Editing Pope Paul VI (section)

===Montini's philosophy===
[[File:Cardinal Montini portrait – 1959.png|thumb|Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini in 1959; photo by [[Tullio Farabola]]]]
In his first months, Montini showed his interest in working conditions and labour issues by speaking to many unions and associations. He initiated the building of over 100 new churches, believing them the only non-utilitarian buildings in modern society, places for spiritual rest.{{Sfn|Hebblethwaite|1993|p=266}}

His public speeches were noticed in [[Milan]], Rome, and elsewhere. Some{{Who|date=May 2025}} considered him a liberal when he asked lay people to love not only Catholics but also schismatics, {{definition needed|date=October 2024}} Protestants, Anglicans, the indifferent, Muslims, pagans, and atheists.{{Sfn|Hebblethwaite|1993|p=273}} He gave a friendly welcome to a group of Anglican clergy visiting Milan in 1957 and subsequently exchanged letters with the [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], [[Geoffrey Fisher]].{{Sfn|Hebblethwaite|1993|pp=714–15}}

Pope Pius XII revealed at the 1952 secret consistory that both Montini and Tardini had declined appointments to the cardinalate,<ref>{{Citation|first=Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni|last =Pacelli|author-link=Pope Pius XII|contribution=La Allocuzione nel consistorio Segreto del 12 Gennaio 1953|title=Discorsi e Radiomessagi di Sua Santita|language=it|trans-title=Speeches and radio messages from his Holiness|place=[[Vatican City]]|year=1953|page=455}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|contribution=Biography|publisher=Vatican|place=Rome, IT|contribution-url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/biography/documents/hf_p-vi_bio_16071997_biography_en.html|title=Pope Paul VI: 1963–1978|access-date=2 March 2006|archive-date=9 February 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209065234/http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/biography/documents/hf_p-vi_bio_16071997_biography_en.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
and, in fact, Montini was never to be made a cardinal by Pius XII, who held no consistory and created no cardinals between the time he appointed Montini to Milan and his own death four years later. After Montini's friend Angelo Roncalli became [[Pope John XXIII]], he made Montini a cardinal in December 1958.

When the new pope announced [[Second Vatican Council|an ecumenical council]], Cardinal Montini reacted with disbelief and said to [[Giulio Bevilacqua]]: "This old boy does not know what a hornets nest he is stirring up."{{Sfn|Hebblethwaite|1993|p=284}} Montini was appointed to the Central Preparatory Commission in 1961. During the council, Pope John XXIII asked him to live in the Vatican, where he was a Commission for Extraordinary Affairs member, though he did not engage much in the floor debates. His main advisor was [[Giovanni Colombo]], whom he later appointed as his successor in Milan{{Sfn|Hebblethwaite|1993|p=296}} The commission was significantly overshadowed by the insistence of John XXIII that the Council complete all its work before Christmas 1962, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the [[Council of Trent]], an insistence which may have also been influenced by the Pope's having recently been told that he had cancer.{{Sfn|Hebblethwaite|1993|p=301}}

John had a vision but "did not have a clear agenda. His rhetoric seems to have had a note of over-optimism, a confidence in progress, which was characteristic of the 1960s."{{Sfn|Duffy|1997|p=272}}