Pope Pius XII (2 March 1876-9 October 1958), born Eugenio Pacelli, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 2 March 1939 to 9 October 1958, succeeding Pope Pius XI and preceding Pope John XXIII.
Biography[]
Eugenio Pacelli was born in Rome, Italy in 1876. Educated at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was ordained priest in 1899 and entered the papal diplomatic corps at the Secretariat of State in 1901. The Pope's representative (nuncio) in Munich in 1917, he becamme the papal nuncio to Germany from 1920 to 1930. During this time, he concluded an agreement between the Catholic Church and the state of Bavaria in 1924, and with Prussia in 1929. In 1930, he was appointed papal Secretary of State and created cardinal. He was responsible for a concordat between the Catholic Church and Nazi Germany in 1933, though subsequently he was reluctant to protest openly against Nazi violations of the agreement. During World War II, he remained strictly neutral, though he was particularly concerned to relieve distress, especially among prisoners. Nonetheless, he became heavily criticized for his supposed refusal to defend the Jews against persecution, and his willingness to come to an agreement with Hitler while refusing any compromise with the communist governments of postwar Europe, mainly caused by his tacit "preference" for fascism over communism. He is also remembered for establishing the Assumption of the Virgin Mary as an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Church, on the basis of Church tradition rather than scriptural evidence. He died in 1958, and was succeeded by Pope John XXIII. Decades after his death, Rabbi David G. Dalin published a book named "The Myth of Hitler's Pope" in 2005, which revealed the Pope's efforts to save Jewish lives, writing that many Jewish leaders praised Pius for his efforts, which included Yitzhak Herzog, Chaim Weizmann, Golda Meir, and Moshe Sharett. It was revealed that Pope Pius XII was involved in the efforts to save Jewish lives from the hands of the Nazis by having them hidden in monasteries, convents, and even the Vatican itself, and issuing baptismal certificates to them to pass them off as Catholics. Mark Reibling published a book called "Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler", which detailed the plot of the German Resistance to assassinate Hitler and the Pope Pius XII's involvement with them through German Catholic Josef Muller, who would later become the founder of the Christian Social Union, and the Pope's personal secretary, Father Robert Lieber SJ. It was also revealed by former Romanian KGB agent and whistleblower Ion Mihai Pacepa that the KGB concocted Operation: Seat 12, which was a misinformation plot to defame Pope Pius XII as a Nazi sympathizer due to the Soviet Union's hatred of the Catholic Church. In March, 2020, the Vatican opened up archives of Pope Pius XII.
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