OUTSTANDING SCHOLAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 9

OUTSTANDING SCHOLAR

AN EVENTFUL REIGN LIFE OF POPE PIUS XI DISTINGUISHED DIPLOMAT The passing of His Holiness Pope Pius XI. formerly Cardinal Achille Ratti, brings to a close a brilliant ecclesiastical career. On February 6, 1922, when Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, he was elected Pope, in succession to Pope Benedict XV, and was the two hundredth and sixtieth successor of St. Peter, martyred in the year 67. Pius XI. at the time of his accession to the throne of the Holy See, was the Junior Cardinal Priest, having been raised to the Cardinalate in 1921 by Pope Benedict XV Achille Ratti was born at Desio (Milan), on May 31,1857, was ordained a priest on December 20, 1879, consecrated Archbishop of Lepanto of July 3, 1919, created and proclaimed Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan on June 13, 1921, and was crowned Pope Pius XI. on February 12, 1922. His father was manager of a silk factory at Desio, in the diocese of Milan, and Achille, who was destined to become a gr-eat scholar, was one of six children. He received his earlier education at Monza and Milan, later studying at Lombard College, in Rome. He subsequently obtained the triple doctorate in philosophy, theology' and law at the Gregorian University. From 1882 to 1886 he taught theology at the episcopal seminary in Milan. In 1896 he was made assistant librarian to Ceriani at the Ambrosian Library. In the ensuing years he contributed many papers to the proceedings of learned societies, and during his librarianship in Milan, he was chaplain to the nuns of the Cenacle. Dignified Office In 1911 he was called to Rome to undertake the practical administration of the Vatican Library. After the Great War he was sent as Apostolic Visitor to Poland and when that country secured its independence, he was appointed apostolic nuncio to the new republic, and, to lend dignity to his office, he was, in 1919, made titular Archbishop of Lepanto. Two years later he was created Archbishop of;

Milan and a cardinal, and was thus only a cardinal of one year’s standing .’when he was made Pope. A brilliant scholar and linguist, he opened the Russian, Ethiopian and Czechoslovakian colleges in Rome, gave great impetus to the work of foreign missions and greatly extended the diplomatic relationships of the Holy See. The memory of Pope Pius XL will I always be associated with an outI standing achievement he accomI plished during his reign. His solution of the “Roman Solution” was a ! triumph for the Church and by the Lateran Treaty of 1929 the temporal power of the Papacy was restored and a concordat established between the Church and the Italian Government. For a period of nearly 1000 years, dating right from the time of Charlemagne to the entry of the Italians into Rome, at Porta Pio on September 20, 1870, the Papacy held temporal possessions. During the process of unification, the Kingdom of Italy gradually absorbed these possessions of the Pope, which stretched from sea to sea across the peninsula, the process being completed by the entry into Rome of King Victor Emmanuel’s troops in 1870. From 1859 to 1870, however, many attempts had been made to induce the Pope to surrender his temporal possessions, but regarding them as a sacred trust from a Higher Power, to be guarded on behalf of the Church, he replied unfailingly, “Non possumus.” Ratification of Treaty After the entry of the Royal Army into Rome, the Pope retired into the Vatican, whence no Pope issued thereafter until the ratification of the Lateran Treaty of February 11, 1929. When Signor Mussolini assumed power in 1922, a complete transformation of the attitude of the Italian Government Inward the religion, the Church and the Papacy occurred. The transformation reached its climax in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty. Under the terms of this treaty, the Holy See was given full property rights and exclusive power and sovereign jurisdiction over the Vatican State, the boundaries of which the treaty determined. In international affairs the Vatican stands as neutral and inviolable ter- ! ritory. It has no army and few of I the common attributes of civil government. Temporal Powers The office of the ecclesiastical head of the Roman Catholic Church (Santa Sede of Holy See) is invested in the

Pope of Rome, the Sovereign Pontiff. < (For many centuries the Sovereign ( Pontiff exercised temporal powers, ■ and in 1859 the Papal States had an i area of 17,218 square miles with a ' population of 3,124,688. During the ' reign of PiuslX (1846-1878) the Panal 1 States of Romanga, Umbria and the . Marches were incorporated in the ■ (Kingdom of Sardinia and with the re- ! maining States (Rome, Cormarca, Vi- • terbo, Civita Vecchia, Velieri, Vi- j Frosinone) became part of united I Italy in 1870. The territory of the ’ Papacy was confined to the palaces 1 of Vatican and the Lateran and the Villa of Castel-Gandolfo, and the temporal power of the Pope was in suspense until the treaty of February 11, j 1929 which recognised the full and in- ■ dependant sovereignty of Holy See in I the City of the Vatican. Accompany- ; ing the treaty were conventions regulating the condition of religion and of the Catholic Church in Italy and the agreement to pay 750,000,000 lire in cash and the income at five per cent, on the 1,000,000,000 lire State bonds as a final settlement of the claims of the Holy See against Italy for the loss of temporal power. List of Popes since 1591. Pontiff Family Name Elected (Innocent IX Facchinetti 1591 ’Clement VIII Aldobrandini 1592 'Leo XI Medici 1605 (Paul V Borghese 1605 ■Gregory XV Ludovisi 1621 Urban VIII Barberini 1623 (Innocent X Pamphili 1644 (Alexander VII Chigi 1655 ’Clement IX Rospigliosi 1667 .Clement X Altieri 1670 ■lnnocent XI Odescalchi 1676 (Alexander VIII Ottoboni 1689 Innocent XI Pignatelli 1691 XI Albani 1700 Innocent XIII Conti 1721 Benedict XIII Orsini 1724 'Clement XII Corsini 1730 Benedict XIV Lambertini 1740 .Clement XIII Rezzonico 1758 Clement XIV Ganganelli 1769 Pius VI Braschi 1775 'Pius VII Chiaramonti 18u0 Leo XII Dozdella Genga 1823 Pius VIII Castilgionl 1829 Gregory XVI Cappellari 1831 Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti 1846 i Leo XIII Pecci 1878 Pius X Sarto 1903 Benedict XV Della Chiesa 1914 Pius XI Ratti 1922 Only One English Pope. There was only one Englishman who ever became Pope. He was Adrian IV, Nicholas Brakespeare. He was born at St. Albans and was elected Pope on the death of Anastasius IV in 1154 and died in 1159.