Born Eugenio Pacelli in Rome, March 2, 1876, he was the son of Filippo Pacelli, dean of the college of Vatican lawyers. He departed from the family tradition of the practice of law and was ordained a priest in 1899. Subsequently he was a professor of canon law at the Pontifical Institute of the Apollinaire and of ecclesiastical diplomacy at the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics in Rome. In 1901 he entered the papal secretariat of state and after 1904 assisted the Italian archbishop (later cardinal) Pietro Gasparri in a new codification of canon law, issued in 1917. He succeeded Gasparri as secretary of the papal department of extraordinary ecclesiastical affairs in 1914 and three years later was consecrated titular archbishop of Sardes and also appointed apostolic nuncio to Bavaria. In the last-named post he attempted papal mediation for Pope Benedict XV to conclude World War I.
In 1920 he was appointed first papal nuncio to Germany and negotiated concordats between the Vatican and the German states of Bavaria and Prussia in 1924 and 1929, respectively. In the latter year he was recalled to Rome and created a cardinal and secretary of state to the Holy See. In this capacity he executed the policies of Pope Pius XI. He acquired a reputation as an able diplomat and established a precedent by traveling abroad in his official capacity, visiting France, Argentina, and Hungary. He visited the United States in an unofficial capacity and traveled extensively there. He ascended the papal throne as Pius XII on March 2, 1939.
During World War II, which through personal diplomacy he strove to prevent, Pius repeatedly issued pleas for peace and against totalitarianism and protested many actions of the German and Italian governments, particularly the bombing of Vatican City by the Germans in 1943. In his important encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (The Mystical Body of Christ, 1943) Pius explained the theological doctrine that the church is the mystical body of Christ and condemned false mysticism. In the encyclicals Divino Afflante Spiritu (Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, 1943) and Humani Generis (Of the Human Race, 1950), he urged care in the interpretation of biblical texts and caution in adopting, uncritically, modern scientific teachings, without reference to the traditions of the church.
In 1946 Pius named 32 new cardinals to the Sacred College, including 5 from the U.S., bringing the college to 69 members (one short of the traditional complement of 70); for the first time it was composed of representatives of all continents. Pius continued and intensified the anti-Communist policies of his predecessor. In 1949 he issued a historic proclamation declaring that any Roman Catholic rendering support of any kind or degree to communism would automatically incur the penalty of excommunication. Pius opened the 25th Holy Year in the history of the church on December 24, 1949. The following November he issued the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (Most Bountiful God), in which the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was defined as a dogma of faith (see Assumption of the Virgin). In his Christmas message for 1950 Pius announced officially that the tomb of the apostle Peter had been found during excavations under the high altar of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. On September 9, 1953, he proclaimed the Marian Year in celebration of the centenary of the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Pius XII died October 9, 1958.
"Pius XII," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
© 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.