Background
Pius XI was born on May 31, 1857 at Desio near Milan, Italy.
(THE Encyclical of our Holy Father, Pius XI., on the Insti...)
THE Encyclical of our Holy Father, Pius XI., on the Institution of the Feast of Christ Our King is a fitting crown to the devotion and the vast spiritual awakening which marked the Holy Year, 1925. In fulfilment of the commission of Our Lord to St. Peter, and aided by the light and grace that are given to every man according to his need, the Vicar of Christ addresses words of timely guidance and help to the Catholic world. We need that guidance today. In their greed for wealth, the senseless hurry of business, and the rush for pleasure men forget, then reject, Divine things. Our superficial education, the shallow science and the sensationalism of the newspapers bewilder mens minds. They cannot think steadily and soundly; they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine. They lose Christ not from rebellion, but from indifference. Man-made religions and scientific theories come and go like the leaves from spring to winter, and as they pass they leave men more and more confused. Outside the Catholic Church, there is no centre of spiritual authority, no institution that can claim to possess that body of truths which was the legacy of Christ to His Apostles, to be guarded by them for men through all time. There is no other infallible teacher. Mans life must be reasonable, founded on true philosophy. For very many of those who do not recognise the Divine claims of Christ there is a philosophy of life but it is a destructive philosophy. Its authority is unstable and uncertain, that of a learning which imposes itself on the less learned. It changes as new theories are born, but always leaves greater uncertainty, as it saps the foundations of faith and drives men to religious indifference or to scepticism. Truth is put farther and farther away. Religion, then, and philosophy for such men come to be no more than a collection of words, of hazy definitions, of vague counsels of morality, with no firm foundation. Consequently, the law of sacrifice and the Christian moral code, so clearly stated in the teaching of Our Lord, are rejected, and men accept gladly those theories of conduct only which demand no moral effort and impose no burden of sacrifice. The God of the new philosophies is not real: He is not personal; He does not command. Christ for them is not the Divine Christ, who knew Himself to be God, who loved men, and lived and taught in Galilee with an authority which He claimed as Divine; who confirmed the Divine law and made laws as His own; whose praise and blame are for eternity; whose Kingdom we must enter by the way which He has appointed, through faith, baptism, sacrifice and good works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/150884917X/?tag=2022091-20
(3 Papal Encyclicals on the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ i...)
3 Papal Encyclicals on the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ including a Prayer of Reparation by Pope Pius XI.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1533208557/?tag=2022091-20
Pius XI was born on May 31, 1857 at Desio near Milan, Italy.
Pius XI received three doctorates (in philosophy, canon law and theology) at the Gregorian University in Rome.
Ordained a priest in 1879, and having already acquired a name as a brilliant scholar, Pius XI devoted most of the subsequent 43 years to work as a Church librarian. He was known as a Latin paleographer and developed new library classification systems. Already known to Benedict XV as a man of exceptional qualities, he was selected by Benedict for diplomatic service and sent as apostolic visitor in 1918 to Poland. The following year he became apostolic nuncio in Poland. He returned to Italy in 1921 and became cardinal archbishop of Milan. He was elected pope on February 6, 1922.
The first crisis facing Pius XI concerned the newly born Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini. At the heart of Vatican policy as formed by the preceding three popes, there lay a fundamental principle of Church political policy and, in addition, an urgent desire to solve the "Roman question. " The principle dictated that the Church should always have and seek the protection of a secular arm to protect it from attack, to grant it special immunity and privileges, and to channel its teachings. The Roman question concerned the status of the Vatican as a temporal power. When the Italian nationalist movement of 1870 deprived the papacy of its territorial possessions, the succeeding popes refused to acquiesce in the act. They refused to leave the Vatican even for short visits.
Pius XI, in the tradition of latter-day popes, saw in the new Fascist state the secular arm which the Church always sought. He supported the Fascist regime with certain qualifications, and in 1929 the government of Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican. According to this, the Vatican recognized the kingdom of Italy and, in return, was recognized as a fully sovereign state. As such, the Vatican was granted a small but clearly indicated portion of Rome (the Vatican State) together with other holdings throughout the city and elsewhere in Italy. A financial indemnification was made by the Fascist regime to the Vatican in return for the Vatican's definitive renunciation of all claims to the former Papal States. Most importantly, the neutrality of the Vatican was guaranteed for all future military conflicts. A concordat was also signed, between the regime and the Vatican, which regulated the position of the Church in Italy. It provided for Church marriages, compulsory religious instruction in schools, and the exclusive position of Catholicism as the state religion of Italy.
Pius XI was also successful with the Mexican government in negotiating a peace between Church and state. But his concordat with Hitler's Germany was quickly violated. Pius denounced the violation in his encyclical letter Mit brennender Sorge (1937). In pursuance of Vatican policy and with an innate fear of Soviet Marxism, Pius sided with Franco's cause during the Spanish Civil War. It was a policy which Pius XII, his successor, was to pursue with unfavorable results during World War II. When Mussolini's government introduced anti-Semitic legislation in 1938, Pius denounced it together with all prevalent racial theories. Pius set out from the beginning of his reign to establish the Church on the international scene by increasing the number of diplomatic missions abroad, thus taking advantage of the desire of many governments for collaboration with the Vatican as a moral force in international politics.
In the field of missionary activity, particularly in Africa and Asia, Pius XI set out to rid Roman Catholic missions of their very close identification with various imperial and nationalistic powers. He encouraged plans for developing an indigenous clergy to replace the foreign missionaries.
Within the Church, Pius gave his sanction to the building of Catholic Action groups in order to provide the hierarchies with an indirect say in political matters. On the fortieth anniversary of Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, Pius XI issued his own letter on social affairs, Quadragesimo anno (May 15, 1931). He elaborated on Leo's teachings concerning social reform and the economic structure of human society in relation to religious belief and practice. Toward non-Catholic Christianity, Pius had a negative attitude and issued his Mortalium animos (1928), in which he imposed a stern attitude toward non-Catholics and the nascent ecumenical movement among Protestants. The closing years of Pius XI's reign were marked by a close association with the Western democracies, as these nations and the Vatican found that they were both threatened by the totalitarian regimes and ideologies of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Soviet Union. In the last months of his life, Pius XI saw the gathering clouds of World War II. Although he used every resource of the Vatican, he was unable to prevent the final union of wills between Hitler and Mussolini.
(3 Papal Encyclicals on the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ i...)
(THE Encyclical of our Holy Father, Pius XI., on the Insti...)
