Word: xii
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Read "Benedict's Pope: Should Pius XII Become a Saint...
...examination of documents in the Vatican archive. With debate still heated about the historical facts - and with Benedict, a German of that era, in the papacy - many observers believed it might just be better for his successors to make the call on Pius' virtues. So what changed? (Should Piux XII be a saint...
...when Eugenio Pacelli became Pope in 1939. Through his early years as priest and theologian, Ratzinger remained devoted to Pius until the pontiff's death in 1958. A Vatican insider once described Benedict's memory to this particular predecessor this way: "Pius is really his Pope." (See how Pius XII was perceived during his lifetime, from TIME's archives...
...sociologists continue to study the widespread acceptance of the regime's actions. The son of a Catholic police officer who didn't like the Nazis, the young Joseph Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth against his will. (The controversial 1963 play that raised the issue of Pius XII's silence during the Holocaust...
...sainthood forward is a declaration that the wartime Pope was a Catholic in good faith, a victim of the historical events that did not afford him the means to stop the bloodshed around him. In a way, that is just like the future German Pope himself. (See Pope Pius XII's reputation amid World War II, from TIME's Archive...