Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the ban on artificial contraception. But he also championed the Second Vatican Council, which he saw as beginning a dialogue with the secular world Two personal texts, separated by 47 years, can offer us a glimpse of the temperament of Giovanni Battista Montini. In October 1921, as a young priest of 24, he was unexpectedly appointed to study at the Roman academy for future papal diplomats, the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. It was completely against his wishes. He had already found himself at home in ministry with university students and in publishing articles on spiritual and social themes. He wrote to an older priest friend expressing his perplexity, saying that he felt “broken” and annoyed with himself, that he had never sought this “caree