The theology of Pope Pius XII is reflected in his forty-one encyclicals, as well as speeches and nearly 1000 messages, during his almost 20-year pontificate. The encyclicals Mystici corporis and Mediator Dei advanced the understanding of membership and participation in the Catholic Church. The encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu began opening the door to historical-critical biblical studies. But his magisterium was far larger and is difficult to summarize. In numerous speeches Catholic teaching is related to various aspects of life, education, medicine, politics, war and peace, the life of saints, Mary, the mother of God, things eternal and temporal.
The Unity of Human Society
Addressing the problems of racism and anti-semitism in 1939, Pius XII said: What a wonderful vision, which makes us contemplate the human race in the unity of its origin in God in the unity of its nature, composed equally in all men of a material body and a spiritual soul; in the unity of its immediate end and its mission in the world; in the unity of its dwelling, the earth, whose benefits all men, by right of nature, may use to sustain and develop life; in the unity of the redemption wrought by Christ for all. (Summi Pontificatus, 3)
In this first of his encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, he developed one main theme of his pontificate. Christianity is universal, and therefore opposed to racial or national hostility and superiority. He continues this theme in other encyclicals, such as Mystici corporis and Mediator Dei, and in numerous speeches and addresses. There are no racial differences because the human race forms a unity, for "from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth".
Nations, despite a difference of development due to diverse conditions of life and of culture, are not destined to break the unity of the human race, but rather to enrich and embellish it by the sharing of their own peculiar gifts and by a reciprocal interchange.Pius XII, Enc. Summi Pontificatus, 4 All races, the whole human race, are loved by Christ without exception or exclusion. Differences in nationality and race do not matter. True love means loving all, if they are Catholic, Christian, or not.AAS 1939, 413
The Church as the mystical body of Christ
"If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ – which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman ChurchVat. Council, Const. de Ecc. Cf. ibidem, Const. de fide cath., c. 1. – we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression 'the Mystical Body of Christ' – an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the Holy Fathers."Pius XII, Enc. Mystici corporis Christi, 13.
The Church is called body, because she is a living entity, she is called the body of Christ, because Christ is her Head and Founder; she is called mystical body, because she is neither a purely physical nor a purely spiritual unity, but super-national.AAS 1943, 193 Pius XII builds on a theological development in the 1920s and 1930s in Italy, France, Germany and England, which all re-discovered the ancient Pauline concept of the Mystical Body of Christ.La Cristologia in Italia 1930–1990, Sergio de Marchi, Piemme, 1994, P. Parente, De Verbo Incarnato, 1933, Hofmann, Der Kirchenbegriff des hl. Augustinus, München 1933, H. Käppeli, Zur Lehre des hl. Thomans von Aquin vom Corpus Christi Mysticum, Freiburg, 1931, E Mersch, Le Corps Mystique du Christ 2 Vol. Paris, 1936, A E Rawloson, Corpus Christi Mysticum, Berlin, 1931, Robinson, H Wheeler, The Cross of the Servant, London, 1926 Pius XII accepted these new studies and authoritatively added his approval to them, utilizing the Dutch Jesuit Sebastian Tromp to write the encyclical.Sebastian Tromp: Annotations ad enc MC Periodica 32, 1943, pp 377-401.
The Church has two aspects, a visible and an invisible one. Full membership have those who live under the visible representative of Christ. The relation of the faithful with Christ is mystical, not physical. The faithful, through their faith hope and love, are united with Christ in the Church. Christ loves and lives in the faithful, the whole Church, which is alive through the Holy Spirit. Each of the faithful is guided by the Holy Spirit and therefore an equal and important element of the body of Christ. The unification with Christ takes place in the Holy Eucharist. Within the Church, there exist not an active and passive element, leadership and lay people. All members of the Church are called to work on the perfection of the body of Christ.Pius XII, Enc. Mystici corporis Christi
Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.Pius XII, Discourse, 20 February 1946:AAS 38 (1946) 149; quoted by John Paul II, CL 9.
The differences between the Catholic Church and the Pauline notion of "Christ's body" will be further addressed in Vatican II's Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (7).
Liturgy reforms
In his encyclical Mediator Dei, Pope Pius links liturgy with the last will of Christ.
But it is His will, that the worship He instituted and practiced during His life on earth shall continue ever afterwards without intermission. For he has not left mankind an orphan. He still offers us the support of His powerful, unfailing intercession, acting as our "advocate with the Father." He aids us likewise through His Church, where He is present indefectibly as the ages run their course: through the Church which He constituted "the pillar of truth" and dispenser of grace, and which by His sacrifice on the cross, He founded, consecrated and confirmed forever.AAS, 1947, Mediator Dei, 18
The Church has, therefore, according to Pius XII, a common aim with Christ himself, teaching all people the truth, and offering to God a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice. This way, the Church re-establishes the unity between the Creator and creatures, a unity which turns strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens of Christ.AAS, 1947, Mediator Dei, 19 The sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, convey and dispense divine grace from Christ to the members of the Mystical Body.AAS 1947, Mediator Dei, 31
Liturgy requires participation of the faithful. Pius rejects as sterile the widespread Catholic practices of private and interior devotions by individuals during Mass. They separate the faithful "from the sacrifice of the altar, and from the stream of vital energy that flows from Head to members". Catholic worship offers to God a joint profession of Catholic faith and a continuous exercise of hope and charity. The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith as its content.AAS 1947, Mediator Dei, 47
The numerous liturgy reforms of Pius XII show two characteristics. Renewal and the rediscovery of old liturgical traditions such as the reintroduction of the Easter Vigil, and a more structured atmosphere within the Church buildings. The use of vernacular language, accepted in certain cases by Pope Pius, was hotly debated at his time. He increased non-Latin services, especially in countries with expanding Catholic mission activities. After the Dogma of the Assumption, a new Mass formula was introduced for 15 August. The Sacred Congregation of Rites had jurisdiction over the rites and ceremonies of the Latin Church, such as Mass, sacred functions and divine worship. The location of the Blessed Sacrament within the Church was to be always at the main altar in the centre of the Church.AAS 1957, 425 The Church should display religious objects, but not be overloaded with secondary objects or even Kitsch. Modern sacred art should be reverential and reflect the spirit of our time.AAS 1952, 542-546 Priests are permitted to officiate marriages without Mass. They may also officiate confirmations in certain instances.AAS 1946, 349-354
Sacred Scriptures
In 1893, Pope Leo XIII issued in Providentissimus Deus instructions for biblical research. Fifty years later, Pius XII recalls the progress made. In his encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, published in 1943,AAS 1943, 297, he encouraged Christian theologians to revisit original versions of the Bible in Greek and Hebrew. Noting improvements in archaeology, the encyclical reversed Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, which had only advocated going back to the original texts to resolve ambiguity in the Latin Vulgate. The encyclical demands a much better understanding of ancient Jewish history and traditions. It requires bishops throughout the Church to initiate biblical studies for lay people. The Pontiff also requests a reorientation of Catholic teaching and education, relying much more on sacred scripture in sermons and religious instruction.AAS 1943, 305,
Mariology and the Dogma of the Assumption
The 1854 dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX defined that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin. Pope Pius XII built on this in Mystici corporis, which summarizes his mariology: Maria, whose sinless soul was filled with the divine spirit of Jesus Christ above all other created souls, "in the name of the whole human race" gave her consent "for a spiritual marriage between the Son of God and human nature,"Office for Holy Week thus elevating human nature beyond the realm of the purely material. She who, according to the flesh, was the mother of our Head, became mother of all His members. Through her powerful prayers, she obtained that the spirit of our Divine Redeemer, should be bestowed on the newly founded Church at Pentecost.Pius XII, Enc. Mystici corporis Christi, 110 She is Most Holy Mother of all the members of Christ, and reigns in heaven with her Son, her heavenly body refulgent with heavenly glory.
On 1 November 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the assumption:
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.AAS 1950, 753
The dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary was preceded by the 1946 encyclical Deiparae Virginis Mariae, which requested all Catholic bishops to express their opinion on a possible dogmatization. In this dogmatic statement, the phrase "having completed the course of her earthly life" leaves open the question of whether the Virgin Mary died before her Assumption or whether she was assumed before death; but her body never corrupted. Mary's Assumption underscores the fact that her son was truly God.
As a young boy and in later life Eugenio Pacelli was an ardent follower of the Virgin Mary. On 8 September 1953, the encyclical Fulgens corona announced a Marian year for 1954, the centennial of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception.AAS 1953, 577 Pope Pius XII left open the Mediatrix question, the role of the Virgin in the salvation acts of her son Jesus Christ. In the encyclical Ad caeli reginam he promulgated the feast Queenship of Mary.AAS 1954, 625 Pius XII, who was consecrated on 13 May 1917, the very day Our Lady of Fatima is believed to have first appeared, consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, in accordance with the second "secret" of Our Lady of Fatima. (His remains would be buried in the crypt of Saint Peter Basilica on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, 13 October 1958).
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