Upon his election to the papacy, Montini took the pontifical name Paul VI (the first to take the name "Paul" since 1605) to indicate a renewed worldwide mission to spread the message of Christ, following the example of Apostle St. Paul.[citation needed] He re-convened the Second Vatican Council, which was automatically closed with the death of John XXIII, and gave it priority and direction. After the council had concluded its work, Paul VI took charge of the interpretation and implementation of its mandates, often walking a thin line between the conflicting expectations of various groups within Catholicism. The magnitude and depth of the reforms affecting all fields of Church life during his pontificate exceeded similar reform policies of his predecessors and successors. Paul VI was a Marian devotee, speaking repeatedly to Marian congresses and mariological meetings, visiting Marian shrines and issuing three Marian encyclicals. Following his famous predecessor Saint Ambrose of Milan, he named Mary as the Mother of the Church during the Second Vatican Council. Paul VI sought dialogue with the world, with other Christians, other religions, and atheists, excluding nobody. He saw himself as a humble servant for a suffering humanity and demanded significant changes of the rich in North America and Europe in favour of the poor in the Third World. His positions on birth control, promulgated most famously in the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, and other political issues, were often controversial, especially in Western Europe and North America.