This March 2nd marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Venerable Pius XII. Pope Pius XII was born Eugenio Pacelli in 1876. When he grew up he would go on to become Cardinal Pacelli and hold the position of Cardinal Secretary of State of the Vatican until he was elected Pope in 1939. On his 63rd birthday, he took on the name Pius XII. Pius XII was the first Cardinal Secretary of State to be elected Pope since 1667. He went on to reign for nineteen years, serving as the pope throughout the entirety of the Second World War. His actions during that time period would go on to define his papacy in the eyes of many. However, he also fell victim to many vicious lies about and surrounding his wartime conduct.
One of the more controversial aspects of Pope Pius XII’s papacy was how he responded to Nazism and the holocaust. Pius XII’s supposed silence and inaction have unfairly led to the moniker of “Hitler’s Pope.” However, as history will show, that name is false and far from the truth. Both before and during his tenure as pope, Pius XII undertook numerous efforts to fight Nazism. During his time as Cardinal Secretary of State, Pius XII played a key role in drafting the anti-Nazi Papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. This encyclical was then smuggled into Nazi Germany and read from every Catholic pulpit on Palm Sunday in 1937. As pope, his actions saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust [1]. Under Pope Pius XII’s orders, churches and monasteries sheltered thousands of Jewish people; he even provided refuge in the Vatican and in his summer residence. The pope also undertook great diplomatic efforts within the Vatican, issuing thousands of false baptismal certificates and travel documents to help Jews escape Nazi occupied territory. Pius XII placed significant diplomatic pressure on Hungary, preventing the deportation of around 24,000 Jews from the country [2]. These efforts by Pope Pius XII did not go unnoticed by the Jewish community. Notably, the Chief Rabbi of Rome during the Second World War, who, in part due to the pope’s efforts, converted to Catholicism in 1945 and took the baptismal name Eugenio in honor of Pius XII.
After the Second World War, Pius XII was met with new challenges as he led the Church in a fractured, war-torn Europe facing the emerging Cold War. Pius XII took an uncompromising stance against communism, excommunicating professed communists in 1949 in the document titled the Decree Against Communism. He also strongly condemned the persecution of the Eastern Church under the Soviet Union. Pope Venerable Pius XII’s papacy ended with his death on October 9, 1958. Pius XII’s cause for canonization was opened on November 18, 1965, by Saint Paul VI. He was declared a Servant of God in 1990 by Saint John Paul II and was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on December 19, 2009.
End Notes:
[1] “The Vatican & the Holocaust: 860,000 Lives Saved - the Truth about Pius XII & the Jews.” 2026. Jewish Virtual Library. 2026. https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/860-000-lives-saved-the-truth-about-pius-xii-and-the-jews.
[2] Budapest, in. 2019. “Rescue in the Holocaust.” Rescue in the Holocaust. 2019. https://www.holocaustrescue.org/chronology-of-rescue-by-vatican-diplomats-in-budapest.