Birthday of Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI Scott 1146 (2000) May 31 marks the birth date of Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, who served as Pope Pius XI from 1922 to 1939). Born in 1857 in Desio, a province of Milan, he was ordained a priest in 1879 and went on to earn three doctorates (in philosophy, canon law, and theology). He worked full time in the Ambrosian Library in Milan from 1888 to 1911, and was recognized as an outstanding paleographer and student of ancient and medieval church manuscripts. Ratti was also an expert mountaineer. Many of the details of his pontificate were covered on the daily calendar entry for his death on 10 February and will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that he was pope when the Lateran Pacts were signed with Italy in 1929, leading to the creation of Vatican City State, and during the run-up to World War II. Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli was the Vatican Secretary of State at this time, and would succeed Pius XI, taking the name Pius XII. His encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (On the Church and the German Reich), issued on 10 March 1937, was a condemnation of Nazism. It was edited and smuggled into Germany by Pius XII to be read in all Catholic churches on Palm Sunday.