Pope Pius XII tried not only to stop the "unnecessary slaughter of the Great War” but he could also understand "from the very beginning the threat represented by the monstrous Nazi ideology with its pernicious anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic roots." The homely pronounced this morning by Pope Benedict XVI for the 50th anniversary of the death of the Servant of God Pius XII (9th October 1958) is an historic reconstruction aimed at dispelling all doubt in the historic debate on the figure of this Pope. Pius XII exercised his Papal ministry "in the troubled years of the Second World War and in the complex years that followed characterised by the reconstruction and by difficult international relations, namely in the period which become known as ‘Cold War’." Apostolic Nuncio in Germany until 1929, "he left behind a grateful memory." As a Secretary of State, he cooperated with Pius XI in a time marked by totalitarian regimes, namely Fascist, Nazi and Communist, which were later condemned in three Encyclicals. "He comforted persecuted people and refugees, wiped their tears and grieved over the countless victims of the war." And when a new conflict was about to break out in Europe and in the rest of the world, he tried his best to avert the imminent threat." ” “
