Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) was born March 2, 1876, to Filippo Pacelli and Virginia (Graziosi) Pacelli, in Rome, where he spent his childhood. He was ordained as a priest on April 2, 1899.
Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) was born March 2, 1876, to Filippo Pacelli and Virginia (Graziosi) Pacelli, in Rome, where he spent his childhood. He was ordained as a priest on April 2, 1899.
Eugenio was born into a family which, for most of the 19th century, was in service to the Holy See. The Pacelli family had a long tradition of legal training. His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, had been minister of finance for Pope Gregory XVI and deputy minister of the interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851 to 1870. He founded the L’Osservatore Romano on July 20, 1860. [1] His father Filippo Pacelli, was a solicitor (lawyer) in the Congregation of the Sacred Rota. His brother, Francesco Pacelli, a Vatican lawyer as well, was dean of the lawyers of the Rota [2] He was also the legal advisor to Pius XI, in which role he negotiated the Lateran Treaty in 1929, bringing an end to the Roman Question. It established the independence of the Papacy with the formation of Vatican City as a sovereign entity. In his Diario della Conciliazione, Francesco Pacelli described the details and difficulties of these negotiations from a Vatican perspective. [3]
The family's parish church in Rome was the Chiesa Nuova where the body of St. Philip Neri was under the altar in a silver casket. Neri, with his unending sense of humor and love for education, music, and culture, was one of the great heroes of young Eugenio Pacelli. Eugenio served as an altar boy at Chiesa Nuova, and, after his ordination as a priest, took weekly confessions there [4] . Eugenio was the third of four children, the second son. Two days after his birth, he was baptized at the Church of Saints Celso and Giuliano by his uncle, Monsignor Giuseppe Pacelli. His godparents were his maternal uncle Filippo Graziosi and paternal aunt Teresa Pacelli. [5] In the apartment where he grew up, there was a shrine of the Madonna with a prie-dieu at which Pacelli would frequently pray.
At age five, Eugenio was enrolled in a kindergarten conducted by the French Sisters of Providence, in what is now known as Via Zanardelli. In 1939, a bust of Pius XII was unveiled at the school. He graduated to a private Catholic elementary school in the Piazza Santa Lucia dei Ginnasi. After elementary school, Eugenio began his studies at the Ennio Quirino Visconti Lyceum. Under the direction of the Jesuits, it was a semi-military academy under governmental control. Here he learned several languages, including Latin. Eugenio carried the influence of his parents and Father with him into his secularized ( Liceo ). For an essay assignment on a "favorite" historical figure, Eugenio is said to have chosen Augustine of Hippo, prompting sneers from his classmates. When he attempted to expand a little on the history of Christian civilization, a theme absent in the curriculum, his teacher chided him, informing him that he was not employed to take the lesson. [6] At age twelve, he announced that he would enter the priesthood, rather than becoming a lawyer like most of his family. Nobody was surprised, said his sister Elisabetta Pacelli. [7]
Thirteen years old, Eugenio was asked by his Professor Ignazio Bassi, to write a self-portrait, which is one of several school essays of Eugenio Pacelli in original school books. [8]
Being somewhat sickly, he tried to overcome this physical disability with exercise and sports. In his family summer home in Onano, he would ride horses, swim, and canoe in Lake Bolzena. Eugenio hiked frequently. Throughout his life to his old age, he undertook long daily walks and morning exercises. Discipline, allowed him to find time for his favourite musical instrument, the violin, which he played often and “so well, that he might have participated in an orchestra”. [10] He preferred to play classical and romantic German composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. He had a passion for acting and public speaking. "This was his way of overcoming shyness and an early speech defect, with determination and energy". [11] He was also interested in stamp collecting and Archaeology. The latter would manifest itself years later in Divino afflante Spiritu , in which he encouraged going back to the language, culture, and society of ancient Israel, in order to better understand the Old Testament.
To gain time for his many interests, Eugenio from early on forced himself to methodical work and prayer habits. He confirmed later, that he liked to pray and study as a child, and that he never really understood, why other people would talk or do nothing, rather than pray and study. [12]
Theology and the Catholic Church were not popular in late 19th-century Italy. [13] Following the hostile takeover of papal Rome by Italian forces in 1870, religion was banned from public schools. Positivist philosophies were politically popular. The Catholic Church was seen as a reactionary enemy of the Italian people. [14] In 1894, at the age of 18, he entered the Capranica Seminary and enrolled at the Gregorian University. At the end of his first academic year, he dropped out of both the Capranica and the Gregorian University. According to his sister, the food at the Capranica was to blame; his "fastidious" stomach would plague him for the rest of his life, suggesting a nervous, high-strung constitution. [15] He lived at home (an unprecedented dispensation) while continuing his studies at the Sapienza School of Philosophy, and the Papal Athenaeum of St. Apollinaris Institute for Theology in the autumn of 1895. He received Baccalaureate and Licentiate degrees summa cum laude. His frail health prevented his participation in the graduation ceremony. Records show that he graduated with highest honors and is reported to have had a photographic memory.
Eugenio Pacelli was ordained on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1899 [16] and celebrated his first mass the following day in Borghese Chapel of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome at the altar of "Salus Populi Romano", where in 1949, fifty years later he celebrated the anniversary. Vicenzo Cardinal Vanutelli attended his first mass as did his spiritual guides, Monsignor Azzochi and Father Lais and his family. [17] He celebrated his second mass at his favorite church Chiesa Nuova April 4, 1899 on the altar of Philip Neri. [18]
A few weeks thereafter, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, the young Priest Eugenio Pacelli gave his first major sermon, which he concluded with these words:
Pacelli was initially assigned to Chiesa Nuova as an assistant. Shortly afterwards, he was at home playing his favourite violin, when an unannounced visitor from the Vatican showed up. Monsignor Pietro Gasparri came, to ask for help in the Vatican bureaucracy. Pacelli was not impressed, telling Gaparri, "This is not why I became a priest”. [20] Pacelli wanted to work with real people, doing parish work. “I understand”, replied Gasparri, “you want to be a Shepherd and I turn you into a sheep dog”. But there are many mansions. All service to the Church is pastoral. And he continued describing the important work in the State department of the Vatican. Eugenio Pacelli accepted and was introduced to Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, the Secretary of State and to Pope Leo XIII in 1901. This started a career, which ended with the death of Pope Pius XII, October 9, 1958. [21]
Eugenio loved to read. Favourites included Saint Augustine, Cicero and Manzoni. In 1889, at age 13, Pacelli describes a good book as man's best friend.
The date of this last school essay is March 1894, when he was 17, almost 18 years old. The topic “my enemies” was not of Pacelli’s choosing, it was given to Eugenio Pacelli and the other students by his professor as a project for the whole class.
Pope Pius XII was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his election to the papacy, he served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with various European and Latin American nations, including the Reichskonkordat treaty with the German Reich.
Pope Benedict XV, born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His pontificate was largely overshadowed by World War I and its political, social, and humanitarian consequences in Europe.
Pietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic cardinal, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and the signatory of the Lateran Pacts. He served also as Cardinal Secretary of State under Popes Benedict XV and Pope Pius XI.
The papal conclave held on 1 and 2 March 1939 saw Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli elected on the third ballot to succeed Pius XI, who had died on 10 February, as pope. All 62 cardinals took part. Pacelli, who had been camerlengo and secretary of state, took the name Pius XII. The day was his 63rd birthday.
Pascalina Lehnert, born Josefina Lehnert, was a German Roman Catholic sister who served as Pope Pius XII's housekeeper and secretary from his period as Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria in 1917 until his death as pope in 1958. She managed the papal charity office for Pius XII from 1944 until the pontiff's death in 1958. She was a Sister of the Holy Cross, Menzingen order.
Ludwig Kaas was a German Roman Catholic priest and politician of the Centre Party during the Weimar Republic. He was instrumental in brokering the Reichskonkordat between the Holy See and the German Reich.
Hitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII, before and during the Nazi era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933. The book is critical of Pius' conduct during the Second World War, arguing that he did not do enough, or speak out enough, against the Holocaust. Cornwell argues 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 argues that Pius was antisemitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.
Domenico Tardini was a longtime aide to Pope Pius XII in the Secretariat of State. Pope John XXIII named him Cardinal Secretary of State and, in this position the most prominent member of the Roman Curia in Vatican City.
Federico Tedeschini was an Italian cardinal of the Holy Roman Church who served as papal datary in the Roman Curia from 1938 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1933 in pectore by Pope Pius XI.
The late years of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII were characterized by a hesitancy in personnel decisions. After a major illness in 1954, he redirected his energies from Vatican clergy to the concerns of lay people.
Raimondo Spiazzi OP was an Italian Catholic theologian, advisor to Pius XII, and Mariologist with over 2,500 publications.
The Almo Collegio Capranica is the oldest Roman college, founded in 1457 by Cardinal Domenico Capranica (1400–1458) in his own palace for thirty young clerics, who received an education suitable to prepare them for the priesthood.
This bibliography on Church policies 1939–1945 includes mainly Italian publications relative to Pope Pius XII and Vatican policies during World War II. Two areas are missing and need separate bibliographies at a later date.
Francesco Pacelli was an Italian lawyer and the elder brother of Eugenio Pacelli, who would later become Pope Pius XII. He acted as a legal advisor to Pope Pius XI; in this capacity, he assisted Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri in the negotiation of the Lateran Treaty, which established the independence of Vatican City.
Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare is a former pontifical university in Rome, named after St. Apollinaris of Ravenna. Its facilities are now occupied by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
The relations between Pope Pius XII and Judaism have long been controversial, especially those questions that surround Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Other issues involve Pius's Jewish friendships and his attitude towards the new state of Israel.
The papacy of Pius XII began on 2 March 1939 and continued to 9 October 1958, covering the period of the Second World War and the Holocaust, during which millions of Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler's Germany. Before becoming pope, Cardinal Pacelli served as a Vatican diplomat in Germany and as Vatican Secretary of State under Pius XI. His role during the Nazi period has been closely scrutinised and criticised. His supporters argue that Pius employed diplomacy to aid the victims of the Nazis during the war and, through directing his Church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Pius maintained links to the German Resistance, and shared intelligence with the Allies. His strongest public condemnation of genocide was, however, considered inadequate by the Allied Powers, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had dishonoured his policy of Vatican neutrality.
Eugenio Pacelli was a nuncio in Munich to Bavaria from 23 April 1917 to 23 June 1920. As there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of the German Empire.
Johan Ickx is director of the historical archive of the Section for Relations with States of the Holy See's Secretariat of State. He has spent his career in several departments of the Roman Curia. He has published research on a wide variety of subjects related to the history of the Catholic Church from the Middle Ages to the 19th-20th centuries.
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