Word: xii
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...DOGMA. Pius XII spectacularly stiffened the fabric of faith by promulgating the ancient dogma of the Virgin Mary's bodily assumption into Heaven (in doing so he was the first Pope in history to make such public exercise of the 1870 dogma of papal infallibility). In 1950 in the encyclical Humani Generis he cracked down hard on Catholic teachers, priests and philosophers whose speculations might carry them away from the dogmas of -the church and the formal system of thought laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas. ¶ NATIONALISM. Pope Pius laid claim once more to the church...
...That was what most men felt in the presence. It was in a sense ironic that this sophisticated diplomat, member of old Roman aristocracy, should become so popular a Pope. Before World War II, a papal audience for a layman was a prestigious and protocol-encrusted enterprise. Under Pius XII, however, a visit to the Pope was heartwarming and almost informal (he often studied the sports pages of newspapers as carefully as the political news, because at many audiences he was required to talk more about sports than politics...
...Cunctator. Pius XII was the only Pope to have visited America (in 1936 when he was Vatican Secretary of State), and his pontificate was notable for its strengthened ties with the U.S. Five U.S. cardinals were named during his reign (James Cardinal Mclntyre, Edward Cardinal Mooney, Francis Cardinal Spellman, the late Samuel Cardinal Stritch, the late John Cardinal Glennon). Two close personal friends of Pius XII were Americans-Cardinal Spellman and Boston Tycoon Joseph P. Kennedy, onetime Ambassador to the Court of St. James...
Among the crowds that watched the motor hearse go by, there was already talk that some day Pope Pius XII may be canonized a saint. Several instances have been reported of unusual healing at his touch or prayer. Weight will be added to the arguments for his canonization by his reported vision of Jesus Christ just before his serious illness four years ago and his reported visions of the sun revolving in the sky (as it did to announce the famed apparition of the Virgin to three shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal, in 1917). But whatever future learned tribunals...
...Italian v. non-Italian Pope. Under Pius XII's reign, for the first time in 500 years, non-Italian cardinals have come to outnumber the Italians, 37 to 18, but it is still considered probable that the next Pope will be Italian. The last non-Italian Pope was a Dutchman, Adrian...