Pope Pius XI (1922-1939)
Feastday
not known
Born 1857
Died 1939
Achille
Ratti, like Pius X, had parents who were just plain folks. Born at Desio on May
31, 1857, he went to the seminary at Milan and then on to the Gregorian University
to take his doctorate in theology. After a few years in a parish, Father Ratti
was put to work at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. Here he made such a
reputation that Pius X in 1912 made him assistant librarian at the Vatican and
soon after head of the great Vatican Library. Scholar that he was, Ratti was no
pale bookworm. He was an expert, indeed something of a champion, in a difficult
and dangerous sport, mountain climbing. In 1918 Benedict XV sent Ratti from his
research to serve first as visitor and then as nuncio to stormy Poland. For a
scholar in his sixties to go on his first diplomatic mission to a country
coming to life after over a century of partition was something of a task. But
the old historian successfully handled a situation perplexing enough to trouble
a supreme court full of Solomons. He showed courage too. When other diplomats
fled before Trotsky's onrushing Red Army, Ratti remained to hear the thunder of
Soviet guns in threatened Warsaw. He had the satisfaction of seeing the heroic
Poles strike back and rout the Communists. In 1921 Benedict made Ratti a
cardinal and archbishop of Milan. A few months later Benedict was dead and
Ratti succeeded him. He chose the name Pius XI. Pius XI faced a sadly disturbed
post-war world, a world threatened and tempted by fascism and communism. Far
from yielding to discouragement Pius strove mightily to rally the forces of
good and to remedy the times' evils. To remind a materialistic world of the
primacy of the spiritual, Pius established the beautiful feast of Christ the
King. In thirty encyclicals he shed light on the difficulties of the day.
Outstanding were his encyclicals on education, marriage, and above all, on the
social problem. Though he fought manfully for principle, Pius was quick to extend
the hand of friendship, and his pontificate is notable for a whole series of
concordats. The outstanding event of this kind was, of course, the Lateran
Treaty of 1929, which put a long-desired and satisfactory end to the Roman
question. Pius XI deeply appreciated the oneness of mankind. He ardently
fostered mission activity and was eager to see native clergy, headed by native
bishops, take over as many mission fields as possible. In what has been called
the Magna Carta of the missions, Pius allowed certain customs which, once open
to superstition, had become secularised with the centuries. He was keenly
interested in the separated Eastern churches and yearned for reunion with them.
His great heart was angered by base attacks on the Jews, and he bluntly told
the world that to be anti-semitic was to be un-Christian. It is characteristic
of the man that one of his first acts was to continue feeding starving Russians
in spite of Soviet ingratitude, and one of his last was to lash out at racist
laws. Pius had much sorrow. He grieved over the sufferings of his children in
Mexico, Russia, Spain, and Germany. But he was not soured. Just before he died
on February 10, 1939, Pius offered his life for the peace of the world.
“The
churches are destroyed ruined from base to steeple the religious and the
consecrated virgins are expelled from their habitations, delivered to insults
and ad treatment and condemned to prison, multitudes of children and young
women are torn from the bosom of the church their mother; they are incited to
deny and blaspheme Christ; they are pushed to the worst excesses of luxury; the
entire people of the faithful is terrorized, lost, under the constant menace
that they must deny their faith or perish at times under the most atrocious
form of death: It is a spectacle so appalling that one might see in it already
the dawn of the beginning of sorrows that will bring the “man of sin” arising
against all which is called God and is honoured by worship…” 1
References
1. Rev R. Gerald.
Culleton The Prophets and Our Times (Tan Books and Publishers 1941) p 228-229