Pius XI

Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti · 1922 – 1939

Signed the Lateran Treaty with Mussolini, then denounced both Nazi racism and Soviet communism in back-to-back encyclicals.

Pius XI was a mountain climber and librarian before becoming pope, and he brought both stubbornness and careful research to the job. In 1929, he signed the Lateran Treaty with Mussolini, creating Vatican City as an independent state and ending the nearly sixty-year standoff between the papacy and Italy. It solved one problem but tied the Vatican to a fascist government in ways that grew increasingly uncomfortable. He issued Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937, a stinging condemnation of Nazi ideology read from every Catholic pulpit in Germany. Five days later, he released Divini Redemptoris, condemning atheistic communism. He also wrote Quadragesimo Anno, extending Leo XIII's social teaching to address the Great Depression. He was drafting an even stronger condemnation of racism and antisemitism when he died in February 1939. That unfinished document, sometimes called the "Hidden Encyclical," was shelved by his successor.

Standing Up to Dictators

Pius XI's condemnation of Nazism was smuggled into Germany and read aloud before the Gestapo could confiscate it. It took real courage. But his earlier accommodation of Mussolini complicates the picture. He made deals with authoritarians when it seemed useful and opposed them when they crossed moral lines. The question of where those lines were drawn too late is a fair one.

The Encyclical That Never Was

Humani Generis Unitas, the draft encyclical on racism and antisemitism, might have changed history if published before the war. Its suppression by Pius XII remains controversial. What survives of the text shows Pius XI moving toward a stronger stance against antisemitism than the Church had taken before.