Pope Paul VI

About Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI, born Giovanni Battista Montini, served as the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church from 1963 until his death in 1978. His tenure was primarily defined by navigating the complex implementation of the Second Vatican Council, a transformative event initiated by his predecessor, which profoundly modernized the Church's approach to liturgy, ecumenical relations, and the modern world. His encyclical *Humanae Vitae* (1968), which reaffirmed the Church's teaching against artificial contraception, remains one of his most significant and controversial doctrinal acts. MIT's Pantheon project recognizes this pivotal role in 20th-century religious and global history with an HPI Rank of #197.

Despite his significant historical influence, Pope Paul VI receives a modest 1.1 million annualized Wikipedia views in 2025, placing him in a state of relative online obscurity. This translates to an Attention Gap of +2x, indicating that the internet's attention is double what would be expected based purely on his historical ranking. To put this in context, the 14th Dalai Lama, another major religious figure with a lower importance rank (#661), garners 1.9 million views, suggesting a notable disparity in modern digital interest between contemporary and mid-20th-century Catholic leadership.

Encouragingly for the memory of this Pope, his digital footprint is growing, showing a Year-over-Year Change of +78.3% in pageviews. However, this growth appears to be unevenly distributed, with a -36% drop in momentum between the first and third quarters of 2025, signaling a potential recent cooling of high-interest traffic events.