Jansenism: Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), professor at the Old University of Louvain.

Jansenism was a Christian theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. The movement originated from the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who died in 1638. It was first popularized by Jansen's friend Jean du Vergier, Abbé de Saint-Cyran, and after Saint-Cyran's death in 1643 was led by Antoine Arnauld. Through the 17th and into the 18th centuries, Jansenism was a distinct movement within the Roman Catholic Church. The theological centre of the movement was the Parisian convent of Port-Royal, which was a haven for writers including Saint-Cyran, Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Jean Racine.

Jansenism was opposed by many in the Catholic hierarchy, especially the Jesuits. Although the Jansenists identified themselves only as rigorous followers of Augustinism, Jesuits coined the term "Jansenism" to identify them as having Calvinist affinities.^[1] The papal bull Cum occasione, issued by Pope Innocent X in 1653, condemned five cardinal doctrines of Jansenism as heresy — especially the relationship between human free will and efficacious grace, wherein the teachings of Augustine contradicted the teachings of the Jesuit School.^[1] Jansenist leaders endeavored to accommodate the pope's pronouncements while retaining their distinctives, and enjoyed a measure of peace in the late 17th century under Pope Clement IX. However, further controversy led to the bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI in 1713, which marked the end of Catholic toleration of Jansenist doctrine.

Origins[link]

The Abbé de Saint-Cyran (1581–1643), one of the intellectual fathers of Jansenism.

The origins of Jansenism lie in the friendship of Cornelius Jansen and Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, who met in the early 17th century when both were studying theology at the University of Leuven. As the wealthier of the two, du Vergier served as Jansen’s patron for a number of years, getting Jansen a job as a tutor in Paris in 1606. Two years later, he got Jansen a position teaching at the bishop's college in du Vergier’s hometown of Bayonne. The duo studied the Church Fathers together, with a special focus on the thought of Augustine of Hippo, until both left Bayonne in 1617.

Du Vergier became the abbot of Saint-Cyran and was thus generally known as the Abbé de Saint-Cyran for the rest of his life. Jansen returned to the University of Leuven, where he completed his doctorate in 1619 and was named professor for exegesis. Jansen and Saint-Cyran continued to correspond about Augustine, especially Augustine's teachings on grace. Upon the recommendation of King Philip IV of Spain, Jansen was consecrated as Bishop of Ypres in 1636.

Jansen died in the midst of an epidemic in 1638. On his deathbed, he committed a manuscript to his chaplain, ordering him to consult with Libert Fromondus, a theology professor at Leuven, and Henri Calenus, a canon at the metropolitan church, and to publish the manuscript if they agreed it should be published, adding "If, however, the Holy See wishes any change, I am an obedient son, and I submit to that Church in which I have lived to my dying hour. This is my last wish."

This manuscript, published in 1640 under the title Augustinus, styled itself as expounding Augustine's system and formed the basis for the subsequent Jansenist Controversy. It consisted of three volumes:

• Volume I described the history of Pelagianism and Augustine's battle against it and against Semipelagianism.
• Volume II contained a discussion of the Fall of Man and original sin.
• Volume III denounced a "modern tendency" (unnamed by Jansen but clearly identifiable as Molinism) as Semipelagian.

Jansenist theology[link]

The title page of Augustinus by Cornelius Jansen, published posthumously in 1640. The book formed the foundation of the subsequent Jansenist controversy.

Even before the publication of Augustinus, Saint-Cyran had begun publicly preaching Jansenism. Jansen emphasised a particular reading of Augustine's idea of efficacious grace which stressed that only a certain portion of humanity were predestined to be saved. Jansen insisted that the love of God was fundamental, and that only contrition, and not simple attrition, could save a person (and that, in turn, only an efficacious grace could tip that person toward God and such a contrition). This debate on the respective roles of contrition and attrition, which had not been settled by the Council of Trent (1545–1563), was one of the motives of the imprisonment in May 1638 of Saint-Cyran, the first leader of Port-Royal, by order of Cardinal Richelieu.^[2] Saint-Cyran was not released until after Richelieu's death in 1642, and he died shortly thereafter, in 1643.

Jansen also insisted on justification by faith, although he did not contest the necessity of revering saints, of confession, and of frequent Communion. Jansen’s opponents (mainly Jesuits) condemned his teachings for their alleged similarities to Calvinism (though, unlike Calvinism, Jansen rejected the doctrine of assurance and taught that even the justified could lose their salvation). Blaise Pascal's Écrits sur la grâce, based on what Michel Serres has called his "anamorphotic method," attempted to conciliate the contradictory positions of Molinists and Calvinists by stating that both were partially right: Molinists, who claimed God's choice concerning a person's sin and salvation was a posteriori and contingent, while Calvinists claimed that it was a priori and necessary. Pascal himself claimed that Molinists were correct concerning the state of humanity before the Fall, while Calvinists were correct regarding the state of humanity after the Fall.

The heresy of Jansenism, meaning here its denial of Catholic doctrine, is that it denies the role of free will in the acceptance and use of grace. Jansenism asserts that God's role in the infusion of grace is such that it cannot be resisted and does not require human assent. The Catholic teaching is that "God's free initiative demands man's free response" (CCC 2002)^[3]—that is, the gift of grace requires human assent.

Controversy and papal condemnation: 1640–1653[link]

La mère Angélique Arnauld (1591–1661), abbess of Port-Royal.

Augustinus was widely read in theological circles in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands in 1640, and a new edition quickly appeared in Paris under the approbation of 10 professors at the Sorbonne.

However, on August 1, 1641, the Holy Office issued a decree condemning Augustinus and forbidding its reading. In 1642, Pope Urban VIII followed up with a papal bull entitled In eminenti, which condemned Augustinus on the grounds that (1) it was published in violation of the order that no works concerning grace should be published without the prior permission of the Holy See; and (2) the work repeated several errors of Baianism which had been condemned by Pope Pius V's 1567 bull, Ex omnibus afflictionibus.

In 1634, Saint-Cyran had become the spiritual adviser of Port-Royal-des-Champs, a Cistercian convent in Magny-les-Hameaux. The Abbess of Port-Royal-des-Champs was Marie Angélique Arnauld, who had become abbess in 1609 and reformed the discipline of the convent. In 1625, most of the nuns moved to Paris, forming the convent of Port-Royal de Paris, which from then on was commonly known simply as Port-Royal, while the term Port-Royal-des-Champs was used for the convent in Magny-les-Hameaux. Saint-Cyran became good friends with Abbess Marie-Angélique and convinced her of the rightness of Jansen's opinions. The two Port Royal convents thus became major strongholds of Jansenism. Under Marie-Angélique, later with Saint-Cyran's support, Port-Royal-des-Champs developed a series of elementary schools, known as the "Little Schools of Port-Royal" (Les Petites-Écoles de Port-Royal); the most famous product of these schools was the playwright Jean Racine.

Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694), who became the leader of the Jansenists following Saint-Cyran's death in 1643.

Through Abbess Marie-Angélique, Saint-Cyran had met her brother, Antoine Arnauld, and brought him to accept Jansen's position in Augustinus. Following Saint-Cyran's death in 1643, Arnauld became the chief proponent of Jansenism. In 1643, he published a book De la fréquente Communion (On Frequent Communion) which presented Jansen's ideas in a way more accessible to the public (e.g. it was published in French, whereas Augustinus was available only in Latin). The book, as its title indicated, also focussed on a related topic in the dispute between Jesuits and Jansenists. The Jesuits encouraged Catholics, including those struggling with sin, to receive Holy Communion frequently, arguing that Christ instituted it as a means to holiness for sinners, and stating that the only requirement for receiving Communion (apart from baptism) was that the communicant be free of mortal sin at the time of reception. The Jansenists, in line with their deeply pessimistic theology, discouraged frequent Communion, arguing that a high degree of perfection, including purification from attachment to venial sin, was necessary before approaching the Sacrament.

The faculty of the Collège de Sorbonne (the theological college of the University of Paris) formally accepted the bull In eminenti in 1644, and the Archbishop of Paris, Jean-François de Gondi, formally proscribed Augustinus; the work nevertheless continued to circulate.

Then Jesuits attacked the Jansenists, claiming they were guilty of heresy similar to that of the Calvinists. In response, Arnauld wrote Théologie morale des Jésuites (Moral Theology of the Jesuits), which was the basis of most of the arguments later used by Pascal in his Provincial Letters denouncing the "relaxed morality" of Jesuitism.^[1] The Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, former spiritual director to Louis XIII, was charged by his order with writing a defense against Arnauld's book, titled Réponse au libelle intitulé La Théologie morale des Jésuites (1644). Other works published against Arnauld's Moral Theology of the Jesuits included the one was written by the Great Jesuit polemist François Pinthereau (1605–1664), under the pseudonym of "the abbé de Boisic", titled Les Impostures et les ignorances du libelle intitulé: La Théologie Morale des Jésuites (1644),^[4] who was also the author of a critical history of Jansenism titled La Naissance du Jansénisme découverte à Monsieur le Chancelier (The Birth of Jansenism Revealed to the Chancellor, Leuven, 1654).

During the 1640s, Saint-Cyran's nephew, Martin de Barcos, who had studied theology under Jansen, wrote several works defending his uncle.

In 1649, the syndic of the Sorbonne, Nicolas Cornet, frustrated by the continued circulation of the Augustinus, drew up a list of five propositions from Augustinus and two propositions from De la fréquente Communion and asked the Sorbonne faculty to condemn the propositions. Before the faculty could do so, the Parlement de Paris intervened, forbidding the Sorbonne faculty to consider the propositions. The Sorbonne faculty then determined to forward the propositions to the General Assembly of the Clergy, which met in 1650. In the assembly, 85 of the French bishops voted to refer the matter to Pope Innocent X. Eleven of the bishops opposed this move, and asked the pope to appoint a commission similar to the Congregatio de Auxiliis to resolve the situation. Innocent X agreed to the majority's request, but in an attempt to accommodate the view of the minority, appointed an advisory committee consisting of five cardinals and thirteen consultors to report on the situation. Over the next two years, this commission held 36 meetings, 10 of which Innocent X presided over in person.

The supporters of Jansenism on the commission drew up a table with three heads: the first listed the Calvinist position (which was condemned as heretical), the second listed the Pelagian/Semipelagian position (as taught by the Molinists), and the third listed the correct Augustinian position (according to the Jansenists).

Jansenism's supporters suffered a decisive defeat when Innocent X issued the bull Cum occasione on May 31, 1653. The bull condemned the following five propositions:

1. that there are some commands of God which just men cannot keep, no matter how hard they wish and strive;
2. that it is impossible for fallen man to resist sovereign grace;
3. that it is possible for human beings who lack free will to merit;
4. that the Semipelagians were correct to teach that prevenient grace was necessary for all interior acts, including for faith, but were incorrect to teach that fallen man is free to accept or resist prevenient grace; and
5. that it is Semipelagian to say that Christ died for all.

Formulary controversy[link]

Background: 1654–1664[link]

Antoine Arnauld accepted the bull Cum Occasione and agreed in condemning the five propositions mentioned by Cum Occasione. However, he argued that Augustinus did not argue in favour of the five propositions condemned by Cum Occasione. Rather, he argued that Jansen intended his statements in Augustinus in the same sense that Augustine of Hippo had offered his opinions – and since the pope would certainly not have wished to condemn Augustine's opinions, the pope had not condemned Jansen's actual opinions.

Replying to Arnauld, in 1654, 38 French bishops condemned Arnauld's position to the pope. Opponents of Jansenism in the church refused absolution to Roger du Plessis, duc de Liancourt for his continued protection of the Jansenists. In response to this onslaught, Arnauld articulated a distinction as to how far the Church could bind the mind of a Catholic. He argued that there is a distinction between de jure and de facto—that a Catholic was obliged to accept the Church's opinion as to a matter of law (i.e. as to a matter of doctrine) but not as to a matter of fact. Arnauld argued that, while he agreed with the doctrine propounded in Cum Occasione, he was not bound to accept the pope's determination of fact as to what doctrines were contained in Jansen's work.

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). The Jansenist apologia Provincial Letters, written 1656 and 1657, a literary masterpiece written from a Jansenist perspective, and remembered for denunciation of the casuistry of the Jesuits.

In 1656, the theological faculty at the Sorbonne moved against Arnauld. This was the context in which Blaise Pascal wrote his famous Provincial Letters in defence of Arnauld's position in the dispute at the Sorbonne. (However, unlike Arnauld, Pascal did not himself accept Cum occasione and believed that the condemned doctrines were orthodox. Nevertheless, he emphasised Arnauld's distinction about matters of doctrine vs. matters of fact.) The letters were also scathing in their critique of the casuistry of the Jesuits, echoing Arnauld's Théologie morale des Jésuites.

However, Pascal was unable to convince the Sorbonne's theological faculty, and they voted 138–68 to expel Arnauld together with 60 other theologians from the Sorbonne. Later that year, the French Assembly of the Bishops voted to condemn Arnauld's distinction between the pope's ability to bind the mind of believers in matters of doctrine but not in matters of fact; they asked Pope Alexander VII to condemn Arnauld's proposition as heresy. The pope responded with the bull Ad Sanctam Beati Petri Sedem (dated October 16, 1656) in which he stated "We declare and define that the five propositions have been drawn from the book of Jansenius entitled Augustinus, and that they have been condemned in the sense of the same Jansenius and we once more condemn them as such."

In 1657, relying on Ad Sanctam Beati Petri Sedem, the French Assembly of the Clergy drew up a formulation of faith condemning Jansenism and declared that subscription to the formula was obligatory. Many Jansenists remained firmly committed to Arnauld's formula; although they would accept the conclusions of Cum Occasione, they would not agree that the propositions were contained in Jansen's Augustinus. In retaliation, the Archbishop of Paris, Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz suspended the convent of Port Royal from receiving the Sacraments. In 1660, the elementary schools run by Port-Royal-des-Champs were closed by bull, and in 1661, the monastery at Port-Royal-des-Champs was forbidden to accept new novices, which guaranteed the monastery would eventually die out.

Formulary: 1664[link]

Four bishops (Henri Arnauld, Bishop of Angers (brother of Antoine and Angélique Arnauld); Nicolas Choart de Buzenval, Bishop of Beauvais; François-Etienne Caulet, Bishop of Pamiers; and Nicolas Pavillon, Bishop of Alet) sided with Port-Royal, arguing that the French Assembly of the Clergy could not command French Catholics to subscribe to something which was not required by the pope. At the urging of several bishops, and at the personal insistence of King Louis XIV, Pope Alexander VII sent to France the apostolic constitution Regiminis Apostolici (dated February 15, 1664) which required all French Catholics to subscribe to the following formulary:

Formulary controversy: 1664–1669[link]

This formulary formed the basis of the Formulary Controversy. Many Jansenists refused to sign the formulary; whilst some did sign, they made it known that they were agreeing only to the doctrine (questions de jure), not the allegations asserted by the bull (questions de facto, or of facts). The latter category included the four Jansenist-leaning bishops, who communicated the bull to their flocks along with messages which maintained the distinction between doctrine and fact. This angered both Louis XIV and Alexander VII, and the pope appointed a committee of nine French bishops to investigate the situation.

Pope Clement IX (1600–1669), whose intervention in the Formulary Controversy led to a 32-year lull (1669–1701) in the controversy over Jansenism known as the Peace of Clement IX.

However, before this committee acted, Alexander VII died on May 22, 1667. His successor, Pope Clement IX, initially appeared to be willing to continue the move against the Jansenist-leaning bishops. However, in France, the Jansenists conducted a campaign arguing that allowing a papal commission of this sort would be ceding the traditional liberties of the Gallican Church, thus playing on traditional French opposition to ultramontanism. They convinced one member of the cabinet (Lyonne) and nineteen bishops of their position. As a result, these bishops wrote to Clement IX, arguing that the infallibility of the Church applied only to matters of revelation, and not to matters of fact. They asserted that this was the position of Caesar Baronius and Robert Bellarmine. They also sent a letter to Louis XIV, arguing that great severity would result in political discord.

Under these circumstances, the papal nuncio to France recommended that Clement IX seek a peaceful accommodation with the Jansenists. Clement agreed, and appointed César d'Estrées, Bishop of Laon as mediator in the matter (he was to be assisted by two bishops who had signed the letter to the pope, Louis Henri de Pardaillan de Gondrin, Archbishop of Sens and Félix Vialart de Herse, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne). D'Estrées convinced the four bishops to sign the formulary (though it seems they may have believed that signing the formulary did not mean assent to the matters of fact it contained). The pope, initially happy that the four bishops had signed, became angry when he was informed that they had done so with reservations. Clement IX ordered his nuncio to conduct a new investigation' reporting back, the nuncio declared: "they have condemned and caused to be condemned the five propositions with all manner of sincerity, without any exception or restriction whatever, in every sense in which the Church has condemned them". However, he reported that the four bishops continued to be evasive as to whether they agreed with the pope as to the matter of fact. In response, Clement appointed a commission of twelve cardinals to further investigate the matter. This commission determined that the four bishops had signed the formulary in a less than entirely sincere manner, but nevertheless recommended that the matter should be dropped in order to forestall further divisions in the Church. The pope agreed and thus issued four briefs, declaring the four bishops' agreement to the formulary was acceptable, thus instituting the "Peace of Clement IX" (1669–1701).

Case of Conscience and aftermath: 1701–1709[link]

Although the Peace of Clement IX brought about a lull in the public theological controversy, a number of churchmen remained attracted to Jansenism. Three major groups may be identified:

1. the duped Jansenists, who continued to profess the five propositions condemned in Cum Occasione
2. the fins Jansénistes, who accepted the doctrine of Cum Occasione but who continued to deny the infallibility of the Church in matters of fact
3. the quasi-Jansenists, who formally accepted both Cum occasione and the infallibility of the Church in matters of fact, but who nevertheless remained attracted to aspects of Jansenism, notably its stern morality, commitment to virtue, and its opposition to ultramontanism which was a hot political issue in France in the decades surrounding the 1682 Declaration of the Clergy of France.

The quasi-Jansenists served as protectors of the "duped Jansenists" and the fins Jansénistes.

The tensions generated by the continuing presence of these elements in the French church came to a head in the Case of Conscience of 1701. The case involved the question of whether or not absolution should be given to a cleric who refused to affirm the infallibility of the Church in matters of fact (even though he did not preach against it but merely maintained a "respectful silence"). A provincial conference, consisting of forty theology professors from the Sorbonne, headed by Noël Alexandre, declared that the cleric should receive absolution.

The publication of this "Case of Conscience" provoked outrage amongst the anti-Jansenist elements in the Catholic Church. The decision was condemned by several French bishops; by Louis Antoine de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris; by the theological faculties at Leuven, Douai, and eventually Paris; and, finally, in 1703, by Pope Clement XI. The Sorbonne professors who had signed the Case of Conscience now backed away, and all of the signatories withdrew their signatures and the theologian who had championed the result of the Case of Conscience, Nicolas Petitpied, was expelled from the Sorbonne.

Nuns being forcibly removed from the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs in 1709.

Louis XIV and his grandson, Philip V of Spain, now asked the pope to issue a papal bull condemning the practice of maintaining a respectful silence as to the issue of the infallibility of the Church in matters of dogmatic fact.

The pope obliged, issuing Vineam Domini, dated July 16, 1705. At the subsequent Assembly of the French Clergy, all those present (except P.-Jean-Fr. de Percin de Montgaillard, Bishop of Saint-Pons) voted to accept the bull and Louis XIV promulgated the bull as binding law in France.

Louis also sought the dissolution of Port-Royal-des-Champs, the stronghold of Jansenist thought, and this was achieved in 1708, when the pope issued a bull dissolving Port-Royal-des-Champs. The remaining nuns were forcibly removed in 1709 and dispersed among various other French convents and the buildings were razed in 1709. The Convent of Port-Royal in Paris remained in existence until the time of the French Revolution, when it was closed by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, part of the general Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution.

Case of Quesnel[link]

Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719), whose book Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament set off the last major flare-up of the Jansenist controversy, ultimately leading to the 1713 papal bull Unigenitus.

Pasquier Quesnel had been a member of the Parisian Oratory from 1657 to 1681, at which time he was expelled because of his Jansenism. He sought the protection of Pierre-Armand du Camboust de Coislin, Bishop of Orléans, who harboured Quesnel for four years, at which point Quesnel joined Antoine Arnauld in Brussels. In 1692, Quesnel published a book which he had been working on since 1668, Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament (Moral Reflections on the New Testament), a devotional guide to the New Testament which laid out the Jansenist position in strong terms. Following Arnauld's death in 1694, Quesnel was widely regarded as the leader of the Jansenists. In 1703, Quesnel was imprisoned by Humbertus Guilielmus de Precipiano, Archbishop of Mechelen, but escaped several months later and lived in Amsterdam for the remainder of his life.

The Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament did not initially arouse controversy; in fact, it was approved for publication by Felix Vialart, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne and recommended by Louis-Antoine de Noailles. Neither Vialart nor Noailles appears to have realised that the book had strongly Jansenist overtones, and had thought that they were simply approving a pious manual of devotion. However, in the years that followed, several bishops became aware of the book's Jansenist tendencies and issued condemnations: Ignace de Foresta, Bishop of Apt in 1703; Charles-Béningne Hervé, the Bishop of Gap in 1704; and in 1707 both the Bishop of Besançon and Edouard Bargedé, Bishop of Nevers. When the Holy Office drew the Réflexions morales to the attention of Clement XI, he issued the papal brief Universi dominici (1708), proscribing the book for "savouring of the Jansenist heresy."; as a result, in 1710, the Bishop of Luçon and the Bishop of La Rochelle forbade the reading of the book.

However, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, who was now the cardinal Archbishop of Paris was embarrassed and reluctant to condemn a book he had previously recommended, and thus hesitated. As a result, Louis XIV asked the pope to settle the matter. The result was the bull Unigenitus, dated September 8, 1713 which collected 101 propositions from the Réflexions morales and condemned them, "especially those contained in the famous propositions of Jansenius".

Pope Clement XI (1649–1721), whose 1713 bull Unigenitus condemned Quesnel and the Jansenists.

Those Jansenists who accepted the Unigenitus became known as Acceptants.

Upon examining the 101 propositions condemned by Unigenitus, Noailles determined that as set out in the bull and apart from their context in the Réflexions morales, some of the propositions condemned by Unigenitus were in fact orthodox. He therefore refused to accept the bull and instead sought clarifications from the pope.

In the midst of this dispute, Louis XIV died in 1715, and the government of France was taken over by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, serving as regent for the 5-year-old Louis XV of France. Unlike Louis XIV, who had stood solidly behind Unigenitus, Orléans expressed ambivalence. With the change in political mood, three theological faculties which had previously voted to accept Unigenitus – Paris, Nantes, and Reims – voted to rescind their acceptance.

In 1717, four French bishops went even further, and attempted to appeal the papal bull to a general council; the bishops were joined by hundreds of French priests, monks and nuns, and were supported by the parlements. In 1718, Clement XI responded vigorously to this challenge to his authority by issuing the bull Pastoralis officii by which he excommunicated everyone who had called for an appeal to a general council. Far from disarming the French clergy, many of whom were now advocating conciliarism, the clergy who had appealed Unigenitus to a general council, now appealed Pastoralis officii to a general council as well. In total, one cardinal, 18 bishops, and 3,000 clergy of Frances supported an appeal to a general council. However, the majority in France (four cardinals, 100 bishops, 100,000 clergymen) stood by the pope. The schism carried on for some time, however, and it was not until 1728 that Noailles submitted to the pope.

The convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard, religious pilgrims who experienced convulsions at the tomb of a Jansenist deacon who was buried at the cemetery of the parish of Saint-Médard in Paris, were associated with the continued Jansenist opposition to Unigenitus in the early years of the reign of Louis XV. The connection between the larger French Jansenist movement and the smaller, more radical convulsionnaire phenomenon is difficult to state with precision. As historian Brian E. Strayer has noted, almost all of the convulsionnaires were Jansenists, but very few Jansenists embraced the convulsionnaire phenomenon.^[5]

Legacy[link]

Unigenitus marks the official break of toleration of Jansenism within the Church in France, though quasi-Jansenists would occasionally stir in the following decades. By the mid-18th century, Jansenism proper had totally lost its battle to be a viable theological position within Catholicism. However, certain ideas tinged with Jansenism remained in circulation for much longer; in particular, the Jansenist idea that Holy Communion should be received very infrequently, and that reception required much more than freedom from mortal sin, remained influential until finally condemned by Pope St. Pius X, who endorsed frequent communion, as long as the communicant was free of mortal sin, in the early 20th century.

On the other hand, Pascal's denunciation of Jesuit casuistry and its "relaxed morality" also led Innocent XI to condemn (in 1679) sixty-five propositions which were taken chiefly from the writings of the Jesuits Escobar and Suarez. They were said to be propositiones laxorum moralistarum, and Innocent forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.^[6]

Several Jansenist teachers also proposed a radical reform of the Latin liturgy.

Jansenism was also a factor in the formation of the independent Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands from 1702 to 1723, and is said to continue to live on in some Ultrajectine traditions.

In the Canadian province of Quebec, the widespread rejection of the Catholic Church and secularization of its institutions in the mid 1960s, was justified frequently by charges that the church in Quebec was "Jansenist."

See also[link]

• Antoine Le Maistre
• Baianism
• Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard
• Formulary controversy
• Molinism
• Dale K. Van Kley

References[link]

Bibliography (French)[link]

• Jean-Pierre Chantin, Le jansénisme, CERF.
• Bernard Cottret, Monique Cottret et Marie-José Michel (éd.), Jansénisme et puritanisme, actes du colloque du 15 septembre 2001, tenu au Musée national des Granges de Port-Royal-des-Champs, préface de Jean Delumeau, Paris, Nolin 2002.
• Monique Cottret, Jansénismes et Lumières. Pour un autre XVIIIè siècle, Albin Michel, Paris, 1998.
• Louis Cognet, Le jansénisme, PUF, collection « Que sais-je ? », 1967.
• Marie-José Michel, Jansénisme et Paris, Klincksieck, 2000.
• Catherine Maire, De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la Nation. Le jansénisme au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Gallimard, 1998.
• René Taveneaux, Le Jansénisme en Lorraine, 1640–1789, J. Vrin, 1960.
• René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et politique, A. Colin, 1965.
• René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et prêt à intérêt, J. Vrin, 1977.
• René Taveneaux, La Vie quotidienne des jansénistes aux xviie et xviiie siècles, Hachette, 1985.
• Dale K. Van Kley, Les origines religieuses de la Révolution française 1560–1791, traduit de l'anglais par Alain Spiess, Paris, Éd. du Seuil, coll. « L'univers historique », 2002.
• Léopold Willaert, Les origines du Jansénisme dans les Pays-Bas catholiques, Bruxelles, 1948.

[edit] Reviews

• Monique Cottret, "Aux origines du républicanisme janséniste: le mythe de l'Eglise primitive et le primitivisme des Lumières", R.H.M.C. Paris, 1983, pp. 99–115.
• Monique Cottret,"Voltaire au risque du jansénisme. Le Siècle de Louis XIV à l'épreuve du jansénisme", Voltaire et le Grand Siècle, sous la direction de Jean Dagen et Anna-Sophie Barrovecchio, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2006, pp. 387–397.
• Jean-Louis Quantin, « Augustinisme, sexualité et direction de conscience : Port-Royal devant les tentations du duc de Luynes » in Revue d’histoire des religions, 2e trimestre 2003
• Catherine Maire, "Les jansénistes et le millénarisme. Du refus à la conversion", Revue Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales, n°1–2008 (published by the EHESS, ISBN 978-2-7132-2177-4)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jansenism

• Augustinus by Cornelius Jansen (1640) (in Latin)
• Provincial Letters by Blaise Pascal (1656)
• Moral Reflections on the Gospels by Quesnel (the first volume of the Reflexions morales – only the reflections on Matthew are available here)
• Société des amis de Port-Royal (French)
• Jansenism Resources: Primary texts and discussions relating to the theology and history of Jansenism: context of Augustine of Hippo, Jesuit Order, liturgy, universalism and Second Vatican Council This site is maintained by a very conservative movement that challenges much of what the modern Roman Catholic church teaches and appears to be sympathetic to some Jansenist ideas. A good way to understand Jansenism's continuing impact on religious thought.
•  "Jansenius and Jansenism". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0858980.html

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Pius XII
File:Ida10-1.jpg
Papacy began	2 March 1939
Papacy ended	9 October 1958
Predecessor	Pius XI
Successor	John XXIII
Orders
Ordination	2 April 1899
Consecration	13 May 1917 by Pope Benedict XV
Created Cardinal	16 December 1929
Personal details
Birth name	Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli
Born	(1876-03-02)2 March 1876 Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died	9 October 1958(1958-10-09) (aged 82) Castel Gandolfo, Italy
Motto	Opus Justitiae Pax (The work of justice and peace)
Signature
Coat of arms
Other Popes named Pius

The Venerable Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII; Italian: Pio XII), born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.

Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany. The concordat of 1933 which saw the self-destruction of the Centre (Catholic) Party, on the orders of the Holy See, and Pius' leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II, including his "decision to stay silent in public about the fate of the Jews",^[1] remain the subject of controversy.

After the war Pius XII advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towards Axis and Axis-satellite nations. The Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc. In light of his overt involvement in Italian politics – anyone who voted for a Communist candidate in the 1948 elections was threatened with automatic excommunication – Pius XII became known as a staunch opponent of the Italian Communist Party. Pius XII explicitly invoked ex cathedra papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 Apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus.^[2] His magisterium includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His forty-one encyclicals include Mystici Corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ; Mediator Dei on liturgy reform; and Humani generis on the Church's positions on theology and evolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

Early life[link]

Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born on 2 March 1876 in Rome into a family of intense Catholic piety with a history of ties to the papacy (the "Black Nobility"). His parents were Filippo Pacelli (1837–1916) and Virginia (née Graziosi) Pacelli (1844–1920). His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, had been Under-Secretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances^[3] and then Secretary of the Interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851–70 and helped found the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano in 1861.^[4] His cousin, Ernesto Pacelli, was a key financial advisor to Pope Leo XIII; his father, Filippo Pacelli, a Franciscan tertiary,^[5] was the dean of the Sacra Rota Romana; and his brother, Francesco Pacelli, became a lay canon lawyer and the legal advisor to Pius XI, in which role he negotiated the Lateran Treaty in 1929, the pact with Benito Mussolini, bringing an end to the Roman Question.

Eugenio Pacelli at the age of six in 1882

Together with his brother Francesco and his two sisters, Giuseppina and Elisabetta, he grew up in the centre of Rome. Having attended a kindergarten run by two nuns, and then a private Catholic elementary school, in two rooms of a building close to the Piazza Venezia,^[6] by the age of ten he was enrolled at the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti Institute. This was a state school situated in the Collegio Romano, former site of the Jesuit university in Rome, and was animated by a generally anti-Catholic and anticlerical spirit.^[7] He was an altar boy at the Chiesa Nuova and his preferred play as a youth was to act out the celebration of Mass in his bedroom. One year he played out the entire Holy Week ceremonies. He liked music, particularly Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Mozart and Mendelssohn, and read Dante, Alessandro Manzoni and Cicero. His favourite spiritual reading at this time was Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ and other religious reading included St. Augustine and the work of the seventeenth century French bishop Bossuet. Bossuet remained an influence throughout his life.^[8]

In 1894, aged 18, Pacelli began his theology studies at the prestigious Tridentine Collegio Capranica Seminary, and in November of the same year, registered to take a philosophy course at the Jesuit Gregoriana University. At the end of the first academic year however, in the summer of 1895, he dropped out of both the Capranica and the Gregorian University. According to his sister Elisabetta, the food at the Capranica was to blame.^[9] Having received a special dispensation he continued his studies from home under the faculty of the Seminarium Romanum located in the Palazzo Sant'Appollinaire, later the Lateran University. From 1895–96, he studied philosophy at University of Rome La Sapienza. At home he wore his soutane and Roman collar throughout the day and continued to be influenced by Father Giuseppe Lais, an Oratorian priest, a figure who had watched over Pacelli's religious progress since the age of eight. In 1899 he completed his education in "Sacred Theology" with a doctoral degree awarded on the basis of a short dissertation and an oral examination in Latin.^[10]

Church career[link]

Priest and Monsignor[link]

Pacelli on the day of his ordination, 2 April 1899;apart from his post-ordination studies, the young priest did some part-time work in the field of pastoral care-spiritual counsellor to pupils of the Cenacle Convent in Rome, as well as a regular visitor to the Convent of the Assumption. These duties encompassed the only pastoral work he performed during his entire career in the Church.^[11]

While all other candidates from the Rome diocese were ordained in the Basilica of St. John Lateran,^[12] Pacelli was ordained a priest on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1899, alone in the private oratory of an auxiliary bishop of Rome, by Bishop Francesco di Paola Cassetta, vice-regent of Rome and a family friend. Pacelli received his first assignment as a curate at Chiesa Nuova.^[13] In 1901 he was brought into the Vatican bureaucracy and entered the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, a sub-office of the Vatican Secretariat of State. Monsignor Pietro Gasparri, the recently appointed undersecretary at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, had underscored his proposal to Pacelli to work in the 'Vatican's equivalent of the Foreign office' by highlighting the 'necessity of defending the Church from the onslaughts of secularism and liberalism throughout Europe.'^[11] Pacelli became an apprendista, an apprentice, in Gasparri's department. In January 1901 he was also chosen, by Pope Leo XIII himself, according to an official account, to deliver condolences on behalf of the Vatican to Edward VII of the UK after the death of Queen Victoria.^[14]

The Serbian Concordat, 24 June 1914. Present for the Vatican were Cardinal Merry del Val and next to him, Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli. Pacelli had negotiated and drafted the document over the previous eighteen months. Cardinal Merry del Val remarked, 'If we say that we cannot trust the Serbs, all the more reason for pinning them down with a concordat' – "an ominous foreshadowing of the argument employed by Pacelli to justify the Reich Concordat".^[15]

By 1904 Pacelli received his doctorate. The theme of his thesis was the nature of concordats and the function of canon law when a concordat falls into abeyance. Promoted to the position of minutante, he prepared digests of reports that had been sent to the Secretariat from all over the world and in the same year became a papal chamberlain. In 1905 he received the title domestic prelate.^[13] From 1904 until 1916, he assisted Cardinal Pietro Gasparri in his codification of canon law with the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.^[16] Canon law, the body of internal laws of the Catholic Church, had gathered over centuries in a multitude of decrees, rules, and regulations. The decision to create a code, rather than a compilation or collection of laws or canons, involved "abstraction, fitting laws to succinct formulae divorced from historical and social origins"; under Pius X's direction, the Code of Canon Law sought to create "conformity, centralization, discipline". John Cornwell: " the text, together with the Anti-Modernist Oath, became the means by which the Holy See was to establish and sustain the new, unequal, and unprecedented power relationship that had arisen between the papacy and the Church. Gaspari and Pacelli were its principal architects. The task was to absorb Pacelli for thirteen years."^[17]

In 1908, Pacelli served as a Vatican representative on the International Eucharistic Congress, accompanying Rafael Merry del Val^[18] to London,^[14] where he met Winston Churchill.^[19] In 1911, he represented the Holy See at the coronation of King George V.^[16] Pacelli became the under-secretary in 1911, adjunct-secretary in 1912 (a position he received under Pope Pius X and retained under Pope Benedict XV) and secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1914—succeeding Gasparri, who was promoted to Cardinal Secretary of State.^[16] On 24 June 1914, just four days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, Pacelli, together with Cardinal Merry del Val, represented the Vatican when the Serbian Concordat was signed. Pacelli had negotiated and drafted the document over the previous eighteen months.^[20] Serbia's success in the First Balkan War against Turkey in 1912 had increased the number of Catholics within greater Serbia. At this time Serbia, encouraged by Russia, was challenging Austria-Hungary's sphere of influence throughout the Balkans. Austria-Hungary's protectorate rights were destroyed by the Concordat and the Austrians had attempted to wreck the negotiations, "but the Vatican,in the person of Pacelli, had pressed the project to a conclusion."^[21] During World War I, Pacelli maintained the Vatican's registry of prisoners of war. In 1915, he travelled to Vienna to assist Monsignor Raffaele Scapinelli, nuncio to Vienna, in his negotiations with Franz Joseph I of Austria regarding Italy.^[22]

Archbishop and Papal Nuncio[link]

Pacelli at the Headquarters of Wilhelm II

Pope Benedict XV appointed Pacelli as nuncio to Bavaria on 23 April 1917, consecrating him as titular Bishop of Sardis and immediately elevating him to archbishop in the Sistine Chapel on 13 May 1917. After his consecration, Eugenio Pacelli left for Bavaria. As there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of the German Empire.

Once in Munich, he conveyed the papal initiative to end the war to German authorities.^[23] He met with King Ludwig III on 29 May, and later with Kaiser Wilhelm II^[24] and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, who replied positively to the Papal initiative. However, Bethmann-Hollweg was forced to resign and the German High Command, hoping for a military victory, delayed the German reply until 20 September. For the remainder of the war, he concentrated on Benedict's humanitarian efforts.^[25] In the upheaval following the end of the war a disconcerted Pacelli sought Benedict XV's permission to leave Munich, where Kurt Eisner had declared a socialist republic, and he left for a while to Rorschach, and a tranquil Swiss sanatorium run by nuns. Monsignor Schioppa, the uditore, was left in Munich.^[26] "His recovery began with a 'rapport'" with the 24 year old Sister Pasqualina – she would soon be transferred to Munich when Pacelli "pulled strings at the highest level".^[27]

When he returned to Munich, following Eisner's assassination by an anti-semitic nationalist, Count Arco-Valley, he informed Gasparri-using Schioppa's eye-witness testimony of the chaotic scene at the former royal palace as the trio of Max Levien, Eugen Levine, and Towia Axelrod sought power: "the scene was indescribable [-] the confusion totally chaotic [-] in the midst of all this, a gang of young women, of dubious appearance, Jews like the rest of them hanging around [-] the boss of this female rabble was Levien's mistress, a young Russian woman, a Jew and a divorcée [-] and it was to her that the nunciature was obliged to pay homage in order to proceed [-] Levien is a young man, also Russian and a Jew. Pale, dirty, with drugged eyes, vulgar, repulsive ..." According to Cornwell, a worrying impression of stereotypical anti-Semitic contempt is discernible in the 'catalogue of epithets describing their physical and moral repulsiveness' and Pacelli's "constant harping on the Jewishness of this party of power usurpers" chimed with the "growing and widespread belief among Germans that the Jews were the instigators of the Bolshevik revolution, their principal aim being the destruction of Christian civilization".^[28] Pacelli informed Gasparri that "the capital of Bavaria, is suffering under a harsh Jewish-Russian revolutionary tyranny" – but the crisis was soon over, and the Munich Soviet Republic crushed by Freikorps and Reichswehr troops.

Nuncio Pacelli in July 1924 at the 900th anniversary of the City of Bamberg

Pacelli was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Germany on 23 June 1920, and—after the completion of a Bavarian concordat—his nunciature was moved to Berlin in August 1925. Many of Pacelli's Munich staff stayed with him for the rest of his life, including his advisor Robert Leiber and Pascalina Lehnert – housekeeper, friend, and adviser to Pacelli for 41 years. In Berlin, Pacelli was Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and active in diplomatic and many social activities. He was aided by the German priest Ludwig Kaas, who was known for his expertise in Church-state relations and was a full-time politician, politically active in the Catholic Centre Party, a party he led following Wilhelm Marx's resignation in October 1928.^[29] While in Germany, he travelled to all regions, attended Katholikentag (national gatherings of the faithful), and delivered some 50 sermons and speeches to the German people.^[30] In Berlin he lived in the Tiergarten quarter and threw parties for the official and diplomatic elite. Paul von Hindenburg, Gustav Stresemann, and other members of the Cabinet were regular guests.

In post-war Germany, in the absence of a nuncio in Moscow, Pacelli worked also on diplomatic arrangements between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. He negotiated food shipments for Russia, where the Church was persecuted. He met with Soviet representatives including Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican.^[31]

Despite Vatican pessimism and a lack of visible progress, Pacelli continued the secret negotiations, until Pius XI ordered them to be discontinued in 1927. Pacelli supported German diplomatic activity aimed at rejection of punitive measures from victorious former enemies. He blocked French attempts for an ecclesiastical separation of the Saar region, supported the appointment of a papal administrator for Danzig and aided the reintegration of priests expelled from Poland.^[32] A Prussian Concordat was signed on 14 June 1929. Following the Wall Street Crash, the beginnings of a world economic slump appeared, and the days of the Weimar Republic were numbered. Pacelli was summoned back to Rome at this time – the call coming by telegram when he was resting at his favourite retreat, the Rorschach convent sanatorium. He left Berlin on 10 December 1929.^[33]

Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo[link]

Eugenio Pacelli, nuncio in Bavaria, visits a group of bishops.

Pacelli was made a Cardinal-Priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo on 16 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI, and within a few months, on 7 February 1930, Pius XI appointed him Cardinal Secretary of State, responsible for foreign policy and state relations throughout the world. In 1935, Pacelli was named Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church.

As Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli signed concordats with a number of countries and states. Immediately on becoming Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli and Ludwig Kaas took up negotiations on a Baden Concordat which continued until the spring and summer of 1932. Papal fiat appointed a supporter of Pacelli and his concordat policy, Conrad Gröber, the new Archbishop of Freiburg, and the treaty was signed in August 1932.^[34] Others followed: Austria (1933), Germany (1933), Yugoslavia (1935) and Portugal (1940). The Lateran treaties with Italy (1929) were concluded before Pacelli became Secretary of State. Roman Catholicism had become the sole recognized religion; the powerful democratic Catholic Popular Party, in many ways similar to the Centre Party in Germany, had been disbanded, and in place of political Catholicism the Holy See encouraged Catholic Action, 'an anaemic form of clerically dominated religious rally-rousing.' It was permitted only so long as it developed "its activity outside every political party and in direct dependence upon the Church hierarchy for the dissemination and implementation of Catholic principles.'^[35] Such concordats allowed the Catholic Church to organize youth groups, make ecclesiastical appointments, run schools, hospitals, and charities, or even conduct religious services. They also ensured that canon law would be recognized within some spheres (e.g., church decrees of nullity in the area of marriage).^[36]

As the decade began Pacelli wanted the Centre Party in Germany to turn away from the socialists. In the summer of 1931 he clashed with Catholic chancellor Heinrich Bruning, who frankly told Pacelli he believed that he "misunderstood the political situation in Germany and the real character of the Nazis."^[37] Following Bruning's resignation in May 1932 Pacelli, like the new Catholic chancellor Franz von Papen, wondered if the Centre Party should look to the Right for a coalition, "that would correspond to their principles'.^[38] He made many diplomatic visits throughout Europe and the Americas, including an extensive visit to the United States in 1936 where he met Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed a personal envoy – who did not require Senate confirmation – to the Holy See in December 1939, re-establishing a diplomatic tradition that had been broken since 1870 when the pope lost temporal power.^[39]

Pacelli presided as Papal Legate over the International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 10–14 October 1934, and in Budapest from 25–30 May 1938.^[40] At this time, anti-semitic laws were in the process of being formulated in Hungary. Pacelli made reference to the Jews "whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today".^[41] This traditional adversarial relationship with Judaism would be reversed in Nostra Aetate issued during the Second Vatican Council.^[42] According to Joseph Bottum, Pacelli in 1937 "warned A. W. Klieforth, the American consul to Berlin, that Hitler was "an untrustworthy scoundrel and fundamentally wicked person"; Klieforth wrote that Pacelli "did not believe Hitler capable of moderation, and ... fully supported the German bishops in their anti-Nazi stand." A report written by Pacelli the following year for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and filed with Ambassador Joseph Kennedy declared that the Church regarded compromise with the Third Reich as "out of the question".^[43]

Some historians^[who?] have argued that Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State, dissuaded Pope Pius XI – who was nearing death at the time^[44] – from condemning the Kristallnacht in November 1938,^[45] when he was informed of it by the papal nuncio in Berlin.^[46] Likewise the draft encyclical Humani Generis Unitas ("On the Unity of the Human Race"), which was ready in September 1938 but, according to those responsible for an edition of the document^[47] and other sources, it was not forwarded to the Holy See by the Jesuit General Wlodimir Ledochowski.^[48][49] The draft encyclical contained an open and clear condemnation of colonialism, racism and antisemitism.^[48][50][51]

Some historians^[who?] have argued that Pacelli learned about its existence only after the death of Pius XI and did not promulgate it as Pope.^[52] He did use parts of it in his inaugural encyclical Summi Pontificatus, which he titled "On the Unity of Human Society."^[53] His various positions on Church and policy issues during his tenure as Cardinal Secretary of State were made public by the Holy See in 1939. Most noteworthy among the 50 speeches is his review of Church-State issues in Budapest in 1938.^[54]

[edit] Reichskonkordat and Mit brennender Sorge

Pacelli (seated, center) at the signing of the Reichskonkordat on 20 July 1933 in Rome with (from left to right): German prelate Ludwig Kaas, German Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs Giuseppe Pizzardo, Alfredo Ottaviani, and Reich minister Rudolf Buttmann

The Reichskonkordat was an integral part of four concordats Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary because the German federalist Weimar constitution gave the German states authority in the area of education and culture and thus diminished the authority of the churches in these areas; this diminution of church authority was a primary concern of the Vatican. As Bavarian Nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the Bavarian authorities in 1925. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.^[55] Prussia showed interest in negotiations only after the Bavarian concordat. However, Pacelli obtained less favorable conditions for the Church in the Prussian concordat of 1929, which excluded educational issues. A concordat with the German state of Baden was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with Austria in 1933.^[56] A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922–1932.^[57]

The Reichskonkordat, signed on 20 July 1933, between Germany and the Holy See, while thus a part of an overall Vatican policy, was controversial from its beginning. It remains the most important of Pacelli's concordats. It is debated, not because of its content, which is still valid today, but because of its timing. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli's main objectives as secretary of state, because he had hoped to strengthen the legal position of the Church. Pacelli, who knew German conditions well, emphasized in particular protection for Catholic associations (§31), freedom for education and Catholic schools, and freedom for publications.^[58]

As nuncio during the 1920s, he had made unsuccessful attempts to obtain German agreement for such a treaty, and between 1930 and 1933 he attempted to initiate negotiations with representatives of successive German governments, but the opposition of Protestant and Socialist parties, the instability of national governments and the care of the individual states to guard their autonomy thwarted this aim. In particular, the questions of denominational schools and pastoral work in the armed forces prevented any agreement on the national level, despite talks in the winter of 1932.^[59][60]

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and sought to gain international respectability and to remove internal opposition by representatives of the Church and the Catholic Centre Party. He sent his vice chancellor Franz von Papen, a Catholic nobleman and member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat.^[61] On behalf of Pacelli, Prelate Ludwig Kaas, the outgoing chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen.^[62] The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on 10 September 1933.^[63] Father Franziscus Stratman, senior Catholic chaplain at Berlin University wrote "The souls of well-disposed people are in a turmoil as a result of the tyranny of the National Socialists, and I am merely stating a fact when I say that the authority of the bishops among innumerable Catholics and non-Catholics has been shaken by the quasi-approval of the National Socialist movement".^[64] Bishop Preysing cautioned against compromise with the new regime, against those who saw the Nazi persecution of the church as an aberration that Hitler would correct.^[65]

Between 1933 and 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of the Reichskonkordat. Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber to help him write a protest of Nazi violations of the Reichskonkordat; this was to become Pius XI's 1937 encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge. The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Roman Catholic Church documents. Secretly distributed by an army of motorcyclists and read from every German Catholic Church pulpit on Palm Sunday, it condemned the paganism of the National Socialism ideology.^[66] Pius XI credited its creation and writing to Pacelli.^[67] It was the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization and resulted in persecution of the Church by the infuriated Nazis who closed all the participating presses and "took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy."^[68] On 10 June 1941, the pope commented on the problems of the Reichskonkordat in a letter to the Bishop of Passau, in Bavaria: "The history of the Reichskonkordat shows, that the other side lacked the most basic prerequisites to accept minimal freedoms and rights of the Church, without which the Church simply cannot live and operate, formal agreements notwithstanding".^[69]

Papacy[link]

Election and coronation[link]

The signature of Pius XII never changed^[70]

Papal styles of Pope Pius XII
Reference style	His Holiness
Spoken style	Your Holiness
Religious style	Holy Father
Posthumous style	Venerable

Pius XI died on 10 February 1939. Several historians have interpreted the conclave to choose his successor as facing a choice between a diplomatic or a spiritual candidate, and they view Pacelli's diplomatic experience, especially with Germany, as one of the deciding factors in his election on 2 March 1939, his 63rd birthday, after only one day of deliberation and three ballots.^[71][72] He was the first cardinal secretary of state to be elected Pope since Clement IX in 1667.^[73] He was one of only two men known to have served as Camerlengo immediately prior to being elected as pope (the other being Pope Leo XIII). His coronation took place on 12 March 1939. Upon being elected pope he was also formally the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches and prefect of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation. There was however a Cardinal-Secretary to run these bodies on a day-to-day basis.

Pacelli took the same papal name as his predecessor, a title used exclusively by Italian Popes. He was quoted as saying, "I call myself Pius; my whole life was under Popes with this name, but especially as a sign of gratitude towards Pius XI."^[74] On 15 December 1937, during his last consistory, Pius XI strongly hinted to the cardinals that he expected Pacelli to be his successor, saying "He is in your midst."^[75][76] He had previously been quoted as saying: "When today the Pope dies, you'll get another one tomorrow, because the Church continues. It would be a much bigger tragedy, if Cardinal Pacelli dies, because there is only one. I pray every day, God may send another one into one of our seminaries, but as of today, there is only one in this world."^[77]

Appointments[link]

Pascalina Lehnert, born Josefina Lehnert 25 August 1894, the seventh of twelve children, near the village of Ebersberg in Bavaria, Pius XII's housekeeper and confidant from his time as nuncio to Germany, she followed him to Rome. 'They lived under the same roof for 41 years.'^[12]

After his election, he made Luigi Maglione his successor as Cardinal Secretary of State. Cardinal Maglione, a seasoned Vatican diplomat, had reestablished diplomatic relations with Switzerland and was for many years nuncio in Paris. Yet, Maglione did not exercise the influence of his predecessor Pacelli, who as Pope continued his close relation with Monsignors Montini (later Pope Paul VI) and Domenico Tardini. After the death of Maglione in 1944, Pius left the position open and named Tardini head of its foreign section and Montini head of the internal section.^[78] Tardini and Montini continued serving there until 1953, when Pius XII decided to appoint them cardinals,^[79] an honor which both turned down.^[80] They were then later appointed to be Pro-Secretary with the privilege to wear Episcopal Insignia.^[81] Tardini continued to be a close co-worker of the Pope until the death of Pius XII, while Montini became archbishop of Milan, after the death of Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster.

Pius XII slowly eroded the Italian monopoly on the Roman Curia; he employed German and Dutch Jesuit advisors, Robert Leiber, Augustin Bea, and Sebastian Tromp. He also supported the elevation of Americans such as Cardinal Francis Spellman from a minor to a major role in the Church.^[82][83] After World War II, Pius XII appointed more non-Italians than any Pope before him. American appointees included Joseph P. Hurley as regent of the nunciature in Belgrade, Gerald P. O'Hara as nuncio to Romania, and Monsignor Muench as nuncio to Germany. For the first time, numerous young Europeans, Asians and "Americans were trained in various congregations and secretariats within the Vatican for eventual service throughout the world."^[84]

Consistories[link]

Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a consistory to create new cardinals, in contrast to Pius XI, who had done so 17 times in as many years. Pius XII chose not to name new cardinals during World War II, and the number of cardinals shrank to 38, with Dennis Joseph Dougherty of Philadelphia being the only living U.S. cardinal. The first occasion on 18 February 1946 – which has become known as the "Grand Consistory" – yielded the elevation of a record 32 new cardinals, almost 50 percent of the College of Cardinals and reaching the canonical limit of 70 cardinals.^[85] In the 1946 consistory, Pius XII, while maintaining the maximum size of the College of Cardinals at 70, named cardinals from China, India, the Middle East and increased the number of Cardinals from the Americas, proportionally lessening the Italian influence.^[86]

In his second consistory on 12 January 1953, it was expected that his closest co-workers, Msgrs. Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Montini would be elevated^[87] and Pius XII informed the assembled cardinals that both of them were originally on the top of his list,^[88] but they had turned down the offer, and were rewarded instead with other promotions.^[89] The two consistories of 1946 and 1953 brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of the College of Cardinals.^[90]

With few exceptions, Italian prelates accepted the changes positively; there was no protest movement or open opposition to the internationalization efforts.^[91]

Church reforms[link]

Liturgy reforms[link]

Pope Pius XII seated in the Sedia Gestatoria

In his encyclical Mediator Dei, Pius XII links liturgy with the last will of Jesus Christ.

The Church has, therefore, according to Pius XII, a common aim with Christ himself, teaching all men the truth, and, offering to God a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice. This way, the Church re-establishes the unity between the Creator and His creatures.^[93] The sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, convey and dispense divine grace from Christ to the members of the Mystical Body.^[94]

The numerous reforms of Pius XII show two characteristics. Renewal and 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, favoured by Pius XII, was hotly debated at his time. He increased non-Latin services, especially in countries with expanding Catholic mission activities. The church tabernacle holding the Blessed Sacrament should be immovably fixed to the altar and, unless another position was thought to be more appropriate, should normally be at the main altar.^[95] The Church should display religious objects, but not be overloaded with secondary objects. Modern sacred art should be reverential and reflect the spirit of our time.^[96] Priests are permitted to officiate marriages without Holy Mass. They may also officiate confirmations in certain instances.^[97]

Canon Law Reforms[link]

Decentralized authority and increased independence of the Uniate Churches were aimed at in the Canon Law/Corpis Iuris Canonici (CIC) reform. In its new constitutions, Eastern Patriarchs were made almost independent from Rome (CIC Orientalis, 1957) Eastern marriage law (CIC Orientalis, 1949), civil law (CIC Orientalis, 1950), laws governing religious associations (CIC Orientalis, 1952) property law (CIC Orientalis, 1952) and other laws. These reforms and writings of Pius XII were intended to establish Eastern Orientals as equal parts of the mystical body of Christ, as explained in the encyclical Mystici Corporis.

Priests and Religious[link]

With the Apostolic constitution Sedis Sapientiae, Pius XII added social sciences, sociology, psychology and social psychology, to the pastoral training of future priests. Pius XII emphasised the need to systematically analyze the psychological condition of candidates to the priesthood to ensure that they are capable of a life of celibacy and service.^[98] Pius XII added one year to the theological formation of future priests. He included a "pastoral year", an introduction into the practice of parish work.^[99]