Word: pius
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...news from Rome last week was that 1) the Pope seems sufficiently recovered from his long illness to resume firm personal leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and 2) he is strongly reasserting the church's role in secular affairs, notably in the fight against Communism. Pius XII told 40 cardinals and 205 bishops: "The church [must give] guidance . . . not in a hidden way only between the walls of temples or by the windows of sacristies, but out in the open ... if necessary on the battlefield, amid the fury of the battle between truth and error, virtue and vice...
Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, Pius' most trusted collaborator, who throughout the Pope's illness has been doing more and more of the Pontiff's work, was appointed to the vital Archbishopric of Milan, succeeding the late Ildefonso Cardinal Schuster. At the same time, cardinals and bishops received new, sharp instructions designed to remedy what the Pope regards as creeping weaknesses in the church. Among the Pope's chief complaints...
...remedy these and other ills, Pope Pius instructed the bishops: "Ecclesiastics and laymen must be made to know that the church and her bishops are authorized to ... exact ecclesiastical discipline." The Pope let it be known that he intends personally to oversee this tightening up of discipline. He will call more and more bishops to Rome so that "from this frequent contact . . . there will spring for the bishops light and sureness, [while] on the other hand . . . this Holy See will come to know, quicker and better, the conditions of the whole flock...
...this action at the end of the Marian Year, Pius XII strengthened the ancient Marian movement, which is spreading with new vigor among Catholics. The theological foundations of Mary-veneration were laid in the first century A.D. In the Catacombs, Rome's persecuted Christians painted pictures of the Virgin, emphasizing her sanctity. Thereafter, a long line of saints-among them Irenaeus, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine-laid stress on her sinlessness. In a poem, St. Ephrem (300-379) had Mary addressing God: "Let Heaven uphold me in its embrace, because I am more honored than it. Heaven is only your...
...Mary from the hereditary stain of original sin by making her immaculate at the moment of her conception in the womb of St. Anne, her mother. Mary was thus preserved free of all sin in anticipation of her role as the Mother of God. Almost a century later (1950), Pius XII in turn proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of Mary which holds that since the Virgin was free of original sin, her body must be incorruptible and was physically taken into Heaven. Mary is thus "superior" to all other creatures, save God. Her "queenship" follows as a consequence...