Angelo Roncalli. As a young priest he spent a year teaching the life and thought of the early church fathers at Pontifical Lateran Seminary in Rome before his superiors concluded that he was not quite safe. He dared to propose such unthinkable ideas as that mixed marriages might be allowed in certain circumstances. He languished as a letter copier in the Oriental Congregation of the Vatican until officials discovered they needed an apostolic visitor to remote Bulgaria (1925-34). From there Roncalli went for ten years to Muslim Turkey, and was transferred from exile to troubled France near the end of World War II only because the Holy See did not want to spare a top man for that messy post. But Roncalli's humility and abilities charmed the French. In 1953 Pope Pius XII gave him a cardinal's red hat and appointed him spiritual leader of Venice.
After his election
On 14 May 1937, with the assistance of Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the papal secretary of state who was soon to be Pope Pius XII, Pius XI drafted the encyclical With Deep Anxiety (Mit brennender Sorge). It was the first major church document to criticize Nazism. Smuggled into Germany, it was read on Palm Sunday from every Catholic pulpit — before a single copy had fallen into Nazi hands.
In March 1937 Pius issued the encyclical Divine Redemptoris condemning the "error of communism". He criticized the spread of communism, expressed sympathy for the Russian people, and offered the doctrines of the Catholic church as the alternative to communism. He declared that "communism is intrinsically wrong and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever". Coming only four days after his encyclical criticizing Germany, this placed the Vatican firmly on the side of persecuted believers
On 14 May 1937, with the assistance of Eugenio Cardian Pacelli, the papal secretary of state who was soon to be Pope Pius XII, Pius XI drafted the encyclical With Deep Anxiety (Mit brennender Sorge). It was the first major church document to criticize Nazism. Smuggled into Germany, it was read on Palm Sunday form every Catholic pulpit — before a single copy had fallen into Nazi hands.
[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Nazism, Pope-Pius-XII[/tags]
Pope Pius XII's successor, John XXIII (1958-63) announced that he would call a council. He called on non-Roman Catholics to seek "that unity for which Jesus Christ prayed". His council was to bring up to date (aggiornamento) the Roman Catholic Church itself. The council, Vatican II (1962-65) fully achieved his purpose. There were no infallible pronouncements. Instead the council worked out a whole series of advisory, pastoral, disciplinary and exemplary documents. A new climate of relationships arose, shared worship has followed, and genuine ecumenical dialogue has been joined. Intercommunion is just beginning, along with shared ministerial training, a "Common Bible", and doctrinal agreements with other denominations reached by joint commissions. It is impossible to predict where it will lead.
[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, John-XXIII, Pope-Pius-XII, Vatican-Council-II[/tags]
