Blessed Pope John XXIII

Blessed Pope John:
Pray for us

Pope Pius XII

It has been widely reported about Pope Benedict XVI recognising the heroic virtue of two of his predecessors, Pius XII and John Paul II, as well as many other people on the route to being recognised as Saints of the Church. I must confess that I love the lives of the saints for their inspiring role model status which they offer to us mere mortals. Who cannot find someone to act as a guide to leading a holier life. They are also, thankfully, always on hand to offer up prayer and entreaty on our behalf.

Pius XII, however, may be seen as a controversial figure and there are many who would be critical of Pope Benedict for his actions. I suppose in a similar way in which John Paul himself courted controversy for the canonisation of Josemaría Escrivá around this time of year in 2002. Fr Tim, over on the blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity, writes about 'Hitler's Pope' and the cropping of the now famous photograph of Pius XII seemingly leaving a meeting with Hitler during the days of the Third Reich. This is nonsence, and Fr Tim points us in the direction of the post by R. J. Grigaitis: Photographic Evidence of the Pope Meeting Hitler. This is an excellent post and notes

Another interesting fact is that Pacelli never actually met Hitler, even though Pacelli was the first papal nuncio in Berlin and was in Munich at the same time as Hitler. Pacelli was appointed nuncio to Bavaria in 1917, and since there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany, he was the Vatican representative to the entire German Empire.

Do go and read the article in full. It really is fascinating, well laid out and worth five minutes of your time!

Pope St Leo the Great

Yesterday, at the morning Mass, I preached to the children about Pope St Leo the Great. A fascinating character. There is little I want to say, here, about Pope Leo but I do encourage you to find out more about him. You can do this, here, on wiki (it's just so universal even if 'banned' at Oscott), or you may prefer to read a great little book called The 33 Doctors of the Church by Tan Publishing (which I got for an absolute bargain in Dublin) or, indeed, you may prefer to delve into Butler's or the like. To help the children understand the man, I talked about three aspects of his life which would lead history to call him 'Great'; an honour bestowed upon only one other Pope. What, I wonder, did I say...