POPE PIUS XII PC Postcard VATICAN CITY Stamp POSTMARK Catholic Church PAPAL
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
POPE PIUS XII PC Postcard VATICAN CITY Stamp POSTMARK Catholic Church PAPAL :
$24.99
POPE PIUS XII PC
FREE SHIPPING with delivery confirmation on all domestic purchases!
Pope Pius XII postcard with Pius XII stamp and postmark from shortly before his death.
We ship worldwide! Please see all pictures and visitour store and other sales!
Pope Pius XII, bornEugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli[a](Italian pronunciation:[euˈdʒɛnjo maˈria dʒuˈzɛppe dʒoˈvanni paˈtʃɛlli]; 2 March 1876– 9 October 1958), reigned from 2 March 1939 to his death in 1958. Before hiselectionto the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of theDepartment of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papalnuncioto Germany (1917–1929), andCardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably theReichskonkordatwithNazi Germany, with which most historians believe the Vatican sought to protect the Church in Germany whileAdolf Hitlersought the destruction of\"political Catholicism\".[1]A pre-warcritic of Nazism, Pius XII lobbied world leaders to avoid war and, as Pope at the outbreak of war, issuedSummi Pontificatus, expressing dismay at the invasion of Poland, reiterating Church teaching against racial persecution and calling for love, compassion and charity to prevail over war.[2]
While the Vatican was officially neutral during the war, Pius XIImaintained links to the German Resistance, used diplomacy to aid the victims of the war and lobby for peace andspoke out againstrace based murders and other atrocities.[3]TheReichskonkordatof 1933 and Pius\'s leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II remain the subject of controversy—including allegations of public silence and inaction about the fate of the Jews.[4]
After the war Pius XII advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towardsAxisand Axis-satellite nations. The Churchexperienced severe persecutionand mass deportations of Catholic clergy in theEastern Bloc. Pius XII was a staunch opponent ofCommunismand of theItalian Communist Party. Pius XII explicitly invokedex cathedrapapal infallibilitywith thedogmaof theAssumption of Maryin his 1950Apostolic constitutionMunificentissimus Deus.[5]Hismagisteriumincludes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. Hisforty-one encyclicalsincludeMystici corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ;Mediator Deion liturgy reform; andHumani generison the Church\'s positions ontheologyandevolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in theCollege of Cardinalsin 1946.
Pius XII suffered from the shadow of ill health in 1954 which would continue until his death in 1958. The embalming of his body was mishandled, with effects that were evident during the funeral. He was buried in the Vatican grottos and was succeeded byPope John XXIII.
In the process toward sainthood, his cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 byPope Paul VIduring the final session of theSecond Vatican Council. He was made aServant of GodbyPope John Paul IIin 1990 andPope Benedict XVIdeclared Pius XIIVenerableon 19 December 2009.[6]
Early life[edit]Main article:Early life of Pope Pius XIIEugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born on 2 March 1876 in Rome into a family of intense Catholic piety with a history of ties to the papacy (the \"Black Nobility\"). His parents were Filippo Pacelli (1837–1916) and Virginia (née Graziosi) Pacelli (1844–1920). His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, had been Under-Secretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances[7]and then Secretary of the Interior underPope Pius IXfrom 1851–70 and helped found the Vatican\'s newspaper,L\'Osservatore Romanoin 1861.[8][9]His cousin,Ernesto Pacelli, was a key financial advisor toPope Leo XIII; his father, Filippo Pacelli, aFranciscantertiary,[10]was the dean of theSacra Rota Romana; and his brother,Francesco Pacelli, became alaycanon lawyerand the legal advisor toPius XI, in which role he negotiated theLateran Treatyin 1929, the pact withBenito Mussolini, bringing an end to theRoman Question.
Eugenio Pacelli at the age of six in 1882Together with his brother Francesco and his two sisters, Giuseppina and Elisabetta, he grew up in theParionedistrict in the centre of Rome. Soon after the family had moved to Via Vetrina in 1880 he began school at the convent of the FrenchSisters of Divine Providencein the Piazza Fiammetta. The family worshipped atChiesa Nuova. Eugenio and the other children made theirFirst Communionat this church and Eugenio served there as analtar boyfrom 1886. In 1886 too he was sent to the private school of Professor Giuseppe Marchi, close to thePiazza Venezia.[11]In 1891 Pacelli\'s father sent Eugenio to the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti Institute, a state school situated in what had been theCollegio Romano, the premier Jesuit university in Rome.
In 1894, aged 18, Pacelli began his theology studies at Rome\'s oldest seminary, theAlmo Collegio Capranica,[12]and in November of the same year, registered to take a philosophy course at the JesuitPontifical Gregorian Universityand theology at thePontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare. He was also enrolled at theState University, La Sapienzawhere he studied modern languages and history. At the end of the first academic year however, in the summer of 1895, he dropped out of both the Capranica and the Gregorian University. According to his sister Elisabetta, the food at the Capranica was to blame.[13]Having received a special dispensation he continued his studies from home and so spent most of his seminary years as an external student. In 1899 he completed his education in Sacred Theology with a doctoral degree awarded on the basis of a short dissertation and an oral examination inLatin.[14]
Church career[edit]Priest and Monsignor[edit]Pacelli on the day of his ordination, 2 April 1899.While all other candidates from the Rome diocese were ordained in theBasilica of St. John Lateran,[15]Pacelli wasordaineda priest onEaster Sunday, 2 April 1899 alone in the private chapel of a family friend the Vice-Regent of Rome,Mgr Paolo Cassetta. Shortly after ordination he began postgraduate studies in canon law at Sant\'Apollinaire. He received his first assignment as acurateatChiesa Nuova.[16]In 1901 he entered theCongregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, a sub-office of theVatican Secretariat of State.[17]
MonsignorPietro Gasparri, the recently appointed undersecretary at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, had underscored his proposal to Pacelli to work in the \'Vatican\'s equivalent of the Foreign office\' by highlighting the \'necessity of defending the Church from the onslaughts of secularism and liberalism throughout Europe.\'[18]Pacelli became anapprendista, an apprentice, in Gasparri\'s department. In January 1901 he was also chosen, by Pope Leo XIII himself, according to an official account, to deliver condolences on behalf of the Vatican to KingEdward VIIof the UK after the death ofQueen Victoria.[19]
The Serbian Concordat, 24 June 1914. Present for the Vatican wereCardinal Merry del Valand next to him, Pacelli.By 1904 Pacelli received his doctorate. The theme of his thesis was the nature ofconcordatsand the function of canon law when a concordat falls into abeyance. Promoted to the position ofminutante, he prepared digests of reports that had been sent to the Secretariat from all over the world and in the same year became apapal chamberlain. In 1905 he received the titledomestic prelate.[16]From 1904 until 1916, he assisted Cardinal Pietro Gasparri in his codification ofcanon lawwith the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.[20]According toJohn Cornwell, \"the text, together with theAnti-Modernist Oath, became the means by which the Holy See was to establish and sustain the new, unequal, and unprecedented power relationship that had arisen between the papacy and the Church.\"[21]
In 1908, Pacelli served as a Vatican representative on theInternational Eucharistic Congress, accompanyingRafael Merry del Val[22]to London,[19]where he metWinston Churchill.[23]In 1911, he represented the Holy See at thecoronationof KingGeorge V.[20]Pacelli became the under-secretary in 1911, adjunct-secretary in 1912 (a position he received underPope Pius Xand retained underPope Benedict XV), and secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in February 1914.[20]On 24 June 1914, just four days beforeArchduke Franz Ferdinand of Austriawas assassinated inSarajevo, Pacelli, together withCardinal Merry del Val, represented the Vatican when the Serbian Concordat was signed.Serbia\'s success in theFirst Balkan WaragainstTurkeyin 1912 had increased the number of Catholics within greater Serbia. At this time Serbia, encouraged by Russia, was challengingAustria-Hungary\'s sphere of influence throughout theBalkans. Pius X died on 20 August 1914. His successor Benedict XV named Gasparri as secretary of state and Gasparri took Pacelli with him into the Secretariat of State, making him undersecretary.[24]During World War I, Pacelli maintained the Vatican\'s registry ofprisoners of warand worked to implement papal relief initiatives. In 1915, he travelled toViennato assist MonsignorRaffaele Scapinelli,nuncioto Vienna, in his negotiations with EmperorFranz Joseph I of Austriaregarding Italy.[25]
Archbishop and Papal Nuncio[edit]Main article:Nunciature of Eugenio PacelliPacelli at the Headquarters ofWilhelm IIPope Benedict XV appointed Pacelli asnuncio to Bavariaon 23 April 1917, consecrating him astitularBishop of Sardisand immediately elevating him toarchbishopin theSistine Chapelon 13 May 1917. After his consecration, Eugenio Pacelli left forBavaria. As there was no nuncio toPrussiaor Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of theGerman Empire.
Once inMunich, he conveyed the papal initiative to end the war to German authorities.[26]He met withKing Ludwig IIIon 29 May, and later withKaiser Wilhelm II[27]and ChancellorBethmann-Hollweg, who replied positively to the Papal initiative. However, Bethmann-Hollweg was forced to resign and the German High Command, hoping for a military victory, delayed the German reply until 20 September.
Sister Pascalina later recalled that the Nuncio was heartbroken that the Kaiser turned \"deaf ear to all his proposals\". She later wrote, \"Thinking back today on that time, when we Germans still all believed that our weapons would be victorious and the Nuncio was deeply sorry that the chance had been missed to save what there was to save, it occurs to me over and over again how clearly he foresaw what was to come. Once as he traced the course of theRhinewith his finger on a map, he said sadly, \'No doubt this will be lost as well.\' I did not want to believe it, but here, too, he was to be proved right.\"[28]
For the remainder of the Great War, Pacelli concentrated on Benedict\'s humanitarian efforts[29]especially among Allied POWs in German custody.[30]In the upheaval following the Armistice, a disconcerted Pacelli sought Benedict XV\'s permission to leave Munich, whereKurt Eisnerhad formed theBavarian Soviet Republic, and he left for a while toRorschach, and a tranquil Swiss sanatorium run by nuns. Monsignor Schioppa, theuditore, was left in Munich.[31]
\"His recovery began with a \'rapport\'\" with the 24-year-old SisterPascalina Lehnert—she would soon be transferred to Munich when Pacelli \"pulled strings at the highest level\".[32]
When he returned to Munich, following Eisner\'s assassination by an anti-Semitic extreme nationalist,Count Anton von Arco auf Valley, he informed Gasparri-using Schioppa\'s eye-witness testimony of the chaotic scene at the former royal palace as the trio of Max Levien,Eugen Levine, and Towia Axelrod sought power: \"the scene was indescribable [-] the confusion totally chaotic [-] in the midst of all this, a gang of young women, of dubious appearance, Jews like the rest of them hanging around [-] the boss of this female rabble was Levien\'s mistress, a young Russian woman, a Jew and a divorcée [-] and it was to her that the nunciature was obliged to pay homage in order to proceed [-] Levien is a young man, also Russian and a Jew. Pale, dirty, with drugged eyes, vulgar, repulsive ...\" John Cornwell alleges that a worrying impression of anti-Semitism is discernible in the \'catalogue of epithets describing their physical and moral repulsiveness\' and Pacelli\'s \"constant harping on the Jewishness of this party of power usurpers\" chimed with the \"growing and widespread belief among Germans that the Jews were the instigators of the Bolshevik revolution, their principal aim being the destruction of Christian civilization\".[33]Also according to Cornwell, Pacelli informed Gasparri that \"the capital of Bavaria, is suffering under a harsh Jewish-Russian revolutionary tyranny\"[34]
According to Sister Pascalina Lehnert, the Nuncio was repeatedly threatened by emissaries of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. Once, in a violation of international law, the Bavarian Revolutionary Government attempted to confiscate the Nunciature\'s car at gunpoint. Despite their demands, however, Pacelli refused to leave his post.[35]
After theMunich Soviet Republicdefeated and toppled byFreikorpsandReichswehrtroops, the Nuncio focused on, according to Lehnert, \"alleviating the distress of the postwar period, consoling, supporting all in word and deed.\"[36]
Nuncio Pacelli in July 1924 at the 900th anniversary of the City ofBambergPacelli was appointedApostolic Nuncio to Germanyon 23 June 1920, and—after the completion of a Bavarian concordat—his nunciature was moved to Berlin in August 1925. Many of Pacelli\'s Munich staff stayed with him for the rest of his life, including his advisorRobert Leiberand SisterPascalina Lehnert— housekeeper, cook friend, and adviser for 41 years. In Berlin, Pacelli was Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and active in diplomatic and many social activities. He was aided by the German priestLudwig Kaas, who was known for his expertise in Church-state relations and was a full-time politician, politically active in the CatholicCentre Party, a party he led followingWilhelm Marx\'s resignation in October 1928.[37]While in Germany, he travelled to all regions, attendedKatholikentag(national gatherings of the faithful), and delivered some 50 sermons and speeches to the German people.[38]In Berlin he lived in theTiergartenquarter and threw parties for the official and diplomatic elite.Paul von Hindenburg,Gustav Stresemann, and other members of the Cabinet were regular guests.
Pacelli in Bavaria, 1922.In post-war Germany, in the absence of a nuncio in Moscow, Pacelli worked also on diplomatic arrangements between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. He negotiated food shipments for Russia, where the Church was persecuted. He met with Soviet representatives including Foreign MinisterGeorgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican.[39]
Despite Vatican pessimism and a lack of visible progress, Pacelli continued the secret negotiations, untilPius XIordered them to be discontinued in 1927. Pacelli supported German diplomatic activity aimed at rejection of punitive measures from victorious former enemies. He blocked French attempts for an ecclesiastical separation of theSaar region, supported the appointment of a papal administrator forDanzigand aided the reintegration of priests expelled from Poland.[40]A Prussian Concordat was signed on 14 June 1929. Following theWall Street Crash of 1929, the beginnings of a world economic slump appeared, and the days of theWeimar Republicwere numbered. Pacelli was summoned back to Rome at this time—the call coming by telegram when he was resting at his favourite retreat, the Rorschach convent sanatorium. He left Berlin on 10 December 1929.[41]David Dalin wrote\"of the forty-four speeches Pacelli gave in Germany as papal nuncio between 1917 and 1929, forty denounced some aspect of the emerging Nazi ideology.\"[42]In 1935 he wrote a letter to the bishop of Cologne describing the Nazis as\"false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.\"and as\"bearers of a new faith and a new Evangile\"who were attempting to create\"a mendacious antimony between faithfulness to the Church and the Fatherland\".[43]Two years later at Notre Dame in Paris he named Germany as\"that noble and powerful nation whom bad shepherds would lead astray into an ideology of race.\"[42]
Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo[edit]Secretary of State Pacelli in Brazil in 1934.Pacelli was made a Cardinal-Priest ofSanti Giovanni e Paoloon 16 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI, and within a few months, on 7 February 1930, Pius XI appointed himCardinal Secretary of State, responsible for foreign policy and state relations throughout the world. In 1935, Pacelli was namedCamerlengo of the Holy Roman Church.
As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed concordats with a number of countries and states. Immediately on becoming Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli and Ludwig Kaas took up negotiations on aBadenConcordat which continued until the spring and summer of 1932. Papal fiat appointed a supporter of Pacelli and his concordat policy,Conrad Gröber, the newArchbishop of Freiburg, and the treaty was signed in August 1932.[44]Others followed: Austria (1933), Germany (1933),Yugoslavia(1935) and Portugal (1940). TheLateran treatieswith Italy (1929) were concluded before Pacelli became Secretary of State. Roman Catholicism had become the sole recognized religion; the powerful democraticCatholic Popular Party, in many ways similar to the Centre Party in Germany, had been disbanded, and in place of political Catholicism the Holy See encouragedCatholic Action, \'an anaemic form of clerically dominated religious rally-rousing.\' It was permitted only so long as it developed \"its activity outside every political party and in direct dependence upon the Church hierarchy for the dissemination and implementation of Catholic principles.\'[45]Such concordats allowed the Catholic Church to organize youth groups, make ecclesiastical appointments, run schools, hospitals, and charities, or even conduct religious services. They also ensured that canon law would be recognized within some spheres (e.g., church decrees ofnullityin the area of marriage).[46]
As the decade began Pacelli wanted the Centre Party in Germany to turn away from the socialists. In the summer of 1931 he clashed with Catholic chancellorHeinrich Bruning, who frankly told Pacelli he believed that he \"misunderstood the political situation in Germany and the real character of the Nazis.\"[47]Following Bruning\'s resignation in May 1932 Pacelli, like the new Catholic chancellorFranz von Papen, wondered if the Centre Party should look to the Right for a coalition, \"that would correspond to their principles\'.[48]He made many diplomatic visits throughout Europe and the Americas, including anextensive visit to the United States in 1936where he met PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed a personal envoy—who did not require Senate confirmation—to theHoly Seein December 1939, re-establishing a diplomatic tradition that had been broken since 1870 when the pope losttemporal power.[49]
A smiling Pacelli with Argentinian presidentAgustín P. Justo.Pacelli presided asPapal Legateover theInternational Eucharistic CongressinBuenos Aires, Argentinafrom 10–14 October 1934, and inBudapestfrom 25–30 May 1938.[50]At this time,anti-semiticlaws were in the process of being formulated in Hungary. Pacelli made reference to the Jews \"whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today\".[51]This traditional adversarial relationship with Judaism would be reversed inNostra aetateissued during theSecond Vatican Council.[52]According toJoseph Bottum, Pacelli in 1937 \"warned A. W. Klieforth, the American consul to Berlin, thatHitlerwas \"an untrustworthy scoundrel and fundamentally wicked person\"; Klieforth wrote that Pacelli \"did not believe Hitler capable of moderation, and ... fully supported the German bishops in theiranti-Nazistand.\" A report written by Pacelli the following year for Roosevelt and filed with AmbassadorJoseph Kennedydeclared that the Church regarded compromise with theThird Reichas \"out of the question\".[53]
Historian Walter Bussmann argued that Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State, dissuaded Pope Pius XI—who was nearing death at the time[54]—from condemning theKristallnachtin November 1938,[55]when he was informed of it by the papal nuncio in Berlin.[56]Likewise the draft encyclicalHumani generis unitas(\"On the Unity of the Human Race\"), which was ready in September 1938 but, according to those responsible for an edition of the document[57]and other sources, it was not forwarded to the Holy See by the Jesuit GeneralWlodimir Ledochowski.[58][59]The draft encyclical contained an open and clear condemnation ofcolonialism, racial persecution andantisemitism.[58][60][61]
Historians Passelecq and Suchecky have argued that Pacelli learned about its existence only after the death of Pius XI and did not promulgate it as Pope.[62]He did use parts of it in his inaugural encyclicalSummi Pontificatus, which he titled \"On the Unity of Human Society.\"[63]His various positions on Church and policy issues during his tenure as Cardinal Secretary of State were made public by the Holy See in 1939. Most noteworthy among the 50 speeches is his review of Church-State issues in Budapest in 1938.[64]
ReichskonkordatandMit brennender Sorge[edit]See also:ReichskonkordatandMit brennender SorgePacelli(seated, center)at the signing of theReichskonkordaton 20 July 1933 in Rome with(from left to right): German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-ChancellorFranz von Papen, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical AffairsGiuseppe Pizzardo,Alfredo Ottaviani, and Reich ministerRudolf ButtmannTheReichskonkordatwas an integral part of fourconcordatsPacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary because the GermanfederalistWeimar constitution gave the German states authority in the area of education and culture and thus diminished the authority of the churches in these areas; this diminution of church authority was a primary concern of the Vatican. As Bavarian Nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the Bavarian authorities in 1925. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.[65][66]Prussia showed interest in negotiations only after the Bavarian concordat. However, Pacelli obtained less favorable conditions for the Church in the Prussian concordat of 1929, which excluded educational issues. A concordat with the German state of Baden was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with Austria in 1933.[67]A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten-year period 1922–1932.[68]
TheReichskonkordat, signed on 20 July 1933, between Germany and the Holy See, while thus a part of an overall Vatican policy, was controversial from its beginning. It remains the most important of Pacelli\'s concordats. It is debated, not because of its content, which is still valid today, but because of its timing. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli\'s main objectives as secretary of state, because he had hoped to strengthen the legal position of the Church. Pacelli, who knew German conditions well, emphasized in particular protection for Catholic associations (§31), freedom for education and Catholic schools, and freedom for publications.[69]
Asnuncioduring the 1920s, he had made unsuccessful attempts to obtain German agreement for such a treaty, and between 1930 and 1933 he attempted to initiate negotiations with representatives of successive German governments, but the opposition of Protestant and Socialist parties, the instability of national governments and the care of the individual states to guard their autonomy thwarted this aim. In particular, the questions of denominational schools and pastoral work in the armed forces prevented any agreement on the national level, despite talks in the winter of 1932.[70][71]
Adolf Hitlerwas appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and sought to gain international respectability and to remove internal opposition by representatives of the Church and the CatholicCentre Party. He sent his vice chancellorFranz von Papen, a Catholic nobleman and member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat.[72][73]On behalf of Pacelli, Prelate Ludwig Kaas, the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen.[74]The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on 10 September 1933.[75]Father Franziscus Stratman, senior Catholic chaplain at Berlin University wrote \"The souls of well-disposed people are in a turmoil as a result of the tyranny of the National Socialists, and I am merely stating a fact when I say that the authority of the bishops among innumerable Catholics and non-Catholics has been shaken by the quasi-approval of the National Socialist movement\".[76]Bishop Preysingcautioned against compromise with the new regime, against those who saw the Nazi persecution of the church as an aberration that Hitler would correct.[77]
Between 1933 and 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of theReichskonkordat. Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including CardinalMichael von Faulhaberto help him write a protest of Nazi violations of theReichskonkordat; this was to become Pius XI\'s 1937 encyclical,Mit brennender Sorge. The encyclical was written in German and not the usualLatinof official Roman Catholic Church documents. Secretly distributed by an army of motorcyclists and read from every German Catholic Church pulpit onPalm Sunday, it condemned thepaganismof theNational Socialismideology.[78]Pius XI credited its creation and writing to Pacelli.[79]It was the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization and resulted in persecution of the Church by the infuriated Nazis who closed all the participating presses and \"took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy.\"[80]On 10 June 1941, the pope commented on the problems of theReichskonkordatin a letter to theBishop of Passau, in Bavaria: \"The history of the Reichskonkordat shows, that the other side lacked the most basic prerequisites to accept minimal freedoms and rights of the Church, without which the Church simply cannot live and operate, formal agreements notwithstanding\".[81]
Relation with the Media[edit]Pius XI with Cardinal Pacelli at the inauguration ofVatican Radioon 12 February 1931.Cardinal Pacelli gave a lecture entitled \"La Presse et L\'Apostolat\" at thePontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas,Angelicumon April 17, 1936.[82]
Papacy[edit]Election and coronation[edit]The signature of Pius XII never changed[83]Main article:Papal conclave, 1939Papal styles ofPope Pius XIIReference styleHis HolinessSpoken styleYour HolinessReligious styleHoly FatherPosthumous styleVenerable
Pope Pius XI died on 10 February 1939. Several historians have interpreted the conclave to choose his successor as facing a choice between a diplomatic or a spiritual candidate, and they view Pacelli\'s diplomatic experience, especially with Germany, as one of the deciding factors in his election on 2 March 1939, his 63rd birthday, after only one day of deliberation and three ballots.[84][85]He was the first cardinal Secretary of State to be elected pope sinceClement IXin 1667.[86]He was one of only two men known to have served asCamerlengoimmediately prior to being elected as pope (the other beingPope Leo XIII). According to rumours, he asked for another ballot to be taken to ensure the validity of his election. After his election was indeed confirmed, he chose the name Pius XII in honour of his immediate predecessor.
Hiscoronationtook place on 12 March 1939. Upon being elected pope he was also formally the Grand Master of the EquestrianOrder of the Holy Sepulchreof Jerusalem,prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office,prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churchesandprefect of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation. There was however a Cardinal-Secretary to run these bodies on a day-to-day basis.
Pacelli took the same papal name as his predecessor, a title used exclusively byItalian Popes. He was quoted as saying, \"I call myself Pius; my whole life was under Popes with this name, but especially as a sign of gratitude towardsPius XI.\"[87]On 15 December 1937, during his last consistory, Pius XI strongly hinted to the cardinals that he expected Pacelli to be his successor, saying \"He is in your midst.\"[88][89]He had previously been quoted as saying: \"When today the Pope dies, you\'ll get another one tomorrow, because the Church continues. It would be a much bigger tragedy, if Cardinal Pacelli dies, because there is only one. I pray every day, God may send another one into one of our seminaries, but as of today, there is only one in this Lehnert, Pius XII\'s housekeeper and confidant for 41 years, until his death[15]
After his election, he madeLuigi Maglionehis successor as Cardinal Secretary of State. Cardinal Maglione, a seasoned Vatican diplomat, had reestablished diplomatic relations with Switzerland and was for many years nuncio in Paris. Yet, Maglione did not exercise the influence of his predecessor Pacelli, who as Pope continued his close relation with Monsignors Montini (laterPope Paul VI) andDomenico Tardini. After the death of Maglione in 1944, Pius left the position open and named Tardini head of its foreign section and Montini head of the internal section.[91]Tardini and Montini continued serving there until 1953, when Pius XII decided to appoint them cardinals,[92]an honor which both turned down.[93]They were then later appointed to be Pro-Secretary with the privilege to wear Episcopal Insignia.[94]Tardini continued to be a close co-worker of the Pope until the death of Pius XII, while Montini became archbishop ofMilan, after the death ofAlfredo Ildefonso Schuster.
Pius XII slowly eroded the Italian monopoly on theRoman Curia; he employed German andDutchJesuitadvisors, Robert Leiber,Augustin Bea, andSebastian Tromp. He also supported the elevation of Americans such as CardinalFrancis Spellmanfrom a minor to a major role in the Church.[95][96]After World War II, Pius XII appointed more non-Italians than any Pope before him. American appointees includedJoseph P. Hurleyas regent of the nunciature in Belgrade,Gerald P. O\'Haraas nuncio toRomania, and MonsignorMuenchas nuncio to Germany. For the first time, numerous young Europeans, Asians and \"Americans were trained in various congregations and secretariats within the Vatican for eventual service throughout the information:Category:Cardinals created by Pope Pius XII
Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold aconsistoryto create newcardinals, in contrast to Pius XI, who had done so 17 times in as many years. Pius XII chose not to name new cardinals during World War II, and the number of cardinals shrank to 38, withDennis Joseph DoughertyofPhiladelphiabeing the only living U.S. cardinal. The first occasion on 18 February 1946—which has become known as the \"Grand Consistory\"—yielded the elevation of a record 32 new cardinals, almost 50 percent of the College of Cardinals and reaching the canonical limit of 70 cardinals.[98]In the 1946 consistory, Pius XII, while maintaining the maximum size of the College of Cardinals at 70, named cardinals from China, India, the Middle East and increased the number of Cardinals from the Americas, proportionally lessening the Italian influence.[99]
In his second consistory on 12 January 1953, it was expected that his closest co-workers, Msgrs. Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Montini would be elevated[100]and Pius XII informed the assembled cardinals that both of them were originally on the top of his list,[101]but they had turned down the offer, and were rewarded instead with other promotions.[102]The two consistories of 1946 and 1953 brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of theCollege of Cardinals.[103]
With few exceptions, Italian prelates accepted the changes positively; there was no protest movement or open opposition to the internationalization efforts.[104]
Church reforms[edit]Liturgy reforms[edit]Main articles:Liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XIIandMediator DeiIn his encyclicalMediator Dei, Pius XII linksliturgywith the last will ofJesus Christ.
“But it is His will, that the worship He instituted and practiced during His life on earth shall continue ever afterwards without intermission. For he has not left mankind anorphan. He still offers us the support of His powerful, unfailing intercession, acting as our \"advocate with the Father.\" He aids us likewise through His Church, where He is present indefectibly as the ages run their course: through the Church which He constituted \"the pillar of truth\" and dispenser of grace, and which by His sacrifice on the cross, He founded, consecrated and confirmed forever.[105]”The Church has, therefore, according to Pius XII, a common aim with Christ himself, teaching all men the truth, and offering to God a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice. This way, the Church re-establishes the unity between theCreatorand his creatures.[106]The sacrifice of the altar, being Christ\'s own actions, convey and dispense divine grace from Christ to the members of the Mystical Body.[107]
Pope Pius XII seated in the Sedia Gestatoria in 1939.The numerous reforms of Pius XII show two characteristics. Renewal and rediscovery of old liturgical traditions, such as the reintroduction of theEaster Vigil, and a more structured atmosphere within the Church buildings. The use ofvernacularlanguage, favoured by Pius XII, was hotly debated at his time. He increased non-Latin services, especially in countries with expanding Catholic mission activities. Thechurch tabernacleholding theBlessed Sacramentshould be immovably fixed to the altar and, unless another position was thought to be more appropriate, should normally be at the main altar.[108]The Church should display religious objects, but not be overloaded with secondary objects. Modern sacred art should be reverential and reflect the spirit of our time.[109]Priests can officiate marriages withoutHoly Mass. They may also officiate confirmations in certain instances.[110]
Canon Law reforms[edit]Main article:Pope Pius XII reforms of Eastern Canon LawDecentralized authority and increased independence of the Uniate Churches were aimed at in theCanon Law/Corpis Iuris Canonici (CIC) reform. In its new constitutions, Eastern Patriarchs were made almost independent from Rome (CIC Orientalis, 1957) Eastern marriage law (CIC Orientalis, 1949), civil law (CIC Orientalis, 1950), laws governing religious associations (CIC Orientalis, 1952) property law (CIC Orientalis, 1952) and other laws. These reforms and writings of Pius XII were intended to establish Eastern Orientals as equal parts of the mystical body of Christ, as explained in theencyclicalMystici corporis.
Priests and religious[edit]With theApostolic constitutionSedis Sapientiae, Pius XII addedsocial sciences,sociology,psychologyandsocial psychology, to the pastoral training of future priests. Pius XII emphasised the need to systematically analyze thepsychologicalcondition of candidates to thepriesthoodto ensure that they are capable of a life of celibacy and service.[111]Pius XII added one year to the theological formation of future priests. He included a \"pastoral year\", an introduction into the practice of parish work.[112]
Pius XII wrote inMenti Nostraethat the call to constant interior reform and Christianheroismmeans to be above average, to be a living example of Christian virtue. The strict norms governing their lives are meant to make them models of Christian perfection for lay people.[113]Bishops are encouraged to look at model saints likeBoniface, and Pope Pius X.[114]Priests were encouraged to be living examples of the love of Christ and his sacrifice.[115]
Theology[edit]Main article:Theology of Pope Pius XIIFátimaStatue of Pope Pius XII, who consecrated Russia and theWorld:«Just as a few years ago We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of theVirgin Mary,Mother of God, so today We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart...»Pius XII explained the Catholic faith in 41 encyclicals and almost 1000 messages and speeches during his long pontificate.Mediator Deiclarified membership and participation in the Church. The encyclicalDivino afflante Spirituopened the doors for biblical research. His magisterium was far larger and is difficult to summarize. In numerous speeches Catholic teaching is related to various aspects of life, education, medicine, politics, war and peace, the life of saints,Mary, theMother of God, things eternal and contemporary. Theologically, Pius XII specified the nature of the teaching authority of the Church. He also gave a new freedom to engage in theological investigations.[116]
Theological orientation[edit]Biblical ResearchMain article:Divino afflante SpirituThe encyclicalDivino afflante Spiritu, published in 1943,[117]emphasized the role of the Bible. Pius XII freed biblical research from previous limitations. He encouraged Christian theologians to revisit original versions of the Bible inGreekandHebrew. Noting improvements inarchaeology, the encyclical reversed Pope Leo XIII\'s encyclical, which had only advocated going back to the original texts to resolve ambiguity in theLatin Vulgate. The encyclical demands a much better understanding of ancient Jewish history and traditions. It requires bishops throughout the Church to initiatebiblical studiesfor lay people. The Pontiff also requests a reorientation of Catholic teaching and education, relying much more on sacred scriptures insermonsand religious instruction.[118]
The role of theologyThis theological investigative freedom does not, however, extend to all aspects of theology. According to Pius, theologians, employed by the Church, are assistants, to teach the official teachings of the Church and not their own private thoughts. They are free to engage in empirical research, which the Church generously supports, but in matters ofmoralityand religion, they are subjected to the teaching office and authority of the Church, theMagisterium. \"The most noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is contained in the sources of revelation, ... in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church.\"[119]The deposit of faith is authentically interpreted not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the teaching authority of the Church.[120]
Mariology and the Dogma of the Assumption[edit]On 1 November 1950, Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption (Titian\'sAssunta(1516–18) pictured).World Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of MaryMain article:Pope Pius XII Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of MaryAs a young boy and in later life, Pacelli was an ardent follower of the Virgin Mary. He was consecrated as a bishop on 13 May 1917, the very first day of the apparitions ofOur Lady of Fátima. He consecrated the world to theImmaculate Heart of Maryin 1942, however, in the second \"secret\" of Our Lady of Fátima and the letters received from several bishops from Portugal based on the revelations of Lucia Santos[121]in 1929, Our Lady expressly, and specifically asked for the consecration of Russia, not \"the world\". His remains were to be buried in the crypt of Saint Peter\'s Basilica on the feast day of Our Lady of Fátima, 13 October 1958.
The dogma of the Assumption of Our LadyMain articles:Munificentissimus DeusandAssumption of MaryOn 1 November 1950, Pius XII defined the dogma of theAssumption of Mary, namely that she \"having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.\"[122]The dogma was preceded by the 1946 encyclicalDeiparae Virginis Mariae, which requested all Catholic bishops to express their opinion on a possible dogmatization. On 8 September 1953, the encyclicalFulgens coronaannounced a Marian year for 1954, the centennial of the Dogma of theImmaculate Conception.[123]In the encyclicalAd caeli reginamhe promulgated theQueenship of Maryfeast.[124]Mystici corporissummarizes hismariology.[125]
Social teachings[edit]Coronation of theSalus Populi Romaniby Pope Pius XII in 1954Main article:Social teachings of Pope Pius XIIMedical theologyPius XII delivered numerous speeches to medical professionals and researchers.[126]He addressed doctors, nurses, midwives, to detail all aspects of rights and dignity of patients, medical responsibilities, moral implications of psychological illnesses and the uses of psycho pharmaca. He also took on issues like the uses of medicine interminally illpersons, medical lies in face of grave illness, and the rights of family members to make decisions against expert medical advice. Pope Pius XII often reconsidered previously accepted truth, thus he was first to determine that the use of pain medicine in terminally ill patients is justified, even if this may shorten the life of the patient, as long as life shortening is not the objective itself.[127]
Family and sexualityPope Pius XII developed an extensive theology of the family, taking issue with family roles, sharing of household duties, education of children, conflict resolution, financial dilemmas, psychological problems, illness, taking care of older generations, unemployment, marital holiness and virtue, common prayer, religious discussions and more. He accepted therhythm methodas a moral form offamily planning, although only in limited circumstances, within the context of family.[128]
Theology and scienceTo Pius XII, science and religion were heavenly sisters, different manifestations of divine exactness, who could not possibly contradict each other over the long term[129]Regarding their relation, his advisor Professor Robert Leiber wrote: \"Pius XII was very careful not to close any doors prematurely. He was energetic on this point and regretted that in the case ofGalileo\".[130]
EvolutionMain article:Humani generisIn 1950, Pius XII promulgatedHumani generiswhich acknowledged thatevolutionmight accurately describe the biological origins of human life, but at the same time criticized those who \"imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution... explains the origin of all things\". Catholics must believe that the human soul was created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person..\"[131]Fifty years later,Pope John Paul II, stating that scientific evidence now seemed to favour the evolutionary theory, upheld the distinction of Pius XII regarding the human soul. \"Even if the human body originates from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is spontaneously created by God.\"[132]
Encyclicals, writings and speeches[edit]Main articles:List of encyclicals of Pope Pius XIIandMagisterium of Pius XIIIn 1939 Pius XII placed his pontificate under the maternal care ofOur Lady of Good Counseland composed a prayer to her.[133][134]This 19th-century painting is byPasquale Sarullo.Pius XII issued 41encyclicalsduring his pontificate—more than all his successors in the past 50 years taken together—along with many other writings and speeches. The pontificate of Pius XII was the first in Vatican history that published papal speeches and addresses invernacularlanguage on a systematic basis. Until then, papal documents were issued mainly inLatininActa Apostolicae Sedissince 1909. Because of the novelty of it all, and a fearedoccupationof the Vatican by the GermanWehrmacht, not all documents exist today. In 1944, a number of papal documents were burned or \"walled in\",[135]to avoid detection by the advancing German army. Insisting that all publications must be reviewed by him on a prior basis to avoid any misunderstanding, several speeches by Pius XII, who did not find sufficient time, were never published or appeared only once issued in the Vatican daily,Osservatore Romano.
Several encyclicals addressed theOriental Churches.Orientalis Ecclesiaewas issued in 1944 on the 15th centenary of the death ofCyril of Alexandria, a saint common toOrthodoxandLatinChurches. Pius XII asks for prayer for better understanding and unification of the Churches.Orientales omnes Ecclesias, issued in 1945 on the 350th anniversary of the reunion, is a call to continued unity of theRuthenian Church, threatened in its very existence by the authorities of the Soviet Union.Sempiternus Rexwas issued in 1951 on the 1500th anniversary of the EcumenicalCouncil of Chalcedon. It included a call to oriental communities adhering toMiaphysitetheology to return to the Catholic Church.Orientales Ecclesiaswas issued in 1952 and addressed to the Eastern Churches, protesting the continuedStalinistpersecution of the Church. SeveralApostolic Letterswere sent to the bishops in the East. On 13 May 1956, Pope Pius addressed all bishops of the Eastern Rite. Mary, the mother of God, was the subject of encyclical letters to the people of Russia inFulgens corona, as well as a papal letter to the people of style=\"margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">Pius XII made two substantial interventions on the media. His 1955 discourseThe Ideal Movie, originally given in two parts to members of the Italian cinema industry, offered a \"sophisticated analysis of the film industry and the role of cinema in modern society.\"[143]Compared to his predecessor\'s teaching, the encyclicalMiranda Prorsus(1957) shows a \"high regard for the importance of cinema, television, and radio.\"[144]
Feasts and devotions[edit]In 1958, Pope Pius XII declared the Feast of theHoly Face of JesusasShrove Tuesday(the Tuesday beforeAsh Wednesday) for all Roman Catholics. The first medal of the Holy Face, produced by SisterMaria Pierina De Micheli, based on the image on theShroud of Turinhad been offered to Pius XII who approved the medal and the devotion based on it. The general devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus had been approved byPope Leo XIIIin 1885 before the image on the Turin Shroud had been and beatifications[edit]Main articles:Saints canonized by Pope Pius XIIandBeatifications of Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XIIcanonizednumerous people, including PopePius X—\"both were determined to stamp out, as far as possible, all traces of dangerousheterodoxy\"[147]—andMaria Goretti. He beatifiedPope Innocent XI. The first canonizations were two women, the founder of a female order,Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, and a young housekeeper said to havestigmata,Gemma Galgani. Pelletier had a reputation for opening new ways for Catholic charities, helping people in difficulties with the law, who had been neglected by the system and the Church. Galgani was a woman in her twenties whose virtue became model by her canonization.[148]
World War II[edit]Members of the CanadianRoyal 22eRegiment, in audience with Pope Pius XII, following the 1944 Liberation of Rome.Main article:Vatican City during World War IISee also:Pius XII and the German ResistancePius XII lobbied world leaders to prevent the outbreak of World War II and then expressed his dismay that war had come in his October 1939Summi Pontificatusencyclical. He followed a strict public policy of Vatican neutrality for the duration of the conflict, but preached against selfish nationalism and, through the use of diplomacy, sermons and radio broadcasts and the creation of the Vatican Information Service, Pius worked to ameliorate the suffering of the victims of the war. He permitted local churches to assess and formulate responses to the Nazis, and instructed them to provide discreet aid to Jews.[149]
During the war, the Pope followed a policy of public neutrality mirroring that ofPope Benedict XVduring World War I. In 1939, Pius XII turned the Vatican into a centre of aid which he organized from various parts of the world[150]At the request of the Pope, an information office for prisoners of war and refugees operated in the Vatican underGiovanni Battista Montini, which in the years of its existence from 1939 until 1947 received almost 10 million (9,891,497) information requests and produced over 11million (11,293,511) answers about missing persons.[151]
McGoldrick (2012) concludes that during the war:
Pius XII had genuine affection for Germany, though not the criminal element into whose hands it had fallen; he feared Bolshevism, an ideology dedicated to the annihilation of the church of which he was head, but his sympathies lay with the Allies and the democracies, especially the United States, into whose war economy he had transferred and invested the Vatican\'s considerable assets.[152]
Outbreak of war[edit]Summi Pontificatus[edit]Summi Pontificatuswas the first papal encyclical issued by Pope Pius XII, in October 1939 and established some of the themes of his pontificate. During the drafting of the letter, the Second World War commenced with the German/Soviet invasion of Catholic Poland—the \"dread tempest of war is already raging despite all Our efforts to avert it\". The papal letter denounced anti-semitism, war, totalitarianism, the attack on Poland and the Nazi persecution of the Church.[153]
Pius XII reiterated Church teaching on the \"principle of equality\"—with specific reference to Jews: \"there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision\".[154]The forgetting of solidarity \"imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men\" was called \"pernicious error\".[155]Catholics everywhere were called upon to offer \"compassion and help\" to the victims of the war.[156]The Pope declared determination to work to hasten the return of peace and trust in prayers for justice, love and mercy, to prevail against the scourge of war.[157]The letter also decried the deaths of noncombatants.[158]
Following themes addressed inNon abbiamo bisogno(1931);Mit brennender Sorge(1937) andDivini redemptoris(1937), Pius wrote against \"anti-Christian movements\" and needing to bring back to the Church those who were following \"a false standard... misled by error, passion, temptation and prejudice, [who] have strayed away from faith in the true God\".[159]Pius wrote of \"Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact\" having showed \"cowardice\" in the face of persecution by these creeds, and endorsed resistance:[159]
Who among \"the Soldiers of Christ\"– ecclesiastic or layman– does not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of Christ\'s enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the Tables of God\'s Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross has no place?
—Summi Pontificatus- Pope Pius XII, October 1939
Pius wrote of a persecuted Church[160]and a time requiring \"charity\" for victims who had a \"right\" to compassion. Against the invasion of Poland and killing of civilians he wrote:[153]
[This is an] \"Hour of Darkness\"...in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind... The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only at the \"beginnings of sorrows\"...but even now there reigns in thousands of families death and desolation, lamentation and misery. The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.
—Summi Pontificatus- Pope Pius XII, October 1939
With Italy not yet an ally of Hitler in the war, Italians were called upon to remain faithful to the Church. Pius avoided explicit denunciations of Hitlerism or Stalinism, establishing the \"impartial\" public tone which would become controversial in later assessment of his pontificate: \"A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations.\"[161]
Invasion of Poland[edit]InSummi Pontificatus, Pius expressed dismay at the killing of non-combatants in the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland and expressed hope for the \"resurrection\" of that country. The Nazis and Soviets commenced a persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland. In April 1940, the Vatican advised the US government that its efforts to provide humanitarian aid had been blocked by the Germans and that the Holy See had been forced to seek indirect channels through which to direct its aid.[162]Michael Phayer, a critic of Pius XII, assesses his policy as having been to \"refuse to censure\" the\"German\" invasion and annexation of Poland. This, Phayer wrote, was regarded as a \"betrayal\" by many Polish Catholics and clergy, who saw his appointment ofHilarius Breitingeras the apostolic administrator for theWarthelandin May 1942, a \"implicit recognition\" of the breakup of Poland; the opinions of theVolksdeutsche, mostly German Catholic minorities living in occupied Poland, were more mixed.[163]Phayer argues that Pius XII—both before and during his papacy—consistently \"deferred to Germany at the expense of Poland\", and saw Germany—not Poland—as critical to \"rebuilding a large Catholic presence in Central Europe\".[164]In May 1942, Kazimierz Papée, Polish ambassador to the Vatican, complained that Pius had failed to condemn the recent wave of atrocities in Poland; when Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione replied that the Vatican could not document individual atrocities, Papée declared, \"when something becomes notorious, proof is not required.\"[165]Although Pius XII received frequent reports about atrocities committed by and/or against Catholics, his knowledge was incomplete; for example, he wept after the war on learning thatCardinal Hlondhad banned German liturgical services in Poland.[166]
Early actions to end conflict[edit]With Poland overrun, but France and the Low Countries yet to be attacked, Pius continued to hope for a negotiated peace to prevent the spread of the conflict. The similarly minded US PresidentFranklin D. Rooseveltre-established American diplomatic relations with the Vatican after a seventy year hiatus and dispatchedMyron C. Tayloras his personal representative.[167]Pius warmly welcomed Roosevelt\'s envoy and peace initiative, calling it \"an exemplary act of fraternal and hearty solidarity... in defence against the chilling breath of aggressive and deadly godless anti-Christian tendencies\".[168]American correspondence spoke of \"parallel endeavours for peace and the alleviation of suffering\".[169]Despite the early collapse of peace hopes, the Taylor mission continued at the Vatican.[167]
Josef Müllerof the German resistance obtained help fromPius XIIin a 1940 plot to persuade the German military to depose Hitler, prior to his invasion of the Low Countries.According to Hitler biographer John Toland, following the November 1939 assassination attempt byJohann Georg Elser, Hitler said Pius would have wanted the plot to succeed: \"he\'s no friend of mine\".[170]In the spring of 1940, a group of German generals seeking to overthrow Hitler and make peace with the British approached Pope Pius XII, who acted as an interlocutor between the British and the abortive plot.[171]According to Toland, Munich lawyer,Joseph Muller, made a clandestine trip to Rome in October 1939, met with Pius XII and found him willing to act as intermediary. The Vatican agreed to send a letter outlining the bases for peace with England and the participation of the Pope was used to try to persuade senior German Generals Halder and Brauchitsch to act against Hitler.[172]
Pius warned the Allies of the planned German invasion of the Low Countries in 1940.[173]In Rome in 1942, US envoy Myron C. Taylor, thanked the Holy See for the \"forthright and heroic expressions of indignation made by Pope Pius XII when Germany invaded the Low countries\".[174]After Germany invaded theLow Countriesduring 1940, Pius XII sent expressions of sympathy to theQueen of the Netherlands, theKing of Belgium, and theGrand Duchess of Luxembourg. When Mussolini learned of the warnings and the telegrams of sympathy, he took them as a personal affront and had his ambassador to the Vatican file an official protest, charging that Pius XII had taken sides against Italy\'s ally Germany. Mussolini\'s foreign minister claimed that Pius XII was \"ready to let himself be deported to a concentration camp, rather than do anything against his conscience.\"[175]
When in 1940, the Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop led the only senior Nazi delegation permitted an audience with Pius XII and asked why the Pope had sided with the Allies, Pius replied with a list of recent Nazi atrocities and religious persecutions committed against Christians and Jews, in Germany, and in Poland, leading the New York Times to headline its report \"Jews Rights Defended\" and write of \"burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop about religious persecution\".[176]During the meeting, Ribbentrop suggested an overall settlement between the Vatican and the Reich government in exchange for Pius XII instructing the German bishops to refrain from political criticism of the German government, but no agreement was reached.[177]
The investments ofBernardino Nogarawere critical to the financing of the papacy during World War II.At a special mass at St Peters for the victims of the war, held in November 1940, soon after the commencement of theLondon Blitzbombing by theLuftwaffe, Pius preached in his homily: \"may the whirlwinds, that in the light of day or the dark of night, scatter terror, fire, destruction, and slaughter on helpless folk cease. May justice and charity on one side and on the other be in perfect balance, so that all injustice be repaired, the reign of right restored....\"[178]Later he appealed to the Allies to spare Rome from aerial bombing, and visited wounded victims of the Allied bombing of 19 July 1943.[149]
Widening conflict[edit]Unsuccessfully, Pius attempted to dissuade the Italian DictatorBenito Mussolinifrom joining Hitler in the war.[179]In April 1941, Pius XII granted a private audience toAnte Pavelić, the leader of thenewly proclaimed Croatian state(rather than the diplomatic audience Pavelić had wanted).[180]Pius was criticised for his reception of Pavelić: an unattributed BritishForeign Officememo on the subject described Pius as \"the greatest moral coward of our age.\"[181]The Vatican did not officially recognise Pavelić\'s regime. Pius XII did not publicly condemn the expulsions and forced conversions to Catholicism perpetrated on Serbs by Pavelić;[182]however, the Holy See did expressly repudiate the forced conversions in a memorandum dated 25 January 1942, from the Vatican Secretiat of State to the Yugoslavian Legation.[183]The pope was well-informed ofCatholic clergy involvement with the Ustašeregime, even possessing a list of clergymembers who had \"joined in the slaughter\", but decided against condemning the regime or taking action against the involved clergy, fearing that it would lead to schism in the Croatian church or undermine the formation of a future Croatian state.[184]Pius XII elevatedAloysius Stepinac—a Croatian archbishop convicted of collaborating with theUstaše—to the cardinalate.[185]Phayer agrees that Stepinac\'s was a \"show trial\", but states \"the charge that he [Pius XII] supported the Ustaša regime was, of course, true, as everyone knew\",[186]and that \"if Stepinac had responded to the charges against him, his defense would have inevitably unraveled, exposing the Vatican\'s support of thegenocidalPavelić.\"[187]
In 1941, Pius XII interpretedDivini Redemptoris, anencyclicalof Pope Pius XI, which forbade Catholics to help communists, as not applying to military assistance to theSoviet Union. This interpretation assuaged American Roman Catholics who had previously opposedLend-Leasearrangements with the Soviet Union.[188]
In March 1942, Pius XII established diplomatic relations with theJapanese Empireand received ambassadorKen Harada, who remained in that position until the end of the war.[189][190]
In June 1942, diplomatic relations were established with the Nationalist government of China. This step was envisaged earlier, but delayed due to Japanese pressure to establish relations with the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei government. The first Chinese Minister to the Vatican, Hsieh Shou-kang, was only able to arrive at the Vatican in January 1943, due to difficulties of travel resulting from the war. He remained in that position until late 1946.[191]
The Pope employed the new technology of radio and a series of Christmas messages to preach against selfish nationalism and the evils of modern warfare and offer sympathy to the victims of the war.[149]Pius XII\'s 1942 Christmas addressviaVatican Radiovoiced concern at human rights abuses and the murder of innocents based on race. The majority of the speech spoke generally about human rights and civil society; at the very end of the speech, Pius XII mentioned \"the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline\".[192]According to Rittner, the speech remains a \"lightning rod\" in debates about Pius XII.[193]The Nazis themselves responded to the speech by stating that it was \"one long attack on everything we stand for....He is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews....He is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.\" The New York Times wrote that \"The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas....In calling for a \'real new order\' based on \'liberty, justice and love,\'...the pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism.\"[194]Historian Michael Phayer claims, however, that \"it is still not clearwhosegenocide orwhichgenocide he was referring to\".[195]Speaking on the 50th anniversary of Pius\'s death in 2008, the German PopeBenedict XVIrecalled that the Pope\'s voice had been \"broken by emotion\" as he \"deplored the situation\" with a \"clear reference to the deportation and extermination of the Jews.\"[196]
Several authors havealleged a plot to kidnap Pius XIIby the Nazis during their occupation of Rome in 1943 (Vatican City itself was not occupied); British historianOwen Chadwickand the JesuitADSSeditorRev. Robert Grahameach concluded such claims were an invention ofBritish wartime propagandists.[197][198]However, in 2007, subsequent to those accounts, Dan Kurzman published a work which he maintains establishes that the plot was a fact.[199]
Final stages[edit]As the war was approaching its end in 1945, Pius advocated a lenient policy by theAlliedleaders in an effort to prevent what he perceived to be the mistakes made at the end of World War I.[200]In August 1944, he met British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, who was visiting Rome. At their meeting, the Pope acknowledged the justice of punishing war criminals, but expressed a hope that the people of Italy would not be punished, preferring that they be made \"full allies\" in the remaining war effort.[201]
Holocaust[edit]Main articles:Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust,Pope Pius XII and JudaismandPope Pius XII and the Roman razziaCesare Orsenigo, Pius XII\'s nuncio to Germany throughout World War II, with Hitler andJoachim von Ribbentrop.Polish prisoners toast their liberation fromDachau. Nazi persecution of Catholics was at itsmost severeinoccupied Poland.During the Second World War, after Nazi Germany commenced its mass executions of Jews in occupied Soviet territory, Pius XII employed diplomacy to aid victims of the Holocaust and directed his Church to provide discreet aid to Jews.[3]Upon his death in 1958, among many Jewish tributes, the Chief Rabbi of RomeElio Toaff, said: \"Jews will always remember what the Catholic Church did for them by order of the Pope during the Second World War. When the war was raging, Pius spoke out very often to condemn the false race theory.\"[202]This is disputed by commentator John Cornwell, who in his book,Hitler\'s Pope, argues that the pope was weak and vacillating in his approach to Nazism. Cornwell asserts that the pope did little to challenge the progressing holocaust of the Jews out of fear of provoking the Nazis into invading Vatican City.[203]
In his 1939Summi Pontificatusfirst papal encyclical, Pius reiterated Catholic teaching against racial persecution and antisemitism and affirmed the ethical principles of the \"Revelation on Sinai\". At Christmas 1942, once evidence of mass executions of Jews had emerged, Pius XIIvoiced concernat the murder of \"hundreds of thousands\" of \"faultless\" people because of their \"nationality or race\" and intervened to attempt to block Nazi deportations of Jews in various countries. Upon his death in 1958, Pius was praised emphatically by the Israeli Foreign Minister, and other world leaders. But his insistence on Vatican neutrality and avoidance of naming the Nazis as the evildoers of the conflict became the foundation for contemporary and later criticisms from some quarters. His strongest public condemnation of genocide was considered inadequate by the Allied Powers, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had dishonoured his policy of Vatican neutrality.[204]Hitler biographer John Toland, while scathing of Pius\'s cautious public comments in relation to the mistreatment of Jews, concluded that the Allies\' own record of action against the Holocaust was \"shameful\", while \"The Church, under the Pope\'s guidance, had already saved the lives of more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined...\".[172]
In 1939, the newly elected Pope Pius XII appointed several prominent Jewish scholars to posts at the Vatican after they had been dismissed from Italian universities underFascistleaderBenito Mussolini\'s racial laws.[205]In 1939, the Pope employed a Jewish cartographer, Roberto Almagia, to work on old maps in the Vatican library. Almagia had been at theUniversity of Romesince 1915 but was dismissed afterBenito Mussolini\'s antisemitic legislation of 1938. The Pope\'s appointment of two Jews to the Vatican Academy of Science as well as the hiring of Almagia were reported byThe New York Timesin the editions of 11 November 1939 and 10 January 1940.[206]
Pius later engineered an agreement—formally approved on 23 June 1939—with BrazilianPresidentGetúlio Vargasto issue 3,000visasto \"non-AryanCatholics\". However, over the next 18 months Brazil\'s Conselho de Imigração e Colonização (CIC) continued to tighten the restrictions on their issuance, including requiring abaptismal certificatedated before 1933, a substantial monetary transfer to theBanco do Brasil, and approval by the Brazilian Propaganda Office in Berlin. The program was cancelled 14 months later, after fewer than 1,000 visas had been issued, amid suspicions of \"improper conduct\" (i.e., continuing to practice Judaism) among those who had received visas.[56][207]
In April 1939, after the submission ofCharles Maurrasand the intervention of the Carmel ofLisieux, Pius XII ended his predecessor\'s ban onAction Française, an organisation described by some authors as style=\"margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);\">Following the German/Soviet invasion of Poland, the Pope\'s first encyclical,Summi Pontificatusreiterated Catholic teaching against racial persecution and rejected anti-semitism, quoting scripture singling out the \"principle of equality\"—with specific reference to Jews: \"there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision\" and direct affirmation of the JewishRevelation on Sinai.[210][211]The forgetting of solidarity \"imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men\" was called \"pernicious error\".[155]Catholics everywhere were called upon to offer \"compassion and help\" to the victims of the war.[156]The Pope declared determination to work to hasten the return of peace and trust in prayers for justice, love and mercy, to prevail against the scourge of war.[212]The letter also decried the deaths of noncombatants.[158]
Cardinal Secretary of StateLuigi Maglione received a request fromChief RabbiofPalestineIsaac Herzogin the spring of 1940 to intercede on behalf ofLithuanianJews about to be deported to Germany.[56]Pius calledRibbentropon 11 March, repeatedly protesting against the treatment of Jews.[209]In 1940, Pius asked members of the clergy, on Vatican letterhead, to do whatever they could on behalf of interned Jews.[213]
In 1941, CardinalTheodor InnitzerofViennainformed Pius of Jewish deportations in Vienna.[214]Later that year, when asked by French MarshalPhilippe Pétainif the Vatican objected to antisemitic laws, Pius responded that the church condemned antisemitism, but would not comment on specific rules.[214]Similarly, whenPhilippe Pétain\'s regime adopted the \"Jewish statutes\", theVichyambassador to the Vatican,Léon Bérard(a French politician), was told that the legislation did not conflict with Catholic teachings.[215]Valerio Valeri, thenuncioto France was \"embarrassed\" when he learned of this publicly from Pétain[216]and personally checked the information with Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione[217]who confirmed the Vatican\'s position.[218]In June 1942, Pius XII personally protested against the mass deportations of Jews from France, ordering the papal nuncio to protest to Pétain against \"the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews\".[219]In September 1941, Pius XII objected to aSlovakianJewish Code,[220]which, unlike the earlier Vichy codes, prohibited intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.[216]In October 1941, Harold Tittmann, a US delegate to the Vatican, asked the pope to condemn the atrocities against Jews; Pius replied that the Vatican wished to remain \"neutral,\"[221]reiterating the neutrality policy which Pius invoked as early as September 1940.[215]
In 1942, the Slovakianchargé d\'affairestold Pius thatSlovakianJews were being sent to concentration camps.[214]On 11 March 1942, several days before the first transport was due to leave, the chargé d\'affaires inBratislavareported to the Vatican: \"I have been assured that this atrocious plan is the handwork of ... Prime Minister (Tuka), who confirmed the plan ... he dared to tell me—he who makes such a show of his Catholicism—that he saw nothing inhuman or un-Christian in it ... the deportation of 80,000 persons to Poland, is equivalent to condemning a great number of them to certain death.\" The Vatican protested to the Slovak government that it \"deplore(s) these... measures which gravely hurt the natural human rights of persons, merely because of their race.\"[222]
On 18 September 1942, Pius XII received a letter from Monsignor Montini (futurePope Paul VI), saying, \"the massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms.\"[214]Later that month,Myron Taylor, U.S. representative to the Vatican, warned Pius that the Vatican\'s \"moral prestige\" was being injured by silence on European atrocities, a warning which was echoed simultaneously by representatives from the United Kingdom, Brazil,Uruguay, Belgium, and Poland.[223]Myron C. Taylor passed a US Government memorandum to Pius on 26 September 1942, outlining intelligence received from the Jewish Agency for Palestine which said that Jews from across theNazi Empirewere being systematically \"butchered\". Taylor asked if the Vatican might have any information which might \"tend to confirm the reports\", and if so, what the Pope might be able to do to influence public opinion against the \"barbarities\".[224]Cardinal Maglione handed Harold Tittmann a response to the letter on 10 October. The note thanked Washington for passing on the intelligence, and confirmed that reports of severe measures against the Jews had reached the Vatican from other sources, though it had not been possible to \"verify their accuracy\". Nevertheless, \"every opportunity is being taken by the Holy See, however, to mitigate the suffering of these unfortunate people\".[225]In December 1942, when Tittmann asked Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione if Pius would issue a proclamation similar to the Allied declaration \"German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race\", Maglione replied that the Vatican was \"unable to denounce publicly particular atrocities.\"[226]Pius XII directly explained to Tittman that he could not name the Nazis without at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks.[227]
Following the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland, Pius XII\'sSummi Pontificatuscalled for the sympathy of the whole world towards Poland, where \"the blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants\" was being spilled.[158]Pius never publicly condemned the Nazi massacre of 1,800,000–1,900,000 Poles, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic (including 2,935 members of the Catholic clergy),[228][229]In late 1942, Pius XII advised German and Hungarian bishops to speak out against the massacres on theEastern Front.[230]In his 1942 Christmas Eve message, he expressed concern for \"those hundreds of thousands, who ... sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction.[231]On 7 April 1943, Msgr. Tardini, one of Pius XII\'s closest advisors, advised Pius XII that it would be politically advantageous after the war to take steps to help Slovakian Jews.[232]
In January 1943, Pius XII declined to denounce publicly the Nazi discrimination against the Jews, following requests to do so fromWładysław Raczkiewicz, president of the Polishgovernment-in-exile, and BishopKonrad von Preysingof Berlin.[233]According to Toland, in June 1943, Pius XII addressed the issue of mistreatment of Jews at a conference of theSacred College of Cardinalsand said: \"Every word We address to the competent authority on this subject, and all Our public utterances have to be carefully weighed and measured by Us in the interests of the victims themselves, lest, contrary to Our intentions, We make their situation worse and harder to bear\".[172]
On 26 September 1943, following the German occupation of northern Italy, Nazi officials gave Jewish leaders in Rome 36 hours to produce 50 kilograms (110lb) of gold (or the equivalent) threatening to take 300 hostages. Then Chief Rabbi of RomeIsrael Zollirecounts in his memoir that he was selected to go to the Vatican and seek help.[234]The Vatican offered to loan 15 kilos, but the offer proved unnecessary when the Jews received an extension.[235]Soon afterward, when deportations from Italy were imminent, 477 Jews were hidden in the Vatican itself and another 4,238 were protected in Roman monasteries and convents.[236]Eighty percent of Roman Jews were saved from deportation.[237]Phayer argues that the German diplomats in Rome were the \"initiators of the effort to save the city\'s Jews\", but holds that Pius XII \"cooperated in this attempt at rescue\", while agreeing with Zuccotti that the pope \"did not give orders\" for any Roman Catholic institution to hide Jews.[238]
On 30 April 1943, Pius XII wrote to BishopGraf von Preysingof Berlin to say: \"We give to the pastors who are working on the local level the duty of determining if and to what degree the danger of reprisals and of various forms of oppression occasioned by episcopal declarations...ad maiora mala vitanda(to avoid worse)... seem to advise caution. Here lies one of the reasons, why We impose self-restraint on Ourselves in our speeches; the experience, that we made in 1942 with papal addresses, which We authorized to be forwarded to the Believers, justifies our opinion, as far as We see.... The Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance. To say nothing of the substantial sums which we spent in American money for the fares of immigrants.\"[239]
On 28 October 1943,Ernst von Weizsäcker, the German Ambassador to the Vatican, telegraphed Berlin that \"...the Pope has not yet let himself be persuaded to make an official condemnation of the deportation of the Roman Jews.... Since it is currently thought that the Germans will take no further steps against the Jews in Rome, the question of our relations with the Vatican may be considered closed.\"[240][241]
In March 1944, through the papal nuncio inBudapest, Angelo Rotta, the pope urged theHungariangovernment to moderate its treatment of the Jews.[242]The pope ordered Rotta and other papal legates to hide and shelter Jews.[243]These protests, along with others from the King of Sweden, the International Red Cross, the United States, and Britain led to the cessation of deportations on 8 July 1944.[244]Also in 1944, Pius appealed to 13 Latin American governments to accept \"emergency passports\", although it also took the intervention of the U.S. State Department for those countries to honor the documents.[245]TheKaltenbrunnerReport to Hitler, dated 29 November 1944, against the backdrop of the20 July 1944 Plot to assassinate Hitler, states that the Pope was somehow a conspirator, specifically naming Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII), as being a party in the attempt.[246]
Jewish orphans controversyMain article:Jewish orphans controversyIn 2005,Corriere della Serapublished a document dated 20 November 1946 on the subject of Jewish children baptized in war-time France. The document ordered that baptized children, if orphaned, should be kept in Catholic custody and stated that the decision \"has been approved by the Holy Father\". NuncioAngelo Roncalli(who became Pope John XXIII, and was recognized byYad VashemasRighteous Among the Nations) ignored this directive.[247]Abe Foxman, the national director of theAnti-Defamation League(ADL), who had himself been baptized as a child and had undergone a custody battle afterwards, called for an immediate freeze on Pius\'s beatification process until the relevantVatican Secret Archivesand baptismal records were opened.[248]Two Italian scholars, Matteo Luigi Napolitano and Andrea Tornielli, confirmed that the memorandum was genuine although the reporting by theCorriere della Serawas misleading, as the document had originated in the French Catholic Church archives rather than the Vatican archives and strictly concerned itself with children without living blood relatives who were supposed to be handed over to Jewish organizations.[249]
Post-World War II[edit]Further information:Pope Pius XII foreign relations after World War II,Persecutions of the Catholic Church and Pius XII,Pope Pius XII and Russia,Pope Pius XII and ChinaandPope Pius XII and PolandBishopAloisius Joseph Muench, Pius XII\'s post-war liaison to theOffice of Military Government, United StatesAfter World War II Pope Pius XII focused on material aid to war-torn Europe, an internal internationalization of the Roman Catholic Church, and the development of its worldwide diplomatic relations. His encyclicals,Evangelii praeconesandFidei donum, issued on 2 June 1951 and 21 April 1957, respectively, increased the local decision-making of Catholic missions, many of which became independent dioceses. Pius XII demanded recognition of local cultures as fully equal to European culture.[250][251]Though his language retained old conceptions– Africa, for example, merited special attention since the church there worked \'to forward her work among the heathen multitudes\' - in 1956 he expressed solidarity with the \'non-Europeans who aspire to full political independence.\'[252]Continuing the line of his predecessors, Pius XII supported the establishment of local administration in Church affairs: in 1950, the hierarchy of Western Africa became independent; in 1951, Southern Africa; and in 1953,British East Africa. Finland,BurmaandFrench Africabecame independent dioceses in 1955.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, Pius XIIelevated a numberof high-profile resistors of Nazism to the College of Cardinals in 1946, among them the German BishopsJoseph Fringsof Cologne,August von Galenof Münster andKonrad von Preysingof Berlin. From elsewhere in the liberatedNazi EmpirePius selected other resistors: Dutch ArchbishopJohannes de Jong; Hungarian BishopJózsef Mindszenty; Polish ArchbishopAdam Stefan Sapieha; and French ArchbishopJules-Géraud Saliège. In 1946 and 1953, respectively, he named as cardinalsThomas Tienof China andValerian Graciasof India– the first indigenous Catholics of their respective nations to sit in theCollege of Cardinals.[253]Italian Papal diplomatAngelo Roncalli(later Pope John XXIII) and Polish ArchbishopStefan Wyszyńskiwere others among thoseelevated in 1953.
A German contingent dominated his inner circle at this period– the German JesuitsRobert Leiber, Wilhelm Hentrich and Ivo Zeiger. His personal confessor Augustin Bea was a German Jesuit and Mother Pascalina Lehnert and the other German speaking sisters of the papal household added to this element. The American bishopAloisius Muenchwrote in November 1948 that Pius XII was \'more interested in affairs of the Church in Germany than in any other part of the Church\' and resolved to make the postwar German crisis a top priority - \'its refugee crisis, poverty, hunger and disease, the fate of prisoners-of-war and accused war criminals, the disruption to the internal organization and communal life of German Catholicism, and Germany\'s uncertain political future.\'[254]
He was concerned too about the potential spread of Communism in Western Europe and the Americas. As he sought to secure resources from abroad to aid post-war recovery, believing deprivation fuelled political agitation, so he also sought to influence Italian politics. In January 1948, Luigi Gedda, of Italy\'sCatholic Actionmovement, was called to the Vatican as the campaign for the first parliament of Italy\'s post-fascist republic was underway.[255]The Communists and Socialists seemed headed for victory and Pius XII wanted Catholic Action, an organization of Catholic laity, to mobilise the Catholic vote against parties of the Left. In July 1949 he approved a controversial move by the Holy Office to threaten withexcommunicationanyone with known Communist affiliations. A group of Jesuits around the journalLa Civilta Cattolica, active in Vatican circles, further spread alarm thatfifth columnsof Soviet Communism were active in Western Europe poised to exploit popular discontent to aid Soviet expansionism.
Pius XII was rather distrustful ofAlcide de GasperiandItaly\'s Christian Democrats, considering the party indecisive and fractious– reformist currents within it particularly, which tended to the moderate Left– represented by the Sicilian priestLuigi Sturzofor example– he considered too accommodating to the Left. On the eve of the 1952 local elections in Rome, in which again the Communist and Socialist parties threatened to win out, he used informal connections to make his views known. Having decided to encourage the Christian Democrats to consider a political alliance with the Rightist parties as part of an anti-left coalition, he asked the Jesuit, Father Riccardo Lombardi, to speak with de Gasperi to consider such an alliance– an electoral alliance with those even of monarchist and neo-fascist tendencies -including theItalian Social Movement. Adopting a domino theory he warned that, \"If the Communists win in Rome, in Italy, it will cast a shadow on the entire world: France would become Communist, and then Spain and then all of Europe\'.[256]de Gasperi rejected the idea as politically dangerous to the long term fortunes of a centrist Catholic party.
Later life, illness and death[edit]Late years of Pope Pius XII[edit]Main article:Late years of Pope Pius XIIThe last years of thepontificateof Pius XII began in late 1954 with a long illness, during which he consideredabdication. Afterwards, changes in his work habit became noticeable. The Pope avoided long ceremonies, canonizations and consistories and displayed hesitancy in personnel matters. He found it increasingly difficult to chastise subordinates and appointees such as his physician,Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, who, after numerous indiscretions was excluded from Papal service for the last years, but, keeping his title, was able to enter the papal apartments to make photos of the dying Pope, which he sold to French magazines.[257]Pius underwent three courses ofcellular rejuvenationtreatment administered by Dr. Paul Niehans, the most important in 1954 when Pacelli was gravely ill. Side-effects of the treatment included hallucinations, from which the Pope suffered in his last years. \"These years were also plagued by horrific nightmares. Pacelli\'s blood-curdling screams could be heard throughout the papal apartments.\"[258]
Pius XII often elevated young priests as bishops, such asJulius Döpfner(35 years) and Karol Wojtyla (laterPope John Paul II, 38 years), one of his last appointees in 1958. He took a firm stand against pastoral experiments, such as \"worker-priests\", who worked full-time in factories and joined political parties and unions. He continued to defend the theological tradition ofThomismas worthy of continued reform, and as superior to modern trends such and death[edit]The Pope of Mary: AMadonna and Child, added by John Paul II in 1982, hangs over the tomb of Pius XII.Main article:Death of Pope Pius XII
Following his 1954 illness, Pope Pius XII still addressed lay people and groups about a wide range of topics. Sometimes he answered specific moral questions, which were addressed to him. To professional associations he explained specific occupational ethics in light of Church teachings. Robert Leiber helped him occasionally with his speeches and publications.Cardinal Augustine Bea SJwas his personal confessor.Sister Pasqualinawas for forty years his \"housekeeper, muse and lifelong companion\".[260]
Pius XII died on 9 October 1958 of acuteheart failurebrought on by a suddenmyocardial infarctioninCastel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence. His doctor Gaspanini said afterwards: \"The Holy Father did not die because of any specific illness. He was completely exhausted. He was overworked beyond limit. His heart was healthy, his lungs were good. He could have lived another 20 years, had he spared himself.\"[261]
Botched embalming[edit]Pius XII\'s physician, Dr. Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, reported that the pontiff\'s body was embalmed in the room where he died in using a novel process invented by Dr. Oreste Nuzzi.[262]
Pope Pius XII did not want the vital organs removed from his body, demanding instead, that it be kept in the same condition, \"in which God created it\".[263]According to Galeazzi-Lisi, this was the reason why he and Professor Nuzzi, an embalmer fromNaples, used a novel embalming approach invented by Nuzzi.[263]In a controversial press conference, Galeazzi-Lisi described in great detail the embalming of the body of the late pontiff. He claimed to have used the same system of oils and resins with which the body of Jesus Christ was preserved.[263]
Galeazzi-Lisi asserted that the new process would \"preserve the body indefinitely in its natural state\"[262]However, whatever chance the new embalming process had of efficaciously preserving the body was obliterated by intense heat in Castel Gandolfo during the embalming process. As a result, the body decomposed rapidly and the viewing of the faithful had to be terminated abruptly. Galeazzi-Lisi reported that heat in the halls, where the body of the late Pope lay in state, caused chemical reactions which required it to be treated twice after the original preparation.[263]Swiss Guards stationed around Pius XII\'s body were reported to have become ill during their vigil.[262]
Funeral[edit]His funeral procession into Rome was the largest congregation of Romans as of that date. Romans mourned \"their\" pope, who was born in their own city, especially as a hero in the time of war.[264]Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (later to bePope John XXIII) wrote in his diary on 11 October 1958 that probably no Roman emperor had enjoyed such a triumph, which he viewed as a reflection of the spiritual majesty and religious dignity of the late Pius XII.[265]
The late pope lay in state on a bier surrounded by four Swiss Guards, and was then placed in the coffin for burial. Pius XII was buried in the grottos beneath St. Peter\'s Basilica in a simple tomb in a small chapel.
Cause for canonisation[edit]Main article:Canonization of Pope Pius XIITheTestament of Pope Pius XIIwas published immediately after his death. Pope Pius XII\'scause of canonizationwas opened on 18 November 1965 by Pope Paul VI during the final session of theSecond Vatican Council. In May 2007, the congregation recommended that Pius XII should be declaredVenerable.[266]Pope Benedict XVIdid so on 19 December 2009, simultaneously making the same declaration in regard to Pope John Paul II.[6]
For Venerable status The Congregation for the Causes of Saints certifies the \"heroic virtues\" of the candidate. Making Pius XII Venerable met with various responses, most centred on the papal words and actions during World War II. Benedict\'s signature on the Decree of Heroic Virtue was regarded by some as a public relations blunder, though acceptance of Pius XII as a saviour of Europe\'s Jews is regarded as \'proof of fidelity to the Church, thepopeand the Tradition\' by neoconservative Catholic groups.[267]On the other hand, RabbiMarvin Hier, founder and dean at theSimon Wiesenthal Centersaid, \"...there would be a great distortion of history\" if Pius XII were canonized.[268]Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, the head ofSydney\'s Great Synagogue, said: \"How can one venerate a man who ... seemed to give his passive permission to the Nazis as the Jews were prised from his doorstep in Rome?\"[269]Such comments ignore the case ofIsrael Zolli, the Chief Rabbi in Rome from 1939–45, who became a Catholic and took the name of Eugenio in honor of Pius XII.
FatherPeter Gumpel, the relator of the Pius XII\'s cause for canonization, claims that there are already several miracles attributable to Pius XII, including \"one quite extraordinary one\".
On 1 August 2013, an anonymous \"source who works for theCongregation for the Causes of Saints\" saidPope Francisis considering canonization without a miracle, \"us[ing] the formula ofscientia certa\".[270]
Pope Francis also announced his intention in January 2014 to open theVatican Secret Archivesto scholars so that an evaluation to the late pontiff\'s role in the war can be determined before canonization. This has been met with praise by the Jewish community. However, it was said that it could take up to a year to gather all the documents and then analyze them.[271][272][273]
On 26 May 2014 on his way back from theHoly LandtoVatican City, Pope Francis stated that the late pope would not be beatified because the cause has stalled. The pope said that he checked the progress of the cause for the controversial pope and said that there were no miracles attributed to his intercession which was the main reason that the cause halted.[274]
Why Buy From Chestnut Hill Books?Chestnut Hill Books has a perfect 100% response rating dating over13 years and spanning 18,000+ transactions, with customers in all 50 states and over85 countries on 6 continents.Our detailed seller ratings (item as described, communication, shipping timeandshipping and handling charges) are among thebest on .All domestic purchasescome with free shipping and complimentary delivery confirmation, trackable throughtheUnited States Post Office.Our items have low starting prices well below their actual value, and reserve prices are rarely employed. Thank you for looking at our items - pleasebrowse our other sales this week!
Payment:Payment is due within 7 days of the sale\'s end date.Contactusfor special payment requests/options. If payment cannot be produced within the 7 day period, please send a message immediately indicating when payment should be expected, otherwisean unpaid item dispute will be filed with .
Where Do We Ship? Chestnut Hill Books ships to every country in the world at reasonable rates as suggested by the United States Postal Service.Please contact us for a specific international shipping quote before offerdingshould you have any questions.
Shipping Terms:Our sales end on Sunday evenings; if payment is made immediately, your item will usually be mailed within 24 hours of payment receipt.All items are securely packed to ensure safe shipping.Postcards are mailed between sturdy cardboard.All domestic shipments come with complimentary delivery confirmation, trackable throughthe USPS.sale winners will receive an e-mail from PayPal with tracking information and related links; please refer to this e-mail before contacting us with questions on the status of your package, as wewillhave as much delivery information as you.Zero profit is made on international shipping & handling charges; domestic shipping is free.
Return Policy:We strive to describe each item completely and accurately.However, if you feel an item was not described correctly, the item can be returned at our expense within30 days of receipt for a refund of your original payment. It is requested that you contact us immediatelyshould you have any question about the condition or representation of your item.
Who Are We?Chestnut Hill Books is a family-owned antiquesbusinessbased out of the SouthCoast, Massachusetts.We collect historical items related to New Bedford, Massachusetts and the surrounding area (Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Westport etc), Boston College (tickets, programs, pennants, postcards, scrapbooks, pinbacks, sports & non-sports etc), Massachusetts political buttons & memorabilia and Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.Please contact us if you haveany collectibles in those categories.
Other: Please do not hesitate to contact us with any other questions/comments.We normally respond to all inquiries in a timely manner.Don\'t forget tocheck our weekly sales, with new items posted on most Sunday evenings.Also, please do not forget to leave positive response upon item receipt!Thank you for looking at our
POPE PIUS XII PC Postcard VATICAN CITY Stamp POSTMARK Catholic Church PAPAL :
$24.99