Word: xii
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...saddest hearts in all of Europe last week was that of Pope Pius XII. He had been hailed at his election as a shrewd diplomat who would be an authoritative moral policeman among Europe's thugs. He succeeded a man who had learned early in life (in sorry Poland, ironically, where he was Papal Nuncio just after World War I) to fight against extreme ideologies, and who late in life had waged that fight-particularly against Naziism-with superhuman strength. "No good Catholic" Pius XI had said "can be a Socialist"-and before he died he made clear especially...
After the Nazi-Communist pact had brought together the Church's two bitterest enemies, diplomatic activity in the Vatican became more intense than ever. It kept right on after war came. Pius XII recalled his vacationing Secretary of State, Luigi Cardinal Maglione. Together they composed last minute appeals, conferred with ambassadors to the Holy...
What made Pius XII particularly sad was the thought of his sheep fighting each other: 37,900,000 German Catholics (21,000,000 of 67,000,000 pre-Hitler Germans, plus 6,100,000 Austrian souls, plus 10,800,000 in Czecho-Slovakia) pitted against 23,000,000 devout Poles-just about his stanchest followers anywhere...
...nuptial mass after 105 priests made the couples men and wives. Then, in 105 automobiles lent by General Motors of Canada, Ltd., the couples drove to St. Helen's Island, where they ate with 3,000 friends and relations, were given rosaries, crucifixes and photographs of Pope Pius XII-all these tokens sent with the apostolic blessing of His Holiness...
Promptly after his election last March Pope Pius XII tossed a lifeline to a sinking friend, once-honored General Umberto Nobile. Mussolini had busted Airman Nobile out of the service when his 1928 Polar expedition ended with the crack-up of the dirigible Italia which killed eight crew members, ended Italy's lighter-than-aircraft dreams. In his small flat near the Tiber, where few friends dared visit him, Umberto Nobile silently endured the usual fate of Fascism's failures-ostracism. Only honor left was his membership in the Pontifical Academy of Science, conferred by the late Pius...