Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as the 260th pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City, from March 2, 1939 until his death.
Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and cardinal secretary of state, in which roles he worked to conclude treaties with European nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Germany. His leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II and The Holocaust remains the subject of continued historical controversy. After World War II, he was a vocal supporter of lenient policies toward vanquished nations and a staunch opponent of communism.
Pius is one of few popes in recent history to invoke papal infallibility (as opposed to the more general infallibility of the Church) by issuing an apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, which defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He also promulgated forty encyclicals, including Humani Generis, which is still relevant to the Church's position on evolution. He also decisively eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals with the Grand Consistory in 1946. Most sedevacantists regard Pope Pius XII as the last true Pope to occupy the Holy See. His ongoing canonization process progressed to the venerable stage on September 2, 2000 under Pope John Paul II.

Early life

Church career
He was ordained a priest on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1899 by Bishop Francesco Paolo Cassetta — the vice-regent of Rome and a family friend — and received his first assignment as a curate at Chiesa Nuova, where he had served as an altar boy.

Priest and Monsignor
Pope Benedict XV appointed Pacelli as papal nuncio to Bavaria on April 23, 1917, consecrating him as a titular Bishop of Sardis and immediately elevating him to be archbishop in the Sistine Chapel on May 13, 1917, before he left for Bavaria, where he would meet with King Ludwig III on May 28, and later with Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Archbishop and Papal nuncio
Pacelli was made a cardinal on 16 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI. Within a few months, on 7 February 1930, Pius XI appointed Pacelli Cardinal Secretary of State. In 1935, Cardinal Pacelli was named Camerlengo of the Roman Church.
As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed concordats with many non-Communist states, including Baden (1932), Likewise the prepared encyclical Humani Generis Unitas, which was ready in September 1938 and contained an open and clear condemnation of all racism and anti-semitism, might have been prevented from release by Pacelli, who did not promulgate the encyclical as pope.

Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo

Main article: Reichskonkordat Reichskonkordat

Papacy

Main article: Papal conclave, 1939 Election and coronation
Pope Pius XII accepted the Rhythm Method as a moral form of family planning, although only in limited circumstances, in two speeches on October 29, 1951, and November 26, 1951.

Theology
Pius exercised Papal Infallibility in defining dogma when he issued, on November 1, 1950 an apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, which defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. He consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, in accordance with the second "secret" of Our Lady of Fatima.
His other apostolic constitutions are Provida Mater Ecclesia (February 2, 1947), Bis Saeculari Die (September 27, 1948), Sponsa Christi (November 21, 1950), and Exsul Familia (August 1, 1952).

Encyclicals
During his reign, Pius XII canonized thirty-four saints, including Saint Margaret of Hungary, Gemma Galgani, Mother Cabrini, Catherine Labouré, John de Britto, Joseph Cafasso, Saint Louis de Montfort, Nicholas of Flue, Joan of France, Duchess of Berry, Maria Goretti, Dominic Savio, Pope Pius X, Peter Chanel, and Ignatius of Laconi. He beatified six people, including Justin de Jacobis. He named Saint Casimir the patron saint of all youth.

Canonizations and beatifications
Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a consistory to create new cardinals, in contrast to Pius XI, who had done so seventeen times in seventeen years. Pius XII chose not to name new cardinals during World War II, and the number of cardinals shrank to 38, with Cardinal Denis Dougherty being the only living U.S. cardinal. The first occasion on February 18, 1946 — which has become known as the "Grand Consistory" — yielded the elevation of a record thirty-two new cardinals (previously Leo X's elevation of thirty-one cardinals in 1517 had held this title). John Paul II would later surpass this number on February 21, 2001, elevating forty-four cardinals. Together with the first post-war consistory in 1953—where Msgr. Tardini and Msgr. Montini were notably not elevated
Earlier, in 1945, Pius XII had dispensed with the complicated papal conclave procedures which attempted to ensure secrecy while preventing Cardinals from voting for themselves, compensating for this change by raising the requisite majority from two-thirds to two thirds plus one.

Grand Consistory
Pius XII's pontificate began on the eve of World War II. During the war, the Pope followed a policy of neutrality mirroring that of Pope Benedict XV during World War I.
In April 1939, after the submission of Charles Maurras and the intervention of the Carmel of Lisieux, Pius XII ended his predecessor's ban on Action Française, an organization described by some authors as virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Communist.

World War II
Pius engineered an agreement — formally approved on June 23, 1939 — with Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas to issue 3,000 visas to "non-Aryan Catholics". However, over the next eighteen months Brazil's Conselho de Imigração e Colonização (CIC) continued to tighten the restrictions on their issuance — including requiring a baptismal certificate dated before 1933, a substantial monetary transfer to the Banco do Brasil, and approval by the Brazilian Propaganda Office in Berlin — culminating in the cancellation of the program fourteen months later, after fewer than 1,000 visas had been issued, amid suspicions of "improper conduct" (i.e. continuing to practice Judaism) among those who had received visas.

The Holocaust
Pius's anti-Communist activities became more potent following the war. In 1948, Pius declared that any Italian Catholic who supported Communist candidates in the parliamentary elections of that year would be excommunicated and also encouraged Azione Cattolica to support the Christian Democratic Party. In 1949, he authorized the Holy Office to excommunicate any Catholic who joined or collaborated with the Communist Party. He also publicly condemned the Soviet crackdown on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Post-World War II
In 2005, Corriere della Sera published a document dated 20 November 1946 on the subject of Jewish children baptized in war-time France. The document ordered that baptized children, if orphaned, should be kept in Catholic custody and stated that the decision "has been approved by the Holy Father". Nuncio Angelo Roncalli (who would become Pope John XXIII) ignored this directive.

Jewish orphans controversy
Pius was dogged with ill health later in life, largely due to a charlatan, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, whom Pius made an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Pius suffered from gastritis brought on by kidney dysfunctions. Galeazzi-Lisi, with the aid of a Swiss colleague, prescribed injections made from the glands of fetal lambs that gave Pius chronic hiccups and rotting teeth.
Pope Pius XII's cause of canonization was opened on November 18, 1965 by Pope Paul VI. On September 2, 2000, during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, Pius XII was given the title of Venerable. Rome's Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff also began promoting the cause of Pius to receive such posthumous recognition from Yad Vashem as a "righteous gentile". The Boy Scouts of America's highest Catholic emblem is named after him.

Later life, death, and legacy

Views, interpretations, and scholarship
During the war, the pope was widely praised. For example, Time Magazine credited Pius XII and the Catholic Church for "fighting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power".

Contemporary

Main article: The Deputy The Deputy

Main article: Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale Actes

Main article: Hitler's Pope ICJHC

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