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The Call to Greatness. Paul VI is neither inquisitor nor nepotist nor Renaissance prince. Yet he is a strange and complex man whom few have been able to define with precision. Italian Banker Vittorino Veronese, a former chief of Italy's Catholic Action movement, says that he has "such a very rich personality that he is impossible to classify." Paul's friends claim that he combines the learning and intellectuality of Pius with the openness and reforming spirit of John XXIII. Critics point out that he seems to share Pius' imperious ways with subordinates and lacks John's instinctive warmth toward fellow men.
As an archbishop, he produced a series of clear, decisive pastoral letters and allocutions (see box); yet some of his subordinates say that his own policies were often dangerously fluid: "There was no followup, and experiments turned out to be mere episodes." He has been hailed as a distinguished administrator; yet his record in Milan can honestly be rated no better than fair. Appraisals of Montini range from "a great gentleman" and "a complete man" to "a Pacelli—twice over" and "a Hamlet."
Like Hamlet, Paul VI may be marked for tragedy. Yet friend and foe alike agree that he has within him the seeds of greatness. Now he has an awesome throne and title that call for greatness. "He can be a stronger Pope than he was a cardinal," says one Roman Jesuit. "The moment he has nothing to fear he will be better."
Quiet Charisma. Pius XII came from the lesser nobility of Rome, John XXIII from the peasantry of northern Italy. Paul VI is a bourgeois Pope, born to the comforts of Italy's middle class. His birthplace was Concesio, a country village near Brescia in northern Italy (and about 40 miles from Sotto il Monte, where Angelo Roncalli was born). The Pope's father, Giorgio Montini, was a lawyer and crusading journalist; his progressive political and social views were inspired by Don Luigi Sturzo, a near-legendary priest and sociologist who was one of the founders of Italian Christian democracy. Until Mussolini's Fascism put an end to free political action in Italy around 1924, Giorgio Montini served three terms in Parliament as a member of Don Sturzo's Popular Party.
Giorgio Montini's second son, "Giambattista," was a frail, ailment-prone child plagued by colds, who had to be educated privately after poor health drove him from the Jesuit school in Brescia. But at the age of 20, young Montini was well enough to enter the seminary of Sant Angelo in Brescia. He was, then as now, somewhat withdrawn and bookish. One teacher recalls him as the best pupil he ever had, while some fellow students detected in him the quiet charisma of the born leader. "Never have I met anyone who had to say so little to establish his authority," a classmate recalls.