Soldier of Christ
eBook - ePub

Soldier of Christ

The Life of Pope Pius XII

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Soldier of Christ

The Life of Pope Pius XII

About this book

Debates over the legacy of Pope Pius XII and his canonization are so heated they are known as the "Pius wars." Soldier of Christ moves beyond competing caricatures and considers Pius XII as Eugenio Pacelli, a flawed and gifted man. While offering insight into the pope's response to Nazism, Robert A. Ventresca argues that it was the Cold War and Pius XII's manner of engaging with the modern world that defined his pontificate.

Laying the groundwork for the pope's controversial, contradictory actions from 1939 to 1958, Ventresca begins with the story of Pacelli's Roman upbringing, his intellectual formation in Rome's seminaries, and his interwar experience as papal diplomat and Vatican secretary of state. Accused of moral equivocation during the Holocaust, Pius XII later fought the spread of Communism in Western Europe, spoke against the persecution of Catholics in Eastern Europe and Asia, and tackled a range of social and political issues. By appointing the first indigenous cardinals from China and India and expanding missions in Africa while expressing solidarity with independence movements, he internationalized the church's membership and moved Catholicism beyond the colonial mentality of previous eras.

Drawing from a diversity of international sources, including unexplored documentation from the Vatican, Ventresca reveals a paradoxical figure: a prophetic reformer of limited vision whose leadership both stimulated the emergence of a global Catholicism and sowed doubt and dissension among some of the church's most faithful servants.

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Yes, you can access Soldier of Christ by Robert A. Ventresca in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Religious Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Prologue: The Pius War
  6. 1. The Black Nobility and Papal Rome
  7. 2. The Diplomat’s Vocation
  8. 3. Conflict and Compromise
  9. 4. A Tremendous Responsibility
  10. 5. War and Holocaust
  11. 6. A New World Order
  12. 7. The Universal Pope
  13. Epilogue: A Virtuous Life?
  14. Abbreviations
  15. Notes
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. Index