Vatican City, Feb 6, 2019 / 05:53 am
The Vatican announced Wednesday that Pope St. Paul VI's feast day will be celebrated annually on May 29 as an optional memorial.
"Before and after becoming Pope, Saint Paul VI lived with his gaze constantly fixed on Christ whom he considered and proclaimed as a necessity for everyone," Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, commented on the papal decree.
With this declaration, published Feb. 6, the pope who guided the Church through the Second Vatican Council will have his memorial inserted into the renewed General Roman Calendar and liturgical books that he promulgated in 1969.
The date of the memorial, May 29, is significant as the ordination anniversary of Paul VI -- then Giovanni Battista Montini -- to the priesthood in 1920. Just four years later, Montini began his service to the Holy See, serving both Pope Pius XI and Pius XII. He was made Archbishop of Milan and then a cardinal before being elected pope in 1963.