Pope Pius XI

Sunday's full moon in the morning.
Lest I do an injustice to Pope Pius XI (and to Eamon Duffy) let me point out some of the great things he did.  He set three priorities for missionary activity: "the recruitment and promotion of native clergy, renunciation of nationalistic concerns among European missionaries, and the recognition of the dignity and worth of the cultures being evangelized."  During his pontificate native clergy increased threefold.
His encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, added much to the social justice teaching of the Church that was begun by Leo XIII forty years earlier.
As Hitler was consolidating his power, Pope Pius XI smuggled into Germany an encyclical that was read from all German Catholic pulpits on Palm Sunday, 1937, denouncing Nazi racism and government actions against the Church.  The encyclical included a striking and deliberate emphasis on the permanent validity of the Jewish scriptures.  He said that no Christian could be anti-Semitic, for "Spiritually, we are all Semites," (a quote I thought was original with Pope John XXIII)
Duffy concludes his treatment of Pius XI: "Always a strong man and an energetic pope, in the last years of his pontificate he rose to greatness.  The Pope of eighteen concordats ceased to be a diplomat, and achieved the stature of a prophet.  British diplomats and French communist newspapers commented that the Pope, of all people, had become a champion of freedom."