|
You are here: home >> offices >> archives & records
 |
Pope Pius XII |
Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII (born March 2, 1876; died October 9, 1958) was pope
from 1939 until 1958. He was born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni
Pacelli. He was ordained in 1899. He worked in the Vatican Secretariat
of State, became a cardinal in 1929 and Pope Pius XI's secretary of
state in 1930. On March 2, 1939, he was elected to succeed Pius XI as
pope.
Controversy surrounds Pius XII's silence during World War II concerning
the extermination of the Jews by Nazi Germany. Wishing to preserve
Vatican neutrality, fearing reprisals, and realizing his impotence to
stop the Holocaust, Pius nonetheless acted on an individual basis to
save many Jews and others with church ransoms, documents, and asylum. He
feared that, after the defeat of the Third Reich, Eastern Europe would
fall to communism. When his fears materialized, the Vatican worked to
aid refugee relocation and the establishment of anticommunist regimes in
Western Europe, especially in Italy.
In 1950, Pius issued an ex cathedra proclamation defining the dogma of
the Assumption of Mary. The encyclical Humani generis, of the same year,
reasserted Catholic tradition and rejected modern theories like
existentialism. Condemnation of the French worker-priest experiment
(1953) and the canonization of Pius X (1954) reflected a similar
conservatism. At the same time, however, Pius gave the College of
Cardinals a non-Italian majority, including several East Europeans. He
replaced colonial bishops with native hierarchies, approved the "Dialogue
Mass," and relaxed communion fast rules. Naturally ascetic, Pius
became an isolated figure before his death on Oct. 9, 1958, at Castel
Gandolfo.
|
