Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli;.}} 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent pope to take the pontifical name "Pius".

The papacy of Pius XII was long, even by modern standards; it lasted almost 20 years, and spanned a consequential fifth of the 20th century. Pius was a diplomat pope during the destruction wrought by the Second World War, the recovery and rebuilding which followed, the beginning of the Cold War, and the early building of a new international geopolitical order, which aimed to protect human rights and maintain global peace through the establishment of international rules and institutions (such as the United Nations). Born, raised, educated, ordained, and resident for most of his life in Rome, his work in the Roman Curia—as a priest, then bishop, then cardinal—was extensive. He served as secretary of the Vatican's diplomatic Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, and Cardinal Secretary of State for the Holy See, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with various European and Latin American nations, including the ''Reichskonkordat'' treaty with Nazi Germany.

While the Vatican was officially neutral during the Second World War, the ''Reichskonkordat'' and Pius' leadership of the Catholic Church during the war remain the subject of controversy—including allegations of public silence and inaction concerning the fate of the Jews. Pius employed diplomacy to aid the victims of the Nazis during the war and, by directing the church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, saved thousands of lives. Pius maintained links to the German resistance, and shared intelligence with the Allies. His strong public condemnation of genocide was considered inadequate by the Allied Powers, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had dishonoured his policy of Vatican neutrality.

During his papacy, the Catholic Church issued the Decree against Communism, declaring that Catholics who profess the atheistic and materialist doctrines of communism are to be excommunicated as apostates from the Christian faith. The church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc. He explicitly invoked ''ex cathedra'' papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his Apostolic constitution . His forty-one encyclicals include ''Mystici Corporis Christi'', on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ; ''Mediator Dei'' on liturgy reform; and ''Humani generis'', in which he instructed theologians to adhere to episcopal teaching and allowed that the human body might have evolved from earlier forms. He removed, by additional international cardinal appointments, the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

After he died in 1958, Pope Pius XII was succeeded by John XXIII. In the process towards sainthood, his cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by Paul VI during the final session of the Second Vatican Council. He was made a Servant of God (the first threshold step towards sainthood) by John Paul II in 1990, and Benedict XVI declared Pius XII Venerable (the second step) on 19 December 2009.

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