airplane. He went to the Holy Land. He went to India. He even addressed the United Nations, famously crying out, "No more war, war never again!"
But inside the Church? It was chaos.
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Traditionalists thought he was destroying the faith by changing the Mass from Latin to the local language. Liberals thought he was a coward for not changing the rules on birth control. He was stuck in the middle. It’s a lonely place to be. You've probably felt that way at work or in your family—trying to please everyone and ending up the villain in everyone's story. That was Paul VI’s daily bread.
The Humanae Vitae Bomb
You can't talk about who was pope before John Paul I without talking about 1968. That was the year Paul VI released Humanae Vitae.
It was an encyclical. Basically a big, official letter. In it, he reaffirmed the Church's ban on artificial contraception. The backlash was nuclear. It wasn't just coming from secular critics; priests and bishops were openly revolting. It broke him, in a way. He didn't issue another encyclical for the remaining ten years of his life. He stayed active, sure, but the spark seemed to dim.
He became a "Hamlet" figure—indecisive, tortured, always weighing both sides until he was paralyzed. He was deeply aware of the suffering in the world. When his close friend, the Italian politician Aldo Moro, was kidnapped by the Red Brigades in 1978, Paul VI actually offered himself in exchange for Moro’s life. They didn't take him. Moro was murdered. Paul VI was devastated. He died just a few months later, broken-hearted and exhausted.
Why Paul VI Matters Today
So, why should we care?
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Because the modern Catholic Church is his house. Every time you see a pope traveling the globe or speaking to world leaders, that's Paul VI's blueprint. He was the one who decided the papacy shouldn't just stay behind the walls of the Vatican. He ditched the triple crown (the tiara) as a symbol of earthly power. He wanted to be a "servant of the servants of God."
- He was the first to visit six continents.
- He survived an assassination attempt in the Philippines (a man with a dagger tried to kill him at the airport).
- He oversaw the massive liturgical shift that brought the Mass into English, Spanish, and every other language.
It wasn't all just "church stuff" either. Paul VI was deeply concerned with the "Third World," a term that was becoming common back then. He wrote Populorum Progressio, an encyclical about the development of peoples. He argued that the economy should serve humans, not the other way around. He was a critic of unrestrained capitalism long before it was trendy.
The Transition to the 33-Day Pope
By August 1978, the world was ready for a change. Paul VI had been a "heavy" pope. People respected him, but they didn't necessarily feel "warm" toward him.
When he died at Castel Gandolfo on August 6, 1978, the cardinals wanted someone different. They wanted someone who could communicate with the average person without sounding like a philosophy professor. They found Albino Luciani, who became John Paul I.
Luciani took the name "John Paul" specifically to honor the two men who came before him: John XXIII and Paul VI. It was a bridge. He wanted to combine John’s warmth with Paul’s intellectual discipline.
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The tragedy, of course, is that he didn't get the chance. He died after only a month in office, leading to the election of the first Polish pope, John Paul II. But the foundation—the hard, grinding work of modernizing a 2,000-year-old institution—was all Paul VI.
Misconceptions About the Pre-John Paul I Era
People often think of the 60s and 70s in the Church as a time of hippie-dippie "anything goes" Catholicism. Or, they think it was a rigid fortress that only started to crumble later. Neither is true.
Paul VI was a man of intense discipline. He fasted. He prayed. He suffered from debilitating arthritis that made his global travels an agony. If you look at photos of him toward the end, his face is lined with a kind of sorrow that is hard to watch. He wasn't some remote king; he was a man struggling with the weight of an impossible job.
He also dealt with the "Lefebvre" schism. Marcel Lefebvre was a French archbishop who refused to accept the reforms of Vatican II. Dealing with that caused Paul VI immense pain. He felt like he was watching his family tear itself apart.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you're digging into this era, don't just look at the dates. Look at the documents.
- Read "Populorum Progressio": If you want to see where modern social justice movements in the Church got their teeth, start here. It’s surprisingly radical for 1967.
- Watch footage of his UN speech: It’s on YouTube. You can see the fragility and the passion in his voice. It's a masterclass in 20th-century diplomacy.
- Compare him to his successors: Notice how John Paul II took Paul VI’s travel schedule and dialed it up to eleven. Notice how Benedict XVI took Paul VI’s intellectual rigor and made it his brand.
Understanding who was pope before John Paul I isn't just about a trivia answer. It's about understanding how the world shifted from the old-school, monarchical past into the messy, globalized, digital present we live in now. Paul VI was the bridge. He wasn't always popular, and he certainly wasn't always happy, but he was exactly what the institution needed to survive the 20th century.
When you think of the papacy now, you think of global influence and social media and massive crowds. None of that happens without the man who stood in the middle of the storm from 1963 to 1978. Paul VI might not have had the smile of John Paul I, but he had the stamina. And in the end, that's what kept the lights on.