50 Lire - Pavlvs VI

Paul VI issued this coin during one of the most turbulent stretches of his pontificate — the mid-1970s saw him navigating the fallout from Humanae Vitae, the ongoing implementation of Second Vatican Council reforms, and a Catholic Church openly fractured between traditionalists and progressives. Vatican coinage of this period was struck in stainless steel as a practical concession to rising silver prices, a change introduced progressively through the late 1960s and early 1970s across the lower denominations.

Paul VI died in August 1978, making the 1977 issues among the final annual series completed under his name.