Legacies
Pius XI will be remembered as the pope who reigned between the two great wars of the 20th century. The onetime librarian also reorganized the Vatican archives. Nevertheless, Pius XI was hardly a withdrawn and bookish figure. He was also a well known mountain climber with many peaks in the Alps named after him, he having been the first to scale them.
Pius XI fought the two ascendant ideologies of communism and fascism. His success in fighting them was limited and there is much controversy over the concordats he entered with European regimes to improve the situation of the Catholic Church. At the outset, it was clear that he found communism to be the greater of the two evils but there is no doubt that he was equally opposed to anti-Semitism.
Whatever the results of his activism, Pius XI was working busily until the end. He strove to improve the condition of the Church, through the negotiation of the concordats (treaties) in Europe and to increase its strength worldwide through vigorous missionary work. He also reiterated the social teachings of Leo XIII in his encyclical Quadregesimo Anno, issued in 1931.
Pius XI was determined to increase the profile of the papacy. Testament to this is his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) blessing which he gave following his election; it was the first time this blessing was given. After the Vatican had regained its status as a state in 1929, he flexed its muscles through the treaties he negotiated, and by raising his voice in protest when the terms were violated.
He was possessed of an iron will. The strong-willed pontiff was succeeded by his charismatic Secretary of State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII), a diplomat who would continue Pius XI's struggle against Nazism and Fascism as a virtual prisoner in the Vatican during World War II.
A Chilean glacier bears Pius XI's name. The Achille Ratti Climbing Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded by Bishop T. B. Pearson in 1940 and was named after Monsignor Achille Ratti.
Pius XI High School in Milwaukee, WI was named after Pope Pius XI.
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“The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-itiveness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)