Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI Pope Saint Paul VI (; ; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (); 26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978) served as pope from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms, and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements. Montini served in the Holy See's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest
Pope John Paul II's political views and against man.”" The Pope also reaffirmed the Church's existing teaching on gender in relation to transsexuals, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he supervised, made clear that transsexuals can not serve in church positions. In an address on 22 October 1996, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Church's openness to the theory of evolution: In the same address, the Pope rejected any theory of evolution that provides a materialistic explanation for the human soul: John Paul II also wrote to the "Pontifical Academy of Sciences" on the subject of