Word: pius
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...quest to beatify a conservative Pope, the Roman Catholic Church keeps stubbing its toe on potential "saints" who lived under a dark cloud of racism--first Pius XII and now badly flawed Pius IX [RELIGION, Sept. 4]. Doesn't it seem ridiculous that grown men are digging up dead bodies and making new godlings? At the start of the 21st century, one might hope the church would come to grips with important issues, perhaps even re-examine its opposition to birth control, abortion and divorce. Those three matters alone would alleviate a great deal of suffering. If Pius...
...declared a professor named Elena Mortara in Rome. Pio Nono, it turns out, had a Jewish problem of his own. Mortara is the great-grandniece of Edgardo Mortara, who was taken from his Jewish parents at age six in 1858 by the papal police and raised--in part by Pius himself--as a Catholic. The incident typified Pius' ham-fisted treatment of the Jews, and many feel his beatification contradicts Pope John Paul II's embrace of that people and his apologies for their treatment by church members. Israel's Ambassador to the Holy See, Aharon Lopez, while stressing that...
...Pius, in fact, is one of the modern church's problematic giants. His papacy as a whole was far more controversial than Pius XII's. He was the longest-serving Pope since St. Peter, reigning 32 years from 1846 to his death. He lost the Papal States, the Vatican's worldly kingdom. He promulgated two of Catholicism's most triumphal doctrines--the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and papal infallibility. He pioneered the papal personality movement that John Paul embodies so brilliantly. Many historians believe he created the modern papacy...
...some also think his narrowness crippled his church. Pius reigned just as the old order in the West was giving way to new notions of God, the state and the citizen. His response--a wholesale rejection of modernity--dominated Catholicism for almost a century after his death and continues to color its present. A true reactionary who saw the secular state, and indeed civil rights, as satanic manifestations, he made it difficult for generations of believers to claim intellectual independence or integrity. Says journalist-historian Garry Wills, who savages Pius in his best seller Papal Sins: "He was a disaster...
...Vatican has long been aware of Pius' explosiveness as a candidate for canonization. As Kenneth Woodward reports in his book Making Saints, the first time Pius' cause was formally addressed, every firsthand witness criticized his papacy's conduct. His beatification was repeatedly postponed, most recently in the 1980s, when churchmen apparently deemed it not to be "opportune." That seems to have changed. It will be interesting to see whether the upcoming ceremony will end the debate or spark an even more thorough public airing of this larger-than-life Pope's remarkable career...