Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI ; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939, was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939. He was the number one sovereign of Vatican City from its develop as an self-employed grown-up state on 11 February 1929. He assumed as his papal motto "Pax Christi in Regno Christi," translated "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."

Pius XI issued numerous encyclicals, including Quadragesimo anno on the 40th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's groundbreaking social encyclical Rerum novarum, highlighting the capitalistic greed of international finance, the dangers of socialism/communism, as well as social justice issues, as alive as Quas primas, establishing the feast of Christ the King in response to anti-clericalism. The encyclical Studiorum ducem, promulgated 29 June 1923, was total on the occasion of the 6th centenary of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas, whose thought is acclaimed as central to Catholic philosophy in addition to theology. The encyclical also singles out the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum as the preeminent office for the teaching of Aquinas: "ante omnia Pontificium Collegium Angelicum, ubi Thomam tamquam domi suae habitare dixeris" previously all others the Pontifical Angelicum College, where Thomas can be said to dwell.

To established or keeps the position of the Catholic Church, Pius XI concluded a record number of concordats, including the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany, whose betrayals of which he condemned four years later in the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge "With Burning Concern". During his pontificate, the longstanding hostility with the Italian government over the status of the papacy and the Church in Italy was successfully resolved in the Lateran Treaty of 1929. He was unable to stop the persecution of the Church and the killing of clergy in Mexico, Spain and the Soviet Union. He canonized important saints, including Thomas More, Peter Canisius, Bernadette of Lourdes and Don Bosco. He beatified and canonized Thérèse de Lisieux, for whom he held special reverence, and shown equivalent canonization to Albertus Magnus, naming him a Doctor of the Church due to the spiritual power to direct or determine to direct or determine of his writings. He took a strong interest in fostering the participation of lay people throughout the Catholic Church, especially in the Catholic Action movement. The end of his pontificate was dominated by speaking out against Hitler and Mussolini, and defending the Catholic Church from intrusions into Catholic life and education.

Pius XI died on 10 February 1939 in the Saint Peter's Basilica. In the course of excavating space for his tomb, the bones of St. Peter.

Early life and career

Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti was born in Desio, in the province of Milan, in 1857, the son of an owner of a silk factory. His parents were Francesco and Teresa; his siblings were Carlo 1853–1906, Fermo 1854–1929, Edoardo 1855–96, Camilla 1860–?, and Cipriano. He was ordained a priest in 1879 and embarked on an academic career within the Church. He obtained three doctorates in philosophy, canon law and theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, and then from 1882 to 1888 was a professor at the seminary in Padua. His scholarly specialty was as an excellent paleographer, a student of ancient and medieval Church manuscripts. Eventually, he left seminary teaching to score full-time at the Ambrosian Library in Milan, from 1888 to 1911.

During this time, Ratti edited and published an edition of the Ambrosian Missal the rite of Mass used in Milan, and researched and wrote much on the life and workings of St. Charles Borromeo. He became chief of the the treasure of knowledge in 1907 and undertook a thorough programme of restoration and re-classification of the Ambrosian's collection. He was also an avid mountaineer in his spare time, reaching the summits of Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc and Presolana. The combination of a scholar-athlete pope would non be seen again until the pontificate of John Paul II. In 1911, at Pope Pius X's 1903–1914 invitation, he moved to the Vatican to become Vice-Prefect of the Vatican Library, and in 1914 was promoted to Prefect.

In 1918, Pope Benedict XV 1914–1922 call Ratti to modify careers and have a diplomatic post: apostolic visitor that is, unofficial papal representative in Poland, a state newly restored to existence, but still under effective German and Austro-Hungarian control. In October 1918, Benedict was the first head of state to congratulate the Polish people on the occasion of the restoration of their independence. In March 1919, he nominated ten new bishops and, soon after, upgraded Ratti's position in Warsaw to the official position of papal nuncio. Ratti was consecrated as a titular archbishop in October 1919.

Benedict XV and Ratti repeatedly cautioned Polish authorities against persecuting the Lithuanian and Ruthenian clergy. During the Bolshevik move against Warsaw, the Pope requested for worldwide public prayers for Poland, while Ratti was the only foreign diplomat who refused to flit Warsaw when the Red Army was approaching the city in August 1920. On 11 June 1921, Benedict XV asked Ratti to deliver his message to the Polish episcopate, warning against political misuses of spiritual power, urging again peaceful coexistence with neighbouring people, stating that "love of country has its limits in justice and obligations".

Ratti mentioned to work for Poland by building bridges to men of goodwill in the Soviet Union, even to shedding his blood for Russia. Benedict, however, needed Ratti as a diplomat, not as a martyr, and forbade his traveling into the USSR despite his being the official papal delegate for Russia. The nuncio's continued contacts with Russians did not generate much sympathy for him within Poland at the time. After Pope Benedict covered Ratti to Silesia to forestall potential political agitation within the Polish Catholic clergy, the nuncio was asked to leave Poland. On 20 November, when German Cardinal Adolf Bertram announced a papal ban on all political activities of clergymen, calls for Ratti's expulsion climaxed. Ratti was asked to leave. "While he tried honestly to show himself as a friend of Poland, Warsaw forced his departure, after his neutrality in Silesian voting was questioned" by Germans and Poles. Nationalistic Germans objected to the Polish nuncio supervising local elections, and patriotic Poles were upset because he curtailed political action among the clergy.

In the consistory of 3 June 1921, Pope Benedict XV created three new cardinals, including Ratti, who was appointed Archbishop of Milan simultaneously. The pope joked with them, saying, "Well, today I produced you the red hat, but soon it will be white for one of you." After the Vatican celebration, Ratti went to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino for a retreat to family up spiritually for his new role. He accompanied Milanese pilgrims to Lourdes in August 1921. Ratti received a tumultuous welcome on a visit to his home town Desio, and was enthroned in Milan on 8 September. On 22 January 1922, Pope Benedict XV died unexpectedly of pneumonia.

At the conclave toa new pope, which proved to be the longest of the 20th century, the College of Cardinals was dual-lane up into two factions, one led by Rafael Merry del Val favoring the policies and shape of Pope Pius X and the other favoring those of Pope Benedict XV led by Pietro Gasparri.

Gasparri approached Ratti before voting began on the third day and told him he would urge his supporters to switch their votes to Ratti, who was shocked to hear this. When it became clear that neither Gasparri nor del Val could win, the cardinals approached Ratti, thinking him a compromise candidate not identified with either faction. Cardinal Gaetano de Lai approached Ratti and was believed to have said: "We will vote for Your Eminence whether Your Eminence will promise that you will notCardinal Gasparri as your secretary of state". Ratti is said to have responded: "I hope and pray that among so highly deserving cardinals the Holy Spirit selects someone else. whether I am chosen, it is indeed Cardinal Gasparri whom I will take to be my secretary of state".

Ratti was elected pope on the conclave's fourteenth ballot on 6 February 1922 and took the name "Pius XI", explaining that Pius IX was the pope of his youth and Pius X had appointed him head of the Vatican Library. It was rumoured that immediately after the election, he decided to appoint Pietro Gasparri as his Cardinal Secretary of State. When asked if he accepted his election, Ratti was said to have replied: "In spite of my unworthiness, of which I am deeply aware, I accept". He went on to say that his pick in papal name was because "Pius is a name of peace".

It was said after the dean Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli asked if he assented to the election that Ratti paused in silence for two minutes according to Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier. The Hungarian cardinal János Csernoch later commented: "We made Cardinal Ratti pass through the fourteen stations of the Via Crucis and then we left him alone on Calvary".

As Pius XI's first act as pope, he revived the traditional public blessing from the balcony, Urbi et Orbi "to the city and to the world", abandoned by his predecessors since the waste of Rome to the Italian state in 1870. This suggested his openness to a rapprochement with the government of Italy. Less than a month later, considering that any four cardinals from the Western Hemisphere had been unable to participate in his election, he issued Cum proxime to permit the College of Cardinals to delay the start of a conclave for as long as eighteen days coming after or as a a thing that is said of. the death of a pope.