Pope Pius XII , born
Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as the 260th
PopeThe pope is the Bishop of Rome and, as such, is leader of the worldwide Catholic Church...
, head of the Catholic Church and
sovereignA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy, a form of government in which the country or entity usually ruled or controlled by an individual who usually rules for life or until abdication...
of
Vatican CityVatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the capital city of Italy...
, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.
Before
electionA papal conclave is a meeting of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a Bishop of Rome, who becomes the pope, when there is a vacancy in the office. The pope is considered by Catholics to be the successor of Saint Peter and earthly head of the Catholic Church...
to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and
Cardinal Secretary of StateThe Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...
, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin-American nations, most notably the
ReichskonkordatThe Reichskonkordat is the concordat between the Holy See and Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli and Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg respectively...
with
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. His leadership of the Catholic Church during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
remains the subject of continued historical controversy.
After the war, Pius XII contributed to the rebuilding of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, and advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies toward vanquished nations and the unification of Europe. The Church, flourishing in the
WestWest is most commonly a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.West is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points...
, experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic
clergyClergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. The term ultimately comes from the Greek κλῆρος - klēros, "a lot", "that which is assigned by lot" or metaphorically, "inheritence"....
in the
EastThe terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960...
. In light of his protests, and his involvement in the
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
elections of 1948, he became known as a staunch but pragmatic opponent of
communismCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
. He signed thirty
concordatA concordat is an agreement between the Holy See and the government of a country on religious matters This often included both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church in a particular country...
s and diplomatic treaties.
Pius XII explicitly invoked
ex cathedraEx Cathedra is a British choir and early music ensemble based in Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. It performs choral music spanning the 15th to 21st centuries, and regularly commissions new works....
papal infallibilityPapal infallibility is the dogma in Catholic theology that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being contained in divine revelation, or at...
with the
dogmaDogma explains the concept of dogma from a Roman Catholic perspective. Dogma refers to an article of faith revealed by God, which the magisterium of the Church presents to be believed. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basic truth from which salvation and life is derived for Christians...
of the
Assumption of MaryThe Assumption of Mary is a belief held by Christians of the Catholic Church as well as some Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglicans, that the Virgin Mary, at the end of her life, was physically taken up into heaven...
in his 1950
Apostolic constitutionAn apostolic constitution is the highest level of decree issued by the Pope of the Catholic Church. The use of the term constitution comes from Latin constitutio, which referred to any important law issued by the Roman emperor, and is retained in church documents because of the inheritance that...
Munificentissimus DeusMunificentissimus Deus is the name of an Apostolic constitution written by Pope Pius XII. It defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary...
. His
magisteriumThe Magisterium is the "teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church". The word is derived from Latin magisterium, which originally meant the office of a president, chief, director, superintendent, etc...
includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His
forty-one encyclicals include Mystici Corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ;
Mediator DeiMediator Dei, a papal encyclical was issued by Pope Pius XII in 1947. The encyclical suggests new directions and active participation instead of a merely passive role of the faithful in the liturgy, in liturgical ceremonies and in the life of their parish. Mediator Dei is one of the more...
on liturgy reform;
Humani GenerisHumani generis is a papal encyclical that Pope Pius XII promulgated on 12 August 1950 "concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine". Theological opinions and doctrines known as Nouvelle Théologie or neo-modernism and their consequences on the Church...
on the Church's position on
theologyThe term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse", "theory", or "reasoning"...
and
evolutionIn biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a...
. He eliminated the Italian majority in the
College of CardinalsThe College of Cardinals is the body of all cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church.A function of the college is to advise the pope about church matters when he summons them to an ordinary consistory. It also convenes on the death or abdication of a pope as a papal conclave to elect a successor...
with the Grand Consistory in 1946.
Early life
Pacelli was born in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
on 2 March 1876, into a pious, well-off
aristocraticAristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number...
family with a history of ties to the papacy (the "
Black NobilityThe Black Nobility were Italian aristocratic families who sided with the Papacy under Pope Pius IX after the army of the Kingdom of Italy entered Rome on September 20 1870, overthrew the Papal States, and took over the Apostolic Palace...
"). His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, was Under-Secretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances and then Secretary of the Interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851 to 1870 and founded the Vatican's newspaper,
L'Osservatore RomanoL'Osservatore Romano is the "semi-official" newspaper of the Holy See. It covers all the Pope's public activities, publishes editorials by important churchmen, and runs official documents after being released...
in 1861; his cousin,
Ernesto PacelliErnesto Pacelli was a financial adviser to Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, and Pope Benedict XV and the founder and president of the Banco di Roma from March 9, 1880 until 1916. Pacelli also served as an unofficial link between the Vatican and the Italian government...
, was a key financial advisor to
Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII , born Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 257th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903, succeeding Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind Pius IX and John Paul II...
; his father, Filippo Pacelli, a Franciscan Tertiary, was the dean of the
Sacra Rota RomanaThe Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota , for hundreds of years also called the Sacred Roman Rota, is the highest appellate tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church, with respect to the vast majority of its Latin Rite members and several of the Eastern Catholic Churches and is the second-highest...
; and his brother,
Francesco PacelliFrancesco Pacelli, the older brother of Eugenio Pacelli the future Pope Pius XII was born in Rome on February 1, 1872. He died in Rome on April 22, 1935...
, became a
layIn religious organizations, the laity comprises all persons who are not clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the term lay priest...
canon lawCanon law is the body of laws and regulations made by or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
yer and the legal advisor to Pius XI, in which role he negotiated the Lateran Treaty in 1929, bringing an end to the
Roman Questionthumb|300px|The breach of [[Porta Pia]], on the right, in a contemporaneous photograph.The Roman Question was a political dispute between the Italian Government and the Papacy from 1861 to 1929....
.
Together with his brother Francisco and his two sisters Giuseppina and Elisabetta he grew up in the centre of Rome. At the age of twelve, Eugenio announced his intentions to enter the priesthood instead of becoming a lawyer. After completing state primary schools, Pacelli received his secondary,
classicalClassics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity...
education at the Visconti Institute, which was dominated by an anti-Catholic athmosphere popular at that time In 1894, at the age of eighteen, he entered the Collegio Capranica Seminary to begin study for the priesthood and enrolled at the
Pontifical Gregorian UniversityPontifical Gregorian University is a pontifical university located in Rome, Italy. Heir of the Roman College founded by St Ignatius of Loyola over 450 years ago, the Gregorian University was the first Jesuit University...
and the Appolinare Institute of Lateran University. From 1895–1896, he studied
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
at
University of Rome La SapienzaSapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza - Università di Roma, commonly known as Università di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy. It is the largest European university and the oldest of Rome's three state-funded universities; Sapienza was...
. In 1899, he received degrees in
theologyChristian theology is discourse concerning Christian faith. Christian theologians use Biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument to understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote Christianity...
and
in utroque iure (
civilCivil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law, the primary feature of which is that laws are written into a collection, codified, and not determined, as in common law, by judges. The principle of civil law is to provide all citizens with an accessible and written collection of the laws which...
and
canon lawCanon law is the body of laws and regulations made by or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
). At the
seminaryA seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of higher education for instructing students , sometimes at the postgraduate level, in philosophy, theology, spirituality and the religious life, to prepare students for ordination as clergy or other ministry...
, he received a special dispensation to live at home for health reasons.
Priest and Monsignor
He was
ordainedThe term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to a group of individuals who are set apart for a special role or ministry....
a
priestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
on
EasterEaster is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion...
Sunday, 2 April 1899 by Bishop
Francesco di Paola CassettaFrancesco di Paola Cassetta was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Council from 1914 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1899.-Biography:...
—the vice-regent of Rome and a family friend—and received his first assignment as a
curateFrom the Latin curatus , a curate is a person who is invested with the care, or cure , of souls of a parish. In this sense it correctly means a parish priest. In Anglican churches, however, the term is usually used for an assistant priest or deacon...
at
Chiesa NuovaSanta Maria in Vallicella, also called Chiesa Nuova, is a church in Rome, which today faces onto the main thoroughfare of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele...
, where he had served as an
altar boyAn altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a religious service. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, etc.-Altar Servers in the Roman Catholic Church:...
. In 1901, he entered the
Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical AffairsThe Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs was a congregation of the Roman Curia, erected by Pope Pius VII on 19 July 1814 by extending the competence to the Sacred Congregation for the Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Kingdom of France , which Pope Pius VI had set up in 1793...
, a sub-office of the
Vatican Secretariat of StateThe Secretariat of State is the oldest dicastery in the Roman Curia, the government of the Roman Catholic Church. It is headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, and performs all the political and diplomatic functions of Vatican City and the Holy See...
, where he became a
minutante, at the recommendation of Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli, another family friend.
In 1904, Pacelli became a
papal chamberlainPapal chamberlain was one of the highest honours that could be bestowed on a Catholic layman by the Pope, and was often given to members of noble families. It was mostly an honorary position, but a chamberlain served the Pope for one week per year during official ceremonies...
and in 1905 a domestic prelate. From 1904 until 1916, Monsignor Pacelli assisted Cardinal
Pietro GasparriPietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic archbishop, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and signatory of the Lateran Pacts....
in his codification of
canon lawCanon Law, the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. The academic degrees in canon law are the J.C.B. , J.C.L...
with the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. He was also chosen by
Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII , born Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 257th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903, succeeding Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind Pius IX and John Paul II...
to deliver condolences on behalf of the Vatican to
Edward VII of the United KingdomEdward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death on 6 May 1910...
after the death of
Queen VictoriaVictoria was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India of the British Raj from 1 May 1876, until her death...
. In 1908, he served as a Vatican representative on the
International Eucharistic CongressIn the Roman Catholic church, a Eucharistic Congress is a gathering of clergy, religious, and laity to bear witness to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is an important Roman Catholic doctrine...
in London, where he met
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
. In 1911, he represented the Holy See at the
coronationThe Coronation of the British Monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...
of
King George VGeorge V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 1910 through World War I until his death in 1936...
.
In 1908 and 1911, Pacelli turned down professorships in canon law at a Roman university and
The Catholic University of AmericaThe Catholic University of America , located in Northeast Washington, D.C., is the national university of the Roman Catholic Church and the only higher education institution founded by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops...
, respectively. Pacelli became the under-secretary in 1911, adjunct-secretary in 1912 (a position he received under
Pope Pius XPope St. Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 258th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914, succeeding Pope Leo XIII . He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X codified Catholic doctrines to inspire conformity in the church and rejected...
and retained under
Pope Benedict XVPope Benedict XV , born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922, succeeding Pope Pius X...
) and secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1914—succeeding Gasparri, who was promoted to
Cardinal Secretary of StateThe Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...
. As secretary, Pacelli concluded a concordat with
SerbiaThe origins of the history of today's Serbia lie in the Slavic settlement on the Balkans, on the territories ruled by the Byzantine Empire, between 6th and 8th centuries...
four days before
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of AustriaFranz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia...
was assassinated in
SarajevoSarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 304,614 people in the four municipalities that make up the city proper, and an estimated urban area population of 421,289 people in the Sarajevo Canton . It is also the capital of the Federation of Bosnia and...
. During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, Pacelli maintained the Vatican's registry of
prisoners of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
. In 1915, he travelled to
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
to assist Monsignor
Raffaele ScapinelliRaffaele Scapinelli di Léguigno was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Congregation of the Affairs of Religious from 1918 to 1920, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1915....
—
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
to Vienna—in his negotiations with
Franz Joseph I of AustriaFranz Joseph I , reigned as Emperor of Austria and King of Bohemia from 1848 until 1916 and as King of Hungary and Crotia from 1848 until 1916 .-Early life:Franz Joseph was born in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the oldest son of...
regarding Italy.
Archbishop and Papal Nuncio
Pope Benedict XVPope Benedict XV , born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922, succeeding Pope Pius X...
appointed Pacelli as
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
to
BavariaBavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest state of Germany by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
on 23 April 1917, consecrating him as
titularA titular bishop is a bishop of the Catholic Church who is not in charge of a diocese . Examples of bishops belonging to this category are coadjutor bishops, auxiliary bishops, bishops emeriti, vicars apostolic, nuncios, superiors of departments in the Roman Curia, and Cardinal Bishops of...
Bishop of SardisThe See of Sardis was an episcopal see in Sardis. It was one of the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse, held by metropolitan bishops since the middle to late 1st century, with jurisdiction over the province of Lydia...
and immediately elevating him to
archbishopIn Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop. In many Christian Churches, this means that they lead a diocese of particular importance called an archdiocese, or in the Anglican Communion an Ecclesiastical Province, but this is not always the case. An archbishop is equivalent to a bishop in...
in the
Sistine ChapelSistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture, evocative of Solomon's Temple of the Old Testament, and its decoration which has been frescoed throughout by the greatest Renaissance artists...
on 13 May 1917. After his consecration, Eugenio Pacelli left for Bavaria. As there was no nuncio to
PrussiaPrussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history...
or Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of the German Empire.
Once in Munich, he conveyed the papal initiative to end the war to German authorities. He met with
King Ludwig IIILudwig III , was the last King of Bavaria, reigning from 1913 to 1918.-Early life:...
on 29 May and later with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bethmann-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. For the remainder of the war, he concentrated on Benedict’s humanitarian efforts.
Pacelli was appointed Nuncio to Germany on June 23, 1920, and—after the completion of a Bavarian concordat—his nunciature was moved to
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
in 1925. Many of Pacelli's Munich staff stayed with him for the rest of his life, including his advisor
Robert LeiberRobert Leiber , close advisor to Pope Pius XII, a Jesuit priest from Germany was Professor for Church History at the Gregorian University in Rome from 1930-1960...
and Pascalina Lehnert—housekeeper, friend, and adviser to Pacelli for 41 years. In Berlin, Pacelli was doyen or Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and active in diplomatic and many social activities. He worked with the German priest
Ludwig KaasLudwig Kaas was a Roman Catholic priest, and a prominent German politician during the Weimar Republic.-Early career:...
, who was known for his expertise in Church-state relations and was politically active in the Catholic
Centre PartyThe German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic...
. While in Germany, he traveled to all regions as a pastor, attended
KatholikentagKatholikentag is a festival-like gathering in German-speaking countries organized by the Catholic laity. Katholikentag festivals take place roughly every 2-4 years in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.-History:...
(national gatherings of the faithful), and delivered some 50 sermons and speeches to the German people.
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 Minister Georgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican. Despite Vatican pessimism and a lack of visible progress, Pacelli continued the secret negotiations, until
Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
ordered them to be discontinued in 1927.
Pacelli supported the
Weimar CoalitionThe Weimar Coalition is the name given to the coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , the German Democratic Party , and the Catholic Centre Party, who together had a large majority of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly which met at Weimar in 1919, and were the principal groups...
of Social Democrats and liberal parties. Although he had cordial relations with representatives of the Centre Party such as Marx and Kaas, he did not involve the Centre in his dealings with the German government. Pacelli supported German diplomatic activity aimed at rejection of punitive measures from victorious former enemies. He blocked French attempts for an ecclesiastical separation of the
Saar regionThe Territory of the Saar Basin , also referred as the Saar or Saargebiet, was a region of Germany that was occupied and governed by Britain and France from 1920 to 1935 under a League of Nations mandate, with the occupation originally being under the auspices of the Treaty of Versailles...
, supported the appointment of a papal administrator for Danzig and aided the reintegration of priests expelled from
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo
Pacelli was made a cardinal on 16 December, 1929 by
Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
, and within a few months, on 7 February 1930, Pius XI appointed him
Cardinal Secretary of StateThe Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...
. In 1935, Cardinal Pacelli was named Camerlengo.
As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed concordats with a number of countries and states, including
BadenBaden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine River in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
(1932),
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
(1933), Germany (1933),
YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
(1935) and
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
(1940). The
Lateran treatiesThe Lateran Treaty is one of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 or Lateran Accords, three agreements made in 1929 between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See, ratified June 7 1929, ending the "Roman Question".They consisted of three documents:...
with
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
(1929) were concluded before Pacelli became secretary of state. 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 of
nullityIn Conflict of Laws, the issue of nullity in Family Law inspires a wide response among the laws of different states as to the circumstances in which a marriage will be valid, invalid or null...
in the area of
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
).
He made many diplomatic visits throughout Europe and the Americas, including an
extensive visit to the United States in 1936Eugenio Pacelli visited the United States for two weeks in October-November 1936 as Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church. At the time, Pacelli was the highest ranking Catholic official ever to visit the US....
where he silenced
Charles CoughlinFather Charles Edward Coughlin was a Canadian-born Roman Catholic priest at Royal Oak, Michigan's National Shrine of the Little Flower Church. He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than forty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during the 1930s...
and met
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , the only U.S. President elected to more than two terms, was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, who appointed a personal envoy—who did not require Senate confirmation—to the
Holy SeeThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and speaks for the whole Catholic...
in December 1939, re-establishing a diplomatic tradition that had been broken since 1870 when the pope lost
temporal powerThe temporal power of the Popes is the political and governmental activity of the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church, as distinguished from their spiritual and pastoral activity, which is also called eternal power, to contrast it with the Church's secular power.For centuries, its secular activities...
.
Pacelli presided as
Papal LegateA Papal Legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the Pope to Foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
over the
International Eucharistic CongressIn the Roman Catholic church, a Eucharistic Congress is a gathering of clergy, religious, and laity to bear witness to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is an important Roman Catholic doctrine...
in
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital, and largest city, of Argentina, currently the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the eastern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
,
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
on October 10–14, 1934, and in
BudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it serves as the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation center and is considered an important hub in Central Europe. In 2009, Budapest had 1,712,210 inhabitants, down from a mid-1980s...
on 25–30 May 1938. At this time antisemitic laws 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". This traditional adversarial relationship with Judaism would be reversed in
Nostra AetateNostra Aetate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.The first draft, entitled "Decree on the Jews"...
issued during the Second Vatican Council. According to Joseph Bottum, Pacelli in 1937 "warned A. W. Klieforth, the American consul to Berlin, that Hitler was “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 their anti-Nazi stand”. A report written by Pacelli the following year for President Roosevelt and filed with Ambassador Joseph Kennedy declared that the Church regarded compromise with the Third Reich as “out of the question”."
[ Joseph Bottum. 2004, April. The End of the Pius Wars". First Things Magazine Retrieved 1 July 2009.]
Some historians have argued that Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State, dissuaded
Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
—who was nearing death at the time—from condemning the
KristallnachtKristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 1938. It is often called Novemberpogrome or Reichspogromnacht in German....
in November 1938, when he was informed of it by the papal nuncio in Berlin. Likewise the prepared encyclical Humani Generis UnitasHumani generis unitas was a planned encyclical of Pope Pius XI before his death on February 10, 1939, which condemned antisemitism, racism and the persecution of Jews...
("On the Unity of Human Society"), which was ready in September 1938 but, according to the two publishers of the encyclical and other sources, was not forwarded to the Vatican by the Jesuit General
Wlodimir LedochowskiWlodimir Ledóchowski, S.J. was the 26th Superior-General of the Society of Jesus.He was born on the family estate, Sitzenthal, in Loosdorf, near St. Pölten , the son of Count Antoni Halka Ledóchowski, and scion of the Ledóchowski family...
. It contained an open and clear condemnation of
colonialismColonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole...
,
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
and antisemitism. Some historians have argued that Pacelli learned about its existence only after the death of Pius XI and did not promulgate it as Pope. He did however use parts of it in his inaugural encyclical
Summi PontificatusSummi Pontificatus is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII published on October 20, 1939. The encyclical is subtitled "On the Unity of Human Society." It was the first major encyclical of Pius XII so was seen as setting "a tone" for his papacy. It critiques major errors at the time, such as ideologies...
, which he titled "On the Unity of Human Society."
His various positions on Church and policy issues during his tenure as Cardinal Secretary of State were made public by the Vatican in 1939. Most noteworthy among the fifty speeches is his review of church and state issues in Budapest 1938.
Reichskonkordat and Mit Brennender Sorge
The
ReichskonkordatThe Reichskonkordat is the concordat between the Holy See and Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli and Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg respectively...
was an integral part of four
concordatA concordat is an agreement between the Holy See and the government of a country on religious matters This often included both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church in a particular country...
s Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary, because the German federalist Weimar 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. 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. A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922–1932.
The Reichskonkordat, 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.
As
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
during 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.
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and sought to gain international respectability and to remove internal opposition by representatives of the Church and the Catholic
Centre PartyThe German Centre Party was a Catholic political party in Germany during the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic...
. He sent his vice chancellor
Franz von Papen' was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933-1934...
, a Catholic nobleman and member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat. On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, Prelate
Ludwig KaasLudwig Kaas was a Roman Catholic priest, and a prominent German politician during the Weimar Republic.-Early career:...
, the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen. The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on 10 September 1933.
Between 1933 and 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of the Reichskonkordat
. Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber to help him write a protest of Nazi violations of the Reichskonkordat
; this was to become Pius XI's 1937 encyclical Mit Brennender SorgeMit brennender Sorge is a Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 . Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sunday's,...
. The encyclical was written in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
and not the usual
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
of official Roman Catholic Church documents. Secretly distributed by an army of motorcyclists and read from every German Catholic Church pulpit on
Palm SundayPalm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast which always falls on the Sunday before Easter Sunday. The feast commemorates an event mentioned by all four Canonical Gospels , , , and : the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion...
, it condemned the
paganismPaganism is a word with several different meanings.In its broadest definition, pagan denotes all non-Abrahamic religions, that is to say it denotes all religions other than Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.Other usages are:*Paganism may mean Polytheism: The group so defined includes most of the...
of the national-socialism ideology. Pope Pius XI credited its creation and writing to Pacelli. It was the first official denunciation of
NazismNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
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."
On 10 June 1941 he commented on the problems of the Reichskonkordat in a letter to the
Bishop of PassauThe Diocese of Passau is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church in Germany. It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of München und Freising. The diocese covers an area of 5,442 km². The current bishop is Wilhelm Schraml.-History:...
, 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".
Election and coronation
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. He was the first cardinal secretary of state to be elected Pope since
Clement IXPope Clement IX , born Giulio Rospigliosi, was Pope from 1667 to 1669.-Early life:Born Giulio Rospigliosi to a noble family of Pistoia, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, he was a pupil of the Jesuits. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Pisa, he taught theology there...
in 1667. He was also one of only three men known to have served as Camerlengo immediately prior to being elected as pope (the others being
Pope Innocent VIIPope Innocent VII, born Cosimo de' Migliorati , was briefly Pope at Rome, from 1404 to his death, during the Western Schism while there was a rival Pope, antipope Benedict XIII , at Avignon....
and
Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII , born Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 257th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903, succeeding Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind Pius IX and John Paul II...
). His
coronationThe Papal Coronation is the ceremony in which a new pope is crowned as earthly head of the Roman Catholic Church, sovereign of Vatican City, and Monarch of the Holy See...
took place 12 March 1939.
Pacelli took the same papal name as his predecessor, a title used exclusively by Italian 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 towards Pius XI." On December 15, 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." 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 world."
Appointments
After his election, he appointed
Luigi Cardinal MaglioneLuigi Maglione was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Vatican Secretary of State under Pope Pius XII from 1939 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1935...
to be his successor as Secretary of State. Maglione, a seasoned Vatican diplomat, had reestablished diplomatic relations with Switzerland and was for many years nuncio in Paris, France. Yet, Maglione did not exercise the influence of his predecessor Pacelli, who as Pope continued his close relation with Monsignors Montini (later
Pope Paul VIPope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
) and Domenico 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. Tardini and Montini continued serving there until 1953, when Pius XII decided to appoint them cardinals, an honor which both turned down. They were then later appointed to be Pro-Secretary with the privilege to wear Episcopal Insignia. Tardini continued to be a close co-worker of the Pope until the death of Pius XII, while Montini became archbishop of Milan, after the death of
Alfredo Ildefonso SchusterAlfredo Ildefonso Schuster was a Benedictine monk and Cardinal Archbishop of Milan during World War II...
.
Pius XII slowly eroded the Italian monopoly on the Roman Curia; he employed German and Dutch Jesuit advisors,
Robert LeiberRobert Leiber , close advisor to Pope Pius XII, a Jesuit priest from Germany was Professor for Church History at the Gregorian University in Rome from 1930-1960...
,
Augustin BeaAugustin Bea, SJ was a German scholar at the Gregorian University specializing in bibical studies and bibical archeology. He was confessor of Pope Pius XII. In 1959, Pope John XXIII made him cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first President of the Secretariat for Promoting...
, and
Sebastian TrompSebastiaan Peter Cornelis Tromp S.J. , a Dutch Jesuit, was assisting Pope Pius XII in his theological encyclicals, and Pope John XXIII in the preparation of Vatican II...
. He also supported the elevation of Americans such as Francis Spellman from a minor to a major role in the Church. After World War II, Pius XII appointed more non-Italians than any Pope before him. Americans included Joseph P Hurley as regent of the nunciature in Belgrade, Gerald P. O'Hara Nuncio to Romania and Monsignor
Aloisius Joseph MuenchAloisius Joseph Muench was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Fargo from 1935 to 1959, and as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1951 to 1959...
as nuncio to Germany. For the first time, numerous young European, Asian and "Americans were trained in various congregations and secretariats within the Vatican for eventual service throughout the world."
Consistories
Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a
consistory-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....
to create new
cardinalsA cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually a bishop, of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and making themselves available...
, in contrast to Pius XI, who had done so seventeen times in seventeen years. Pius XII chose not to name new cardinals during World War II, and the number of cardinals shrank to 38, with
Cardinal Dennis DoughertyDennis Joseph Dougherty was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1918 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1921.-Early life and ministry:...
of Philadelphia being 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 thirty-two new cardinals, almost 50% of the College of Cardinals and reaching the canonical limit of seventy cardinals. 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
In his second consistory on 12 January 1953, it was expected that his closest co-workers, Msgrs. Domenico Tardini and
Giovanni MontiniPope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
would be elevated and Pius XII informed the assembled cardinals that both of them were originally on the top of his list, but they had turned down the offer, and were rewarded instead with other promotions. The two consistories of 1946 and 1953 brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of the
College of CardinalsThe College of Cardinals is the body of all cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church.A function of the college is to advise the pope about church matters when he summons them to an ordinary consistory. It also convenes on the death or abdication of a pope as a papal conclave to elect a successor...
. With few exceptions, Italian prelates accepted the changes positively; there was no protest movement or open opposition to the internationalization efforts.
Earlier, in 1945, Pius XII had dispensed with the complicated
papal conclaveA papal conclave is a meeting of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a Bishop of Rome, who becomes the pope, when there is a vacancy in the office. The pope is considered by Catholics to be the successor of Saint Peter and earthly head of the Catholic Church...
procedures which attempted to ensure secrecy while preventing Cardinals from voting for themselves, compensating for this change by raising the requisite majority from two-thirds to two thirds plus one.
Liturgy reforms
In his encyclical
Mediator DeiMediator Dei, a papal encyclical was issued by Pope Pius XII in 1947. The encyclical suggests new directions and active participation instead of a merely passive role of the faithful in the liturgy, in liturgical ceremonies and in the life of their parish. Mediator Dei is one of the more...
, Pius XII links
liturgyA liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions. The word may refer to an elaborate formal ritual such as the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy and Catholic Mass, or a daily activity such as the Muslim salat and Jewish services...
with the last will of Jesus 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 an orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan....
. 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."
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 the
CreatorCreator may refer to:* Creator deity, a deity responsible for creating the universe* Inventor, one who creates a new device or method* A person who experiences or participates in creativity* An adherent of Church of the Creator, a "new age" religion...
and His creatures. The sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, convey and dispense divine grace from Christ to the members of the Mystical Body.
The numerous Liturgy reforms of Pius XII show two characteristics. Renewal and the rediscovery of old liturgical traditions, such as the reintroduction of the
Easter VigilThe Easter Vigil, also called the Paschal Vigil or the Great Vigil of Easter, is a service held in many Christian churches as the first official celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Historically, it is during this service that people are baptized and that adult catechumens are received into...
, and, a more structured atmosphere within the Church buildings. The use of
vernacularVernacular is the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to lingua francas, official standards or global languages. It is sometimes applied to nonstandard dialects of a global language...
language, favoured by Pius XII, was hotly debated at his time. He increased non-Latin services, especially in countries with expanding Catholic mission activities. The location of the Blessed Sacrament within the Church was to be always at the main altar in the centre of the Church. The Church should display religious objects, but not be overloaded with secondary objects or even
KitschKitsch is a German word denoting art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap...
. Modern sacred art should be reverential and reflect the spirit of our time. Priests are permitted to officiate marriages without Holy Mass. They may also officiate confirmations in certain instances.
Canon Law Reforms
Decentralized authority and increased the independence of the United Churches were aimed at in the
Canon LawCanon law is the body of laws and regulations made by or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
/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 the
encyclicalAn encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Christian church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from Latin encyclia meaning "general" or "encircling", which is also the origin...
Mystici Corporis.
Priests and Religious
With the
Apostolic constitutionAn apostolic constitution is the highest level of decree issued by the Pope of the Catholic Church. The use of the term constitution comes from Latin constitutio, which referred to any important law issued by the Roman emperor, and is retained in church documents because of the inheritance that...
Sedis Sapientiae, Pius XII added
social sciencesThe social sciences are the fields of scientific knowledge and academic scholarship that study social groups and, more generally, human society. The social sciences initially were constituted of five fields: Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Law; Education; Health; Economy and Trade; Art...
,
sociologySociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
,
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
and
social psychologySocial psychology is a type of social science that is concerned with individuals' thoughts, feelings and behavior as they affect or are affected by other individuals...
, to the pastoral training of future priests. Pius XII emphasised the need to systematically analyze the psychological condition of candidates to the priesthood to ensure that they are capable of a life of
virginityA virgin is, originally, a woman who has never had sexual intercourse. Virginity is the state of being a virgin. It is derived from the Latin virgo, which means "sexually inexperienced woman", used typically of adolescents, but also of older women, and even goddesses.As in Latin, the English word...
and service. Pius XII added one year to the theological formation of future priests. He also included a "pastoral year", an introduction into the practice of Parish work.
The call to constant interior reform and Christian heroism is a central part of the message of Pius XII to all Religious. This means to be above average, to be a living example of Christian virtue. As the secular world has fallen back into
HedonismHedonism is a school of ethics which argues that pleasure has an ultimate importance, and that humanity's most important pursuit is sensual self-indulgence.-Etymology:...
, the Catholic alternative is the
sanctificationSanctification is an ancient concept widespread among religions that refers to anything blessed or set apart for special purposes, from totem poles to temple vessels, to the change brought about in a human believer. The word sanctification refers to the act or process of making sacred or setting...
especially of
PriestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
s and Religious. The strict norms governing their lives are meant to make them models of Christian perfection for lay people, he writes in
Menti NostraeMenti Nostrae is an apostolic exhortation of Pope Pius XII on the sanctity of priestly life, given in Rome at St. Peter's on September 23, 1950, in the 12th year of his pontificate....
. Bishops are encouraged to look at model saints like Boniface, and Pope Pius X. Priests were encouraged to be living examples of the love of Christ and his sacrifice.
Theology
Pius XII explained the Catholic faith in 41 encyclicals and almost 1000 messages and speeches during his long pontificate.
Mediator DeiMediator Dei, a papal encyclical was issued by Pope Pius XII in 1947. The encyclical suggests new directions and active participation instead of a merely passive role of the faithful in the liturgy, in liturgical ceremonies and in the life of their parish. Mediator Dei is one of the more...
clarified membership and participation in the Church. The encyclical
Divino Afflante SpirituDivino Afflante Spiritu is an encyclical letter issued by Pope Pius XII on September 30, 1943. It inaugurated the modern period of Roman Catholic Bible studies by permitting the limited use of modern methods of biblical criticism. The Catholic bible scholar Raymond E...
opened the doors for biblical research. But 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, the mother of
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
, 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.
Theological orientation
Biblical Research
The encyclical,
Divino Afflante SpirituDivino Afflante Spiritu is an encyclical letter issued by Pope Pius XII on September 30, 1943. It inaugurated the modern period of Roman Catholic Bible studies by permitting the limited use of modern methods of biblical criticism. The Catholic bible scholar Raymond E...
, published in 1943 emphasized the role of the bible. Pius XII freed biblical research from previous limitations. He encouraged Christian theologians to revisit original versions of the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
in
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
and Hebrew. Noting improvements in
archaeologyArchaeology or archeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material culture and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, and landscapes...
, the encyclical reversed
Pope Leo XIII'sPope Leo XIII , born Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 257th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903, succeeding Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind Pius IX and John Paul II...
encyclical, which had only advocated going back to the original texts to resolve ambiguity in the Latin Vulgate. The encyclical demands a much better understanding of ancient Jewish history and traditions. It requires bishops throughout the Church to initiate
biblical studiesBiblical studies is the academic study of the Judeo-Christian Bible and related texts. For Christianity, the Bible traditionally comprises the New Testament and Old Testament, which together are sometimes called the "Scriptures." Judaism recognizes as scripture only the Hebrew Bible, also known as...
for lay people. The Pontiff also requests a reorientation of Catholic teaching and education, relying much more on sacred scriptures in
sermonA sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...
s and religious instruction.
The role of theology
This 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 of
moralityMorality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief concerning matters of what is moral or immoral...
and religion, they are subjected to the teaching office and authority of the Church, the
MagisteriumThe Magisterium is the "teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church". The word is derived from Latin magisterium, which originally meant the office of a president, chief, director, superintendent, etc...
. "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." The deposit of faith is authentically interpretated not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the teaching authority of the Church.
Mariology and the Dogma of the Assumption
As 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 day
Our Lady of FatimaOur Lady of Fátima is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary with respect to reported apparitions of her to three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on 13 May. The three children were Lúcia Santos and her cousins, siblings Jacinta...
is believed to have first appeared. He consecrated the world to the
Immaculate Heart of MaryThe Immaculate Heart of Mary originally The Sacred Heart of Mary is a devotional name used by Roman Catholics, Lutherans and some Anglo-Catholics to refer to the physical heart of Blessed Virgin Mary as a symbol of Mary's interior life, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and,...
in 1942, in accordance with the second "secret" of Our Lady of Fatima (His remains were to be buried in the crypt of Saint Peter Basilica on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, 13 October 1958).
On 1 November 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the assumption:
- "By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God
The Immaculate Conception is, according to Roman Catholic Dogma, the conception of the Virgin Mary without any stain of original sin. Under this aspect Mary is sometimes called the Immaculata , particularly in artistic contexts...
, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."
The dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary, is the crowning of the theology of Pius XII. In this dogmatic statement, the phrase "having completed the course of her earthly life," leaves open the question of whether the Virgin Mary died before her Assumption, or, whether she was assumed before death; both possibilities are allowed. Mary's Assumption was a divine gift to Mary as Mother of God. As Mary completed her race as a shining example to the human race, the perspective of the gift of assumption is offered to the whole human race.
The dogma was preceded by the 1946 encyclical
Deiparae Virginis MariaeDeiparae Virginis Mariae , is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII to all Catholic bishops on the possibility of defining the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a dogma of faith....
, which requested all Catholic bishops to express their opinion on a possible dogmatization. On 8 September 1953, the encyclical
Fulgens coronaFulgens corona is an encyclical by Pope Pius XII, given at St. Peter's Rome, on 8 September 1953, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the fifteenth year of his Pontificate...
announced a Marian year for 1954, the centennial of the Dogma of the
Immaculate ConceptionThe Immaculate Conception is, according to Roman Catholic Dogma, the conception of the Virgin Mary without any stain of original sin. Under this aspect Mary is sometimes called the Immaculata , particularly in artistic contexts...
. In the encyclical
Ad caeli reginamAd caeli reginam is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII, given at Rome, from St. Peter's, on the feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the eleventh day of October, 1954, in the sixteenth year of his Pontificate. The encyclical is an important element of the Mariology of Pope Pius XII...
he promulagated the feast, Queenship of Mary. Mystici Corporis summarizes his
mariologyRoman Catholic Mariology is theology concerned with the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and developed by the Roman Catholic Church. "The Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of God, is believed to hold a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good which is God." Theologically,...
.
Social teachings
Medical theology
Pius XII delivered numerous speeches to medical professionals and researchers. He addressed
doctorsA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
, 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 in terminally ill persons, 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.
Family and sexuality
Pope 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. Within the overall divine purpose of family life, he fully accepted the rhythm method as a moral form of
family planningFamily planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
, although only limited circumstances, within the context of family.
Theology and science
To Pius XII, science and religion were heavenly sisters, different manifestations of divine exactness, who could not possibly contradict each other over the long term 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 of Galileo."
Evolution
In 1950, Pius XII promulgated
Humani GenerisHumani generis is a papal encyclical that Pope Pius XII promulgated on 12 August 1950 "concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine". Theological opinions and doctrines known as Nouvelle Théologie or neo-modernism and their consequences on the Church...
which acknowledged that
evolutionIn biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a...
might accurately describe the biological origins of human life, but at the same time criticized those who use it as a religion, 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.." fifty years later,
Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła served as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate; only Pope Pius IX served longer...
, stating that scientic 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."
Encyclicals, writings and speeches
Pius XII issued 41 encyclicals during his pontificate, – more than all his successors in the past fifty years taken together – along with many other writings and speeches. The pontificate of Pius XII was the first in Vatican history, which published papal speeches and addresses in
vernacularVernacular is the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to lingua francas, official standards or global languages. It is sometimes applied to nonstandard dialects of a global language...
language on a systematic basis. Until then, papal documents were issued mainly in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
in
Acta Apostolicae SedisActa Apostolicae Sedis , often cited as AAS, is the official gazette of the Holy See, appearing about twelve times a year. It was established by Pope Pius X with the decree Promulgandi Pontificias Constitutiones , and publication began in January 1909...
since 1909. Because of the novelty of it all, and a feared
occupationBelligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
of the Vatican by the
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
, not all documents exist today. In 1944, a number of papal documents were burned or “walled in”, 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 the Oriental Churches. Orientalis Ecclesiae
was issued in 1944 on the 15th centenary of the death of Cyril of AlexandriaSaint Cyril of Alexandria was the Pope of Alexandria when the city was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading protagonist in the Christological controversies of the later 4th, and 5th centuries...
, a saint common to Orthodox and Latin Churches. Pius XII asks for prayer for better understanding and unification of the Churches. Orientales OmnesOrientales Omnes is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII to the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. It commemorates the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Union of Brest....
, issued in 1945 on the 350th anniversary of the reunion, is a call to continued unity of the Ruthenian Church, threatened in its very existence by the authorities of the Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. Sempiternus Rex
was issued in 1951 on the 1500th anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of ChalcedonThe Council of Chalcedon is considered by the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Old Catholics, and various other Western Christian groups to have been the Fourth Ecumenical Council . It was held from 8 October to 1 November 451 at Chalcedon...
. It included a call to oriental communities adhering to monophysitism to return to the Catholic Church.
Orientales Ecclesias was issued in 1952 and addressed to the Oriental Churches, protesting the continued Stalinist persecution of the Church. Several Apostolic Letters were 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 in
Fulgens CoronaFulgens corona is an encyclical by Pope Pius XII, given at St. Peter's Rome, on 8 September 1953, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the fifteenth year of his Pontificate...
and a papal letter to the people of Russia.
Feasts and devotions
In 1958, Pope Pius XII declared the Feast of the
Holy Face of JesusThe Holy Face of Jesus is a title for specific images which some Catholics believe to have been miraculously formed representations of the face of Jesus Christ...
as Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) for all Roman Catholics. The first medal of the Holy Face of Jesus, produced by Sister
Maria PierinaVenerable Maria Pierina De Micheli was a Roman Catholic nun who was born near Milan Italy. She is best known for her association with the Holy Face of Jesus and for introducing a medal bearing an image from the Shroud of Turin as part of this devotion.In April 2009 Pope Benedict XVI advanced her...
De Micheli based on the image on the
Shroud of TurinThe Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically hurt in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy...
had been offered to Pius XII who approved of the medal and the devotion based on it. The general devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus had been approved by
Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII , born Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 257th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903, succeeding Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind Pius IX and John Paul II...
in 1885 before the image on the Turin Shroud had been photographed.
Canonizations and beatifications
Pope Pius XII
canonizedCanonization is the act by which a particular Christian church or group declares a deceased person to be a saint and is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints...
numerous saints, including
Pope Pius XPope St. Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 258th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914, succeeding Pope Leo XIII . He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X codified Catholic doctrines to inspire conformity in the church and rejected...
and
Maria GorettiMaria Goretti is an Italian virgin-martyr of the Catholic Church, and is one of its youngest canonized saints...
. He beatified
Pope Innocent XIPope Blessed Innocent XI , born Benedetto Odescalchi, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1676 to 1689.-Early life:He was born at Como in 1611, and was educated there by the Jesuits...
. The first canonizations were two women, the founder of a female order,
Mary Euphrasia Pelletier- Biography :She was born in the island of Noirmoutier, France of pious parents, on 31 July 1796, and received in baptism the name of Rose Virginie. She entered the community of "Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge" of Tours, in 1814, and made her profession in 1816, taking the name of Mary Saint...
, and a young housekeeper said to have
stigmataStigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. The term originates from the line at the end of Saint Paul's "Letter to the Galatians" where he says, "I bear on my body the stígmata of Jesus" - stigmata is the plural of the...
,
Gemma GalganiMaria Gemma Umberta Pia Galgani was an Italian mystic, who is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.-Early life:...
. 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 rather young woman in her twenties whose virtue became model by her canonization.
World War II
As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed a
ConcordatA concordat is an agreement between the Holy See and the government of a country on religious matters This often included both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church in a particular country...
between Germany and the Vatican at a ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933.
His pontificate began on the eve of World War II. In the 1937 encyclical
Mit brennender SorgeMit brennender Sorge is a Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 . Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sunday's,...
, drafted by Pope Pius XII when he was still a cardinal,
Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
denounced Nazism and breaches of the
ReichskonkordatThe Reichskonkordat is the concordat between the Holy See and Germany. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli and Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg respectively...
. Read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it has been described as the first official denunciation of
NazismNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
made by any major organization. Nazi persecution of the Church in Germany then began by "outright repression" and "staged prosecutions of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity." When Dutch bishops protested against the deportation of Jews, the Nazis responded by deporting Jewish converts, including
Edith SteinSaint Edith Stein was a German-Jewish philosopher, nun, martyr, and saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Born into an observant Jewish family but an atheist by her teenage years, she converted to Christianity in 1922, was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church and was received into the Discalced...
.
In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2500 monks and priests while even more were sent to concentration camps. The Priester-Block (priests barracks) in the
Dachau concentration campDachau concentration camp was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany, located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria which is located in southern Germany.Opened in March 1933, it...
lists 2600 Roman Catholic priests. Pius XII's refusal to censure the German invasion and annexation of Poland was regarded as a "betrayal" by many Polish Catholics and clergy, who saw his appointment of
Hilarius BreitingerHilarius Breitinger, O.F.M. was a German Franciscan prelate made apostolic administrator of the Reichsgau Wartheland during World War II by Pope Pius XII, one of the most controversial examples of the reorganization of occupied dioceses during World War II...
as apostolic administrator for the
WarthelandReichsgau Wartheland was a Nazi German Reichsgau annexed in 1939 from the Second Polish Republic. It comprised the Greater Poland and adjacent areas, and only in part matched the area of the similarly named pre-Versailles Prussian province of Posen...
in May 1942 as "implicit recognition" of the breakup of Poland; the opinions of the
VolksdeutscheVolksdeutsche is a historical term which arose in the early 20th century to describe ethnic Germans living outside of the Reich. This is in contrast to Imperial Germans , German citizens living within Germany...
, mostly-Catholic German minorities living in Poland, were more mixed. Although Pius XII received frequent reports about atrocities committed by and/or against Catholics, his knowledge was not complete; for example, he wept after the war upon learning that Cardinal Hlond had banned German liturgical services in Poland. 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".
During the war, the Pope followed a policy of public neutrality mirroring that of
Pope Benedict XVPope Benedict XV , born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922, succeeding Pope Pius X...
during World War I. In 1939, Pius XII turned the Vatican into a center of aid which he organized from various parts of the world At the request of the Pope, an information office for prisoners of war and refugees operated in the Vatican under Giovanni Battista Montini, which in the years of its existence from 1939 until 1947 received almost ten million (9,891,497) information requests and produced over eleven million (11,293,511) answers about missing persons.
In April 1939, after the submission of
Charles Maurras__FORCETOC__ Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary, and is the main intellectual influence of National Catholicism...
and the intervention of the Carmel of Lisieux, Pius XII ended his predecessor's ban on
Action FrançaiseThe Action Française is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
, an organization described by some authors as virulently antisemitic and anti-Communist.
In 1939, the Pope employed Jewish cartographer Roberto Almagia to work on old maps in the Vatican library. Almagia had been at the University of Rome since 1915 but was dismissed after Mussolini's anti-Jewish 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 by The New York Times in the editions of 11 November 1939, and 10 January 1940.
During the Soviet Union's acts of aggression against
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
, the
Winter WarThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939, three months after the German invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, Pius XII condemned the Soviet attack on 26 December 1939 in a speech at the Vatican. Later he donated a signed and sealed prayer on behalf of Finland.
On 18 January 1940, after over 15,000 Polish civilians had been killed, Pius XII said in a radio broadcast, "The horror and inexcusable excesses committed on a helpless and a homeless people have been established by the unimpeachable testimony of eye-witnesses."
In his first encyclical
Summi PontificatusSummi Pontificatus is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII published on October 20, 1939. The encyclical is subtitled "On the Unity of Human Society." It was the first major encyclical of Pius XII so was seen as setting "a tone" for his papacy. It critiques major errors at the time, such as ideologies...
(20 October 1939), Pius XII publicly condemned the
invasionThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
, occupation and partition of
PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
under the Nazi-Soviet
Molotov-Ribbentrop PactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in...
.
TimeTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
magazine reports that France and Britain were favourably surprised by the encyclical.
After Germany invaded the
Low CountriesThe Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the countries on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers...
during 1940, Pius XII sent expressions of sympathy to the Queen of the Netherlands, the King of Belgium, and the Grand 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."
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 a negotiator between the British and the abortive plot.
In April 1941, Pius XII granted a private audience to
Ante PavelićAnte Pavelić was a Yugoslav fascist politician and WWII collaborator. An ethnic Croatian ultra-nationalist who, bearing the title of "Poglavnik"
["Poglavnik" was a term coined by the Ustaše, and it was originally used as the title for the leader of the movement...]
, the leader of the
newly proclaimed Croatian stateThe Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany. The NDH was established on April 10, 1941 after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers...
(rather than the diplomatic audience Pavelić had wanted). Pius was criticised for his reception of Pavelić: an unattributed British Foreign Office memo on the subject described Pius as "the greatest moral coward of our age." 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; 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. Pius XII was well-informed of the
involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regimeCatholic clergy involvement with the Ustaša covers the role of the Croatian Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia , a Nazi puppet state created on the territory of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in 1941...
, 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. Pius XII elevated
Aloysius StepinacBlessed Aloysius Viktor Stepinac was a Croatian Catholic cardinal who was Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 to 1960...
—a Croatian archbishop
convicted of collaboratingCatholic clergy involvement with the Ustaša covers the role of the Croatian Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia , a Nazi puppet state created on the territory of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in 1941...
with the Ustaša—to the cardinalate. Although Phayer agrees in part with criticisms of Stepinac conviction as a "show trial", he states "the charge that he supported the Ustaša regime was, of course, true, as everyone knew", and that "if Stepinac had responded to the charges against him, his defense would have inevitably unraveled, exposing the Vatican's support of the genocidal Pavelić".
In 1941, Pius XII interpreted
Divini RedemptorisDivini Redemptoris is a an anti-communist encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI. It was published on 19 March 1937. In this encyclical, the pope sets out to "expose once more in a brief synthesis the principles of atheistic Communism as they are manifested chiefly in bolshevism"...
, an
encyclicalAn encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Christian church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from Latin encyclia meaning "general" or "encircling", which is also the origin...
of
Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
, which forbade Catholics to help communists, as not applying to military assistance to the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. This interpretation assuaged American Catholics who had previously opposed
Lend-LeaseLend-Lease was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland,...
arrangements with the Soviet Union.
In March 1942, Pius XII established diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire and received ambassador
Ken Haradawas a chargé d'affaires to Vichy France and a diplomat to the Holy See from Japan. He was appointed as a special envoy to the Vatican, and served in this capacity from 1942 to 1945...
, who remained in that position until the end of the war. 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."
Pius XII's 1942 Christmas addressPope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address was an annual speech delivered by Pope Pius XII over Vatican Radio on Christmas 1942.-Background:Pius XII possessed a specific knowledge of the Holocaust that rivaled that of the Allied governments...
on the
Vatican RadioVatican Radio is the official broadcasting service of the Vatican.Set up in 1931 by Guglielmo Marconi, today its programs are offered in 47 languages, and are sent out on short wave , medium wave, FM, satellite and the Internet. The Jesuit Order has been charged with the management of Vatican...
remains a "lightning rod" in debates about Pius XII. 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". Reactions of contemporaries and scholars are divided, but the speech did denounce
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
(a term not coined until 1944), although "it is still not clear whose
genocide or which genocide he was referring to".
Several authors have
alleged a plot to kidnap Pius XIISeveral authors have alleged a plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII by the Nazis when they occupied Rome during World War II. SS General Karl Wolff stated that he had been ordered on September 13, 1943 to kidnap the pope....
by the Nazis during their occupation of Rome in 1943 (Vatican City itself was not occupied); British historian
Owen ChadwickWilliam Owen Chadwick, OM, KBE, FBA, FRSE is a British professor, writer and prominent historian of Christianity.-Early life and education:...
and Jesuit
ADSSActes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale , often abbreviated Actes or ADSS, is an eleven-volume collection of documents from the Vatican historical archives, related to the papacy of Pope Pius XII during World War II.The collection was compiled by four...
editor
Robert A. GrahamFather Robert Andrew Graham, SJ was an American Jesuit priest and World War II historian of the Catholic Church...
concluded that such claims were the invention of
British wartime propagandistsDuring World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....
. However, subsequent to those accounts, Dan Kurzman in 2007 published a work which he maintains establishes the plot as fact.
As the war was approaching its end in 1945, Pius advocated a lenient policy by the
AlliedThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . The involvement of the Allies in World War II was either natural and inevitable they were invaded or under the direct threat of invasion by the Axis or compelled by concerns that the Axis powers...
leaders in an effort to prevent what he perceived to be the mistakes made at the end of World War I.
The Holocaust
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 under Fascist leader
Benito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
KSMOM GCTE was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by...
's racial laws. Pius later engineered an agreement—formally approved on 23 June 1939—with
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
ian
PresidentThe President of Brazil is both the head of state and head of government of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The presidential system was established in 1889, upon the proclamation of the republic in a military coup d'etât against the Emperor Pedro II. Since then, Brazil had six constitutions, two...
Getúlio VargasGetúlio Dornelles Vargas served as president of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 until his suicide in 1954.-Background:...
to issue 3,000
visasA visa is an indication that a person is authorized to enter the country which "issued" the visa, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
to "non-Aryan Catholics". However, over the next eighteen months Brazil’s Conselho de Imigração e Colonização (CIC) continued to tighten the restrictions on their issuance—including requiring a
baptismal certificateIn Christianity, baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted to membership of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered.The usual form of baptism among the earliest Christians was for the...
dated before 1933, a substantial monetary transfer to the
Banco do BrasilBanco do Brasil S.A. Banco do Brasil S.A. Banco do Brasil S.A. is the major Brazilian bank headquartered in Brasília. The bank was founded in 1808 and is the oldest active bank in Brazil — one of the oldest of The Americas....
, and approval by the Brazilian Propaganda Office in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
—culminating in the cancellation of the program fourteen months later, after fewer than 1,000 visas had been issued, amid suspicions of "improper conduct" (i.e. continuing to practice
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
) among those who had received visas.
Cardinal Secretary of StateThe Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...
Luigi Maglione received a request from
Chief RabbiChief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
of
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
Isaac HerzogRabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog , also known as Isaac Herzog, was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, his term lasting from 1921 to 1936...
in the Spring of 1940 to intercede on behalf of
Lithuanian JewsLithuanian Jews are Ashkenazi Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ....
about to be deported to Germany. Pius called
RibbentropUlrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.- Early life :...
on March 11, repeatedly protesting against the treatment of Jews. In his 1940 encyclical
Summi PontificatusSummi Pontificatus is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII published on October 20, 1939. The encyclical is subtitled "On the Unity of Human Society." It was the first major encyclical of Pius XII so was seen as setting "a tone" for his papacy. It critiques major errors at the time, such as ideologies...
, Pius rejected anti-semitism, stating that in the Catholic Church there is "neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision."
In 1940 Pius asked members of the clergy, on Vatican letterhead, to do whatever they could on behalf of interned Jews.
In 1941, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
informed Pius of Jewish deportations in Vienna. Later that year, when asked by French Marshal
Philippe PétainHenri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
if the Vatican objected to anti-Jewish laws, Pius responded that the church condemned antisemitism, but would not comment on specific rules. Similarly, when
Philippe PétainHenri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
's puppet government adopted the "Jewish statutes," the
VichyVichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State , in contrast with the previous designation, "French Republic." Marshal...
ambassador to the Vatican,
Léon BérardLéon Bérard was a French politician and lawyer.He was Minister of Public Instruction in 1919 and from 1921 to 1924, and Minister of Justice from 1931 to 1932 and was elected to the Académie française in 1934.Bérard was the Ambassador from Vichy France to the Holy See from 1940 to 1945....
(a French politician), was told that the legislation did not conflict with Catholic teachings.
Valerio ValeriValerio Valeri was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious in the Roman Curia from 1953 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 by Pope Pius XII.- Biography :Valerio Valeri was born in Santa Fiora, and...
, the
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
to
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
was "embarrassed" when he learned of this publicly from Pétain and personally checked the information with Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione who confirmed the Vatican's position. Yet in June 1942 Pius personally protested against the mass deportations of Jews from France, ordering the papal nuncio to protest to Marshal Pétain against "the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews". In September 1941 Pius objected to a Slovakian Jewish Code, which, unlike the earlier Vichy codes, prohibited intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. In October 1941 Harold Tittman, a U.S. delegate to the Vatican, asked the pope to condemn the atrocities against Jews; Pius replied that the Vatican wished to remain "neutral," reiterating the neutrality policy which Pius invoked as early as September 1940.
In 1942, the Slovakian
charge d'affairesIn diplomacy, chargé d’affaires , often shortened to simply chargé, is the title of two classes of diplomatic agents who head a diplomatic mission on a temporary basis.-Chargés d’affaires:...
, told Pius that Slovakian Jews were being sent to concentration camps. On March 11, 1942, several days before the first transport was due to leave, the chargé d'affaires in
BratislavaBratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic and, with a population of about 429,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River...
reported to the Vatican: "I have been assured that this atrocious plan is the handwork of... Prime Minister (
TukaVojtech Tuka was the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic between 1940 and 1945 and one of the most controversial people in Slovak history. Tuka was one the main forces behind the deportation of Slovak Jews to Nazi concentration...
), 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."
On 18 September 1942, Pius received a letter from
MonsignorMonsignor, pl. monsignori, is the form of address for those members of the clergy of the Catholic Church holding certain ecclesiastical honorific titles. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian monsignore, from the French mon seigneur, meaning "my lord"...
Montini (future
Pope Paul VIPope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
), saying, "the massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms." 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 Great Britain, Brazil, Uruguay, Belgium, and Poland—the
Cardinal Secretary of StateThe Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...
replied that the rumors about genocide could not be verified. In December 1942, when Tittman 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." Pius XII directly explained to Tittman that he could not name the Nazis without at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks. Pius XII also never publicly condemned the Nazi massacre of 1.8–1.9 million mainly Catholic Polish gentiles (including 2,935 members of the Catholic Clergy), nor did he ever publicly condemn the Soviet Union for the deaths of 1,000,000 mainly Catholic Polish gentile citizens including an untold number of clergy.
In late 1942, Pius XII advised German and Hungarian bishops that speaking out against the massacres in the eastern front would be politically advantageous. In his 1942 Christmas Eve message, he expressed strong concern for "those hundreds of thousands, who ... sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction. On 7 April 1943,
Msgr. TardiniDomenico Tardini was a long time aide to Pope Pius XII in the State Secretariat. Pope John XXIII named him Cardinal Secretary of State of the Roman Catholic Church and, in this position the most prominent member of the Roman Curia in Vatican City.-Early life:Born in Rome, Italy, He attended the...
, one of Pius’s closest advisors, told Pius that it would be politically advantageous after the war to take steps to help Slovakian Jews.
In January 1943, Pius declined to publicly denounce the Nazi violence against Jews, following requests to do so from Władysław Raczkiewicz, president of the Polish government-in-exile, and Bishop Konrad von Preysing of
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
. On 26 September 1943, following the German occupation of northern Italy, Nazi officials gave Jewish leaders in Rome 36 hours to produce 50 kilograms of gold (or the equivalent) threatening to take 300 hostages. Then Chief Rabbi of Rome,
Israel ZolliIsrael Anton Zoller was from 1939 to 1945 Chief Rabbi of Rome. After the war, he converted to Roman Catholicism, taking on the name Eugenio Zolli in honor of Pope Pius XII.-Early life:...
recounts in his memoir, that he was selected to go to the Vatican and seek help. The Vatican offered to loan 15 kilos, but the offer proved unnecessary when the Jews received an extension. 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. 80% of Roman Jews were saved from deportation. 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.
On 30 April 1943, Pius wrote to Bishop Von Preysing of 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."
On 28 October 1943,
Ernst von WeizsäckerErnst Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German diplomat and convicted war criminal. Weizsäcker was the father of politician Richard von Weizsäcker, who was President of Germany 1984-94, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, famous physicist and philosopher...
, the German Ambassador to the Vatican, telegrammed 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."
In March 1944, through the papal nuncio in
BudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it serves as the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation center and is considered an important hub in Central Europe. In 2009, Budapest had 1,712,210 inhabitants, down from a mid-1980s...
, Angelo Rotta, the pope urged the
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
government to moderate its treatment of the Jews. The pope also ordered Rotta and other papal legates to hide and shelter Jews. 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. 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.
From 1941 to 1944, Pope Pius and the Catholic Church were responsible for saving more Jews from Nazi persecution than any other person or institution. Some Israeli scholars estimate that as many as 860,000 European Jews were saved from death through concealment in Church facilities, issuance of fake Baptismal certificates, public appeals and other methods. In one instance, Pius lent the Roman Jewish community part payment of a ransom demanded by the Nazis to save several hundred Roman Jews. Prior to becoming Pope, Pius negotiated a Concordat between the Vatican and Germany, which provided that Jews who had converted to Christianity would not be subject to persecution in Germany as Jews. This provision enabled local priests to save tens of thousands of Jews from deporation by issuing fake Baptism certificates. The World Jewish Congress, American Jewish community, Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem, Rome and Budapest, Golda Meir and many other prominent Jewish representatives praised Pius for his relief efforts and public denunciation of racial persecution. In August 2006 extracts from the 60-year-old diary of a nun of the Convent of
Santi Quattro CoronatiSanti Quattro Coronati is an ancient basilica in Rome. The church dates back to the 4th century, and is devoted to four anonymous saints and martyrs. The complex of the basilica with its two courtyards, the fortified Cardinal Palace with the St...
were published in the Italian press, stating that Pope Pius XII ordered Rome's convents and monasteries to hide Jews during the Second World War.
The
KaltenbrunnerErnst Kaltenbrunner was a senior Austrian official during World War II, holding the offices of Chief of the RSHA, and President of Interpol. He was the highest-ranking SS leader to face trial, having the full rank of Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS...
Report to Adolf Hitler dated November 29, 1944 on the background of the July 20, 1944 Plot to assassinate Hitler, states that the Pope was somehow a coconspirator, specifically naming Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, as being a party in the attempt.
Post-World War II
After 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 Praecones Evangelii Praecones June 2, 1951) was an encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII about Catholic missions. In it, he described necessary improvements and changes, and the persecution of the Church in some parts of he world. The encyclical was issued in commemoration of the 25th. anniversary of the...
and Fidei 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. 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 Eastern Africa. Finland, Burma and French Africa became independent dioceses in 1955.
Persecutions in Eastern Europe and China
While the Church thrived in the West and most of the developing world, it faced most serious persecutions in the East. The Communist regimes in Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania practically eradicated the Roman Catholic Church in their countries.
Church policies toward Poland
Pope Pius and Russia
The difficult relations of the Vatican with the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, alias Russia, originated in the revolution in 1917 and continued through the pontificate of Pius XII, affecting the Orthodox Church and other non-Catholics as well. The Oriental Catholic churches were eliminated in most parts of the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era.
The Vatican and the Church in China
The relations of the Holy See with China from 1939 to 1958 began hopefully with the long withheld recognition of Chinese rites by the Vatican in 1939, the elevation of the first Chinese cardinal in 1946, and the establishment of a local Chinese hierarchy. It ended with the persecution and virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the early 1950s, and the establishment of a
Chinese Patriotic Catholic AssociationThe Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association , abbreviated CPA, CPCA, or CCPA, is an association of people, established in 1957 by the People's Republic of China's Religious Affairs Bureau to exercise state supervision over mainland China's Catholics...
in 1957
Jewish orphans controversy
In 2005,
Corriere della SeraCorriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper , published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers, founded on Sunday, March 5 1876 by Eugenio Torelli Viollier...
published 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". Nuncio
Angelo RoncalliBlessed Pope John XXIII , born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli , known as Blessed John XXIII since his beatification, was elected as the 261st Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City on October 28, 1958.He called the Second Vatican Council but did not live to see it to completion,...
(who became Pope John XXIII, and was recognized by
Yad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and...
as
Righteous Among the NationsRighteous among the Nations , which may at times refer to the B'nei Noah or Noahides as well, is a term used in Judaism to refer to non-Jews who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah and thus are assured of meriting paradise.In secular usage, the term is used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who...
) ignored this directive. Abe Foxman, the national director of the
Anti-Defamation LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States of America. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and...
(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 relevant
Vatican Secret ArchivesThe Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. These archives also contain the state papers, correspondence, papal account books, and many other documents which the church has accumulated over the centuries...
and baptismal records were opened. Two Italian scholars, Matteo Luigi Napolitano and Andrea Tornielli, confirmed that the memorandum was genuine although the reporting by the Corriere della Sera was 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 that were supposed to be handed over to Jewish organisations.
Late years of Pope Pius XII
The last years of the pontificate of Pius XII began in late 1954 with a long illness, during which he considered
abdicationAbdication is the act of renouncing and resigning from a formal office, especially from the supreme office of state. In Roman law the term was also applied to the disowning of a family member, as the disinheriting of a son...
. Afterwards, changes in his work habit became noticeable. The Pope avoided long ceremonies, canonizations and consistories and displayed hesitancy in personnel matters. During the last years of the pontificate, Pius XII procrastinated personnel decisions within his
VaticanThe Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Roman Catholic Church, together with the Pope...
, and found it increasingly difficult to chastise subordinates and appointees such as
Riccardo Galeazzi-LisiRiccardo Galeazzi-Lisi was an Italian medical doctor who served as Pope Pius XII's personal physician from 1939 until his dismissal in 1956. During his service in the Vatican he was officially titled "Archiatra Pontificio". The pope also made him an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of...
, 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.
Pius XII often elevated young priests as bishops, such as
Julius DöpfnerJulius August Döpfner was a German Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1961 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1958.-Early life and ordination:...
(35 years) and Karol Wojtyla (38 years), one of his last appointees in 1958. He took a firm stand against pastoral experiments, such as "
worker-priestWorker-priest was a missionary initiative by the French Catholic Church in particular for priests to take up work in such places as car factories to experience the everyday life of the working class...
s", who worked full time in factories and joined political parties and unions. He continued to defend the theological tradition of
ThomismThomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Summa Theologica is arguably second only to the Bible in importance to the Roman Catholic Church...
as worthy of continued reform, and as superior to modern trends such as phenomenology or
existentialismLike “rationalism” and “empiricism,” “existentialism” is a term that belongs to intellectual history. Its definition is thus to some extent one of historical convenience...
.
Illness and death
Since his 1954 illness, Pope Pius addressed lay people and groups about an unprecedented range of topics. Frequently, he spoke to members of scientific congresses, explaining Christian teachings in light of most recent scientific results. Sometimes he answered specific moral questions, which were addressed to him. To professional associations he explained specific occupational ethics in light of Church teachings. Pius granted the Honor of Being the "Catholic University of The Philippines" to the
University of Santo TomasThe Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines , is a private Roman Catholic university run by the Order of Preachers in Manila...
in Manila, the oldest existing in Asia.
Before 1955, Pacelli worked for many years with Giovanni Battista Montini. The Pope did not have a full time assistant.
Robert LeiberRobert Leiber , close advisor to Pope Pius XII, a Jesuit priest from Germany was Professor for Church History at the Gregorian University in Rome from 1930-1960...
helped him occasionally with his speeches and publications.
Augustin BeaAugustin Bea, SJ was a German scholar at the Gregorian University specializing in bibical studies and bibical archeology. He was confessor of Pope Pius XII. In 1959, Pope John XXIII made him cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first President of the Secretariat for Promoting...
was his personal confessor. Madre Pascalina Lehnert was for forty years his housekeeper and assistant. Domenico Tardini was probably closest to him.
Pius XII died on 9 October 1958 of acute heart failure brought on by a sudden
myocardial infarctionMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
in
Castel GandolfoCastel Gandolfo is a small Italian town in Lazio that occupies a height overlooking Lake Albano about 30 km south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills...
, 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."
Botched embalming
Galeazzi-LisiRiccardo Galeazzi-Lisi was an Italian medical doctor who served as Pope Pius XII's personal physician from 1939 until his dismissal in 1956. During his service in the Vatican he was officially titled "Archiatra Pontificio". The pope also made him an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of...
reported that Pius XII's body was embalmed in the room where he died using a novel process invented by Dr. Oreste Nuzzi.
Unlike all popes before him, 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. According to
Galeazzi-LisiRiccardo Galeazzi-Lisi was an Italian medical doctor who served as Pope Pius XII's personal physician from 1939 until his dismissal in 1956. During his service in the Vatican he was officially titled "Archiatra Pontificio". The pope also made him an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of...
, this was the reason why he and Professor Oreste Nuzzi, an embalmer from Naples, used a novel embalming approach invented by Nuzzi.
In a controversial press conference, Galeazzi-Lisi described in great detail the embalming 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. Galeazzi-Lisi asserted that the new process would "preserve the body indefinitely in its natural state" However, whatever chance the new embalming process 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. Swiss Guards stationed around Pius XII's body were reported to become ill during their vigil.
Funeral
His funeral procession into Rome was the largest congregation of Romans as of that date. Romans mourned "their" Pope, who was born in their city, especially as hero in time of war. Cardinal Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII) wrote in his diary on 11 October that probably no Roman emperor had enjoyed such a triumph, which he viewed as a reflection of the spiritual majesty and religious dignity of Pius XII.
Cause for canonization
The
Testament of Pope Pius XIIThe Testament of Pope Pius XII was signed by Pope Pius XII on May 15, 1956, some fifteen months before his death. Unlike the documents of his predecessors and successors , it is a very short document, omitting names, details and designations of individual material belongings.Supporters of Pope...
was published immediately after his death. Pope Pius XII's
cause of canonizationThe Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints is the congregation of the Roman Curia which oversees the complex process which leads to the canonization of saints, passing through the steps of a declaration of "heroic virtues" and beatification...
was opened on 18 November 1965 by
Pope Paul VIPope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
. In March 2007, the congregation recommended that Pius XII should be declared
VenerableThe Venerable is used as a style or epithet in several Christian churches. It is also the common English language translation of a number of Buddhist titles.-Roman Catholic:...
.
Contemporary
During the war, the pope was widely praised. For example, Time magazine credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church for "fighting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power". During the war he was also praised editorially by the New York Times for opposing Nazi anti-Semitism and aggression. Some early works echoed these favorable sentiments, including Polish historian
Oskar HaleckiOskar Halecki was a Polish historian, social and Catholic activist.As a historian, Halecki was an expert on medieval history of Poland and Lithuania, and history of Byzantine Empire....
's Pius XII: Eugenio Pacelli: Pope of peace
(1954) and Nazareno Padellaro's Portrait of Pius XII
(1949).
Many Jews publicly thanked the pope for his help. For example, Pinchas LapidePinchas Lapide was a Jewish theologian and Israeli historian . He was an Israeli diplomat from 1951 to 1969, among other position acting as Israeli Consul to Milan, and was instrumental in gaining recognition for the young state of Israel. He wrote more than 35 books during his lifetime.- Works...
, a Jewish theologian and Israeli diplomat to Milan in the 1960s, estimated controversially in Three Popes and the JewsThree Popes and the Jews is a 1967 book by Pinchas Lapide, then Israeli Consul to Milan. The "three popes" are Pope Pius XII , Pope John XXIII , and Pope Paul VI .- Reviews :Rabbi David G...
that Pius "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." Some historians have questioned this oft-cited number, which Lapide reached by "deducting all reasonable claims of rescue" by non-Catholics from the total number of European Jews surviving the Holocaust. Catholic scholar Kevin Madigan interprets this and other praise from prominent Jewish leaders, including
Golda MeirGolda Meir was the fourth prime minister of the State of Israel....
, as less than sincere, an attempt to secure Vatican recognition of the
State of IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
.
Pius was also criticized during his lifetime. For example,
Leon PoliakovLéon Poliakov was a historian who wrote extensively on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.Born into a Russian Jewish family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France....
wrote five years after World War II that Pius had been a tacit supporter of
Vichy FranceVichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State , in contrast with the previous designation, "French Republic." Marshal...
's anti-Semitic laws, calling him "less forthright" than
Pope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
either out of "Germanophilia" or the hope that Hitler would defeat communist Russia. Bishop
Carlos Duarte CostaCarlos Duarte Costa was the founder and first patriarch of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church and its international extension, the Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic National Churches. A former Roman Catholic bishop, he was excommunicated by Pope Pius XII for doctrinal and canonical...
, a long-time critic of Pius XII's policies during the war and an opponent of
clerical celibacyClerical celibacy is the practice in various religious traditions, in which clergy, monastics and those in religious orders adopt a celibate life, refraining from marriage and sexual relationships, including masturbation and "impure thoughts"...
and the
use of Latin as language of the liturgyA sacred language, "holy language" , or liturgical language, is a language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life.-Concept:...
, was
excommunicatedExcommunication is a religious censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
by Pius XII on 2 July 1945.
On 21 September 1945, the general secretary of the World Jewish Council, Dr. Leon Kubowitzky, presented an amount of money to the pope, "in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions."
After the war, in the autumn of 1945, Harry Greenstein from Baltimore, a close friend of Chief Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem, told Pius how grateful Jews were for all he had done for them. "My only regret," the pope replied, "is not to have been able to save a greater number of Jews."
The Deputy
In 1963,
Rolf HochhuthRolf Hochhuth is a German author and playwright. He is best known for his 1963 drama The Deputy and remains a controversial figure for his plays and other public comments, such as his 2005 defense of Holocaust denier David Irving.-Youth:Rolf Hochhuth is descended from an old-established Hessian...
's controversial drama
Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches TrauerspielThe Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 drama by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust...
(The Deputy, a Christian tragedy
, released in English in 1964) portrayed Pope Pius XII as a hypocrite who remained silent about the Holocaust. Books such as Dr. Joseph Lichten's A Question of Judgment
(1963), written in response to The Deputy
, defended Pius XII's actions during the war. Lichten labelled any criticism of the pope's actions during World War II as "a stupefying paradox" and said, "no one who reads the record of Pius XII's actions on behalf of Jews can subscribe to Hochhuth's accusation." Critical scholarly works like Guenter LewyGuenter Lewy is an author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the...
's The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
(1964) also followed the publication of The Deputy
. Lewy's conclusion was that "the Pope and his advisers—influenced by the long tradition of moderate anti-Semitism so widely accepted in Vatican circles—did not view the plight of the Jews with a real sense of urgency and moral outrage. For this assertion no documentation is possible, but it is a conclusion difficult to avoid". In 2002 the play was adapted into the film Amen.
An article on La Civilità Cattolica in March 2009 indicated that the accusations that Hochhuth's play made widely known originated not among Jews but in the Communist bloc. It was Moscow Radio, on 2 June 1945, that first direct against Pius XII the accusation of refusing to speak out against the exterminations in Nazi concentration camps. It was also the first to call him "Hitler's Pope".
Former
SecuritateThe Securitate , was the secret service of Communist Romania. Previously the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului...
General
Ion Mihai PacepaIon Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the former Eastern Bloc...
has stated that the play of Hochhuth and numerous publications attacking Pius XII as allegedly having been a Nazi sympathizer were fabrications from the
KGBThe KGB was the national security agency of the USSR. From 1954 until 1991, the Committee for State Security was the Communist state's premier secret police, internal security, and espionage organization, whose coat of arms—the Shield and the Sword—illustrate a national military hierarchy...
and
Eastern blocThe terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960...
MarxistMarxism is the political philosophy and economic worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and an atheist view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; three primary aspects of...
secret services leading a campaign to discredit the moral authority of the Church and Christianity in the
westThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
. Pacepa also claims that he was involved in contacting east bloc agents close the Vatican in order to fabricate the story to be used for the attack against the wartime pope.
Actes
In the aftermath of the controversy surrounding The Deputy, in 1964
Pope Paul VIPope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
authorized Jesuit scholars to access the Vatican State Department Archives , which are normally not opened for seventy-five years.
Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre MondialeActes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale , often abbreviated Actes or ADSS, is an eleven-volume collection of documents from the Vatican historical archives, related to the papacy of Pope Pius XII during World War II.The collection was compiled by four...
, was published in eleven volumes between 1965 and 1981.The volumes were published by Angelo Martini, Burkhart Schneider,
Robert A. GrahamFather Robert Andrew Graham, SJ was an American Jesuit priest and World War II historian of the Catholic Church...
and Pierre Blet, the latter published a summary of the eleven volumes. All four, most frequently
Robert A. GrahamFather Robert Andrew Graham, SJ was an American Jesuit priest and World War II historian of the Catholic Church...
published articles and books on the subject matter.
Hitler's Pope and The Myth of Hitler's Pope
In 1999,
John Cornwell'sJohn Cornwell is an English journalist and author. He is best known for various books on the Papacy, most notably Hitler's Pope. More recently he has been concerned with the relationship between science and the humanities.-Early life:...
Hitler's PopeHitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in...
criticized Pius for not doing enough, or speaking out enough, against the Holocaust. Cornwell argued that Pius's entire career as the nuncio to Germany, cardinal secretary of state, and pope was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argued that Pius was
anti-SemiticAntisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.
Cornwell's work was the first to have access to testimonies from Pius's beatification process as well as to many documents from Pacelli's nunciature which had just been opened under the seventy-five year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives. Cornwell's work has received much praise and criticism. Much praise of Cornwell centered around his disputed claim that he was a practising Catholic who had attempted to absolve Pius with his work. While works such as Susan Zuccotti's
Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in ItalyUnder His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy is a book by Susan Zuccotti.It describes the actions of the Vatican and Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust, claiming the Church stayed neutral even with the full knowledge of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis...
(2000) and Michael PhayerJ. Michael Phayer, born 1935, is a historian and professor emeritus at Marquette University in Milwaukee and has written on 19th and 20th century European history and the Holocaust....
's The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965
(2000) are critical of both Cornwell and Pius XII, Ronald J. RychlakRonald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is the Associate Dean For Academic Affairs and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Professor of Law at University of Mississippi School of Law, and is known for his published works, career as an attorney,...
's Hitler, the War and the Pope
is critical as well but defends Pius XII in light of his access to most recent documents.
Cornwell's scholarship has been criticized. For example, Kenneth L. Woodward stated in his review in Newsweek
that "errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page." Five years after the publication of Hitler's Pope
, Cornwell stated: "I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler's Pope, that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany".
In his 2003 book
A Moral ReckoningA Moral Reckoning, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, who also authored Hitler's Willing Executioners, is a 2003 non-fictional book examining the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the Holocaust...
, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen asserts that Pius "chose again and again not to mention the Jews publicly.... [In] public statements by Pius XII . . . any mention of the Jews is conspicuously absent." In a review of Goldhagen's book,
Mark RieblingMark Riebling is a U.S. historian and policy analyst. He directs the Book Program at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He co-founded and served as Research Director for the Center for Policing Terrorism, which helps U.S. police formulate counter-terrorism policy. He is the author of...
counters that Pius used the word "Jew" in his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, published on October 20, 1939. "There Pius insisted that all human beings be treated charitably -- for, as Paul had written to the Colossians, in God's eyes "there is neither Gentile nor Jew." In saying this, the Pope affirmed that Jews were full members of the human community—which is Goldhagen's own criterion for establishing 'dissent from the anti-Semitic creed.'"
Most recently,
Rabbi David Dalin'sDavid Gil Dalin is an American historian and author. Dalin co-author of several books on Jewish history. He is currently a professor of history and political science at the Roman Catholic Ave Maria University, and was previously associate professor of American Jewish history at the University of...
The Myth of Hitler's PopeThe Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis is a book written by American historian Rabbi David G. Dalin and published in 2005....
argues that critics of Pius are liberal Catholics and ex-Catholics who "exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today" and that Pius XII was actually responsible for saving the lives of many thousands of Jews.
International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission
In 1999, in an attempt to address some of this controversy, the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission (Historical Commission), a group of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars was appointed, respectively, by the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews (Holy See's Commission) and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), to whom a preliminary report was issued in October 2000.
The Commission did not discover any documents, but had the agreed-upon task to review the existing Vatican volumes, that make up the Actes et Documents du Saint Siege (ADSS) The Commission was internally divided over the question of access to additional documents from the Holy See, access to the news media by individual commission members, and, questions to be raised in the preliminary report. It was agreed to include all 47 individual questions by the six members, and use them as Preliminary Report. In addition to the 47 questions, the commission issued no findings of its own. It stated that it was not their task to sit in judgment of the Pope and his advisors but to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the papacy during the Holocaust.
The 47 questions by the six scholars were grouped into three parts: (a) 27 specific questions on existing documents, mostly asking for background and additional information such as drafts of the encyclical
Mit Brennender SorgeMit brennender Sorge is a Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on March 10, 1937 . Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sunday's,...
, which was largely written by Eugenio Pacelli. (b) Fourteen questions dealt with themes of individual volumes, such as the question how Pius viewed the role of the Church during the war. (c) Six general questions, such as the absence of any anti-communist sentiments in the documents. The disagreement between members over additional documents locked up up under the Holy See's 70 year rule resulted in a discontinuation of the Commission in 2001 on friendly terms. Unsatisfied with the findings, Dr. Michael Marrus, one of the three Jewish members of the Commission, said the commission "ran up against a brick wall.... It would have been really helpful to have had support from the Holy See on this issue."
Recent developments
Phayer's Pius XII, The Holocaust, and the Cold War (2008) makes use of many new documents that have recently come to light due to
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
's 1997 executive order declassifying wartime and postwar documents at the (many of which are currently at the US National Archives and Holocaust Memorial Museum, including both diplomatic correspondence, American espionage, and even decryptions of German communications), new documents released by the Argentine government and the British Foreign Office, and the diary of Bishop
Joseph Patrick HurleyJoseph Patrick Hurley was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of St. Augustine from 1940 until his death.-Biography:...
; in particular, these documents reveal new information about Pius XII's actions regarding the
UstašeThe Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement , members known collectively as Ustaše, but sometimes anglicised as Ustashe, Ustashas or Ustashi) was a Croatian anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was blend of fascism, nazism, Croatian ultranationalism, and Roman Catholic...
regime, the genocides in Poland, the finances of the wartime church, the deportation of the Roman Jews, and the
postwar "ratlines"Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward safe havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Chile. Other destinations included the United States and perhaps Canada...
for Nazis and fascists fleeing Europe. According to Phayer, "the face of Pope Pius that we see in these documents is not the same face we see in the eleven volumes the Vatican published of World War II documents, a collection which, though valuable, is nonetheless critically flawed because of its many omissions".
A special conference of scholars on Pius XII on the 50th anniversary of his death was held in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
on 15–17 September 2008, by Pave the Way Foundation, a nonsectarian organization founded by a Jewish American that promotes interfaith cooperation. Pope Benedict XVI held on 19 September 2008 a reception for the conference participants, where he praised Pius XII as a pope who made every effort to save Jews during the war. A second conference was held on 6–8 November 2008 by the Pontifical Academy of Life.
On 9 October 2008, the 50th anniversary of Pius XII's death, Benedict XVI celebrated pontifical mass in his memory. Shortly prior to, and after the mass, dialectics continued between the Jewish hierarchy and the Vatican as Rabbi Shear Yeshuv Cohen of Haifa addressed the Synod of Bishops and expressed his disappointment towards Pius XII's "silence" during the war.
On June 16, 2009, the
Pave the Way FoundationPave the Way Foundation is a non-sectarian organization whose mission is to identify and eliminate non-theological obstacles between religions, headed by Gary Krupp...
announced that it will release of 2,300 pages of documents in Avellino, Italy, dating from 1940 to 1945, which the organization claims will show that Pius XII "worked diligently to save Jews from Nazi tyranny"; the organization's founder, Gary Krupp, a Jew, accused historians of harboring "private agendas" and having "let down" the public. On 17 September 2009, Pave the Way Foundation nominated Pius XII to be listed as
Righteous Among the NationsRighteous among the Nations , which may at times refer to the B'nei Noah or Noahides as well, is a term used in Judaism to refer to non-Jews who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah and thus are assured of meriting paradise.In secular usage, the term is used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who...
at Yad Veshem Holocaust Memorial. The foundation's efforts produced 3,000 new original documents and photos on the life of Pius XII and his work to save Jews during World War II.
External links