Pope Ratzinger rekindled the spotlight on him in 2005, immediately after his election to the throne of Peter. «I wanted to call myself Benedict XVI – he said during his first audience – to ideally reconnect with the venerated Pope Benedict XV, who led the Church in a troubled period due to the world conflict. He was courageous and authentic prophet of peace and he worked with strenuous courage first to avoid the drama of war and then to limit its harmful consequences ». Yes, because a sort of damnatio memoriae had fallen on Giacomo della Chiesa, whose centenary is the centenary of his death on 22 January, after eight years of pontificate. Being a peacemaker, in whose name he urged peoples and governments to end the Great War, resulted in him being ostracized globally. A modern figure of great humanity and a high cultural profile, he soon fell into oblivion. “Benedict XV was a courageous Pope, hindered by politics for his desire for peace and solidarity – says today Nicolò Anselmi, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Genoa, his hometown – a Pope who, a faithful disciple of Jesus, wanted to push Christians towards the mission. We only have to tell him: thank you ».
Loving and extremely frank, as always, the words written at the time by Cardinal Giuseppe Siri: «Your figure has the right to the justice of history. Unfortunately, history moves as much as writers do, when it comes to the appreciation of men. Whoever does not find any in its wake is forced into darkness ».
Who was then this small man who on September 3, 1914 was unexpectedly elected pope with the name of Benedict XV while the First World War broke out just over a month ago, but is already devastating Europe? He was so frail, nicknamed “the little guy” in the Curia, that after the election he could not immediately find a suitable suit. We read in the Diary of the Conclave: “The papal habit that was chosen was the small one, but lacking in some part, and being also a little long, it was adapted with clothespin pins, and raised and covered with the gold tassel band “.
The election as pope of a cardinal appointed only three months ago was an exceptional event. It was probably the war situation that favored his election, having worked in diplomacy with talented secretaries of state, such as Rampolla and Merry del Val, and being considered more super partes than other eligible candidates.
The pope has dedicated himself from the beginning to appeals to the warring powers to stop the bloodbath. It will go down in history for having defined, in the Note of 1 August 1917, the war as a “useless massacre”. It was always he who defined war as “the suicide of civilized Europe”.
Benedict XV is not limited to appeals. Activate Vatican diplomacy and present to the heads of the warring countries a series of concrete proposals to get out of the war. But right now the states are dominated by nationalistic ideologies and his voice remains unheard. Together with diplomatic initiatives, Benedict XV launches an impressive humanitarian action, aimed at helping all the victims of the war, the affected populations, the weak. Concrete action, as Pope Francis would have liked today: to recover money, he does not hesitate to have Vatican jewels and precious items sold. Here begins a journey of the Church as a non-partisan humanitarian body that will characterize (with ups and downs) its action and commitment in the twentieth century, up to the days of the Argentine pontiff.
During the First World War, Benedict XV elaborated various peace proposals and wrote his first encyclical, “Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum”, of November 1, 1914, in which he appeals to the rulers of nations to silence weapons and the shedding of so much human blood. With the entry into the war also of the Kingdom of Italy on May 24, 1915, the Holy See, closed and prisoner in the Vatican, remains further isolated with the departure of the ambassadors of the opposing states. Benedict XV cannot help but bitterly note the further widening of the conflict and the increase in deaths and destruction. During the war he did not stop sending proclamations for peace and diplomacy, as well as concrete aid to the affected civilian populations.
At the end of the conflict he worked to reorganize the Church in the new world context. He re-established diplomatic relations with France and with other nations. In 1920 he wrote the first encyclical on peace, “Pacem Dei Munus Pulcherrimum”. In it he denounces the fragility of a peace that is not based on reconciliation: «If almost everywhere the war somehow ended and some peace pacts were signed, the seeds of ancient grudges still remain. No peace has value if hatred and enmities are not put down together by means of a reconciliation based on mutual charity ”. Prophetic words, the meaning of which will be fully understood only after the outbreak of the Second World War.
During his pontificate, tragic massacres of Christian citizens took place in the Ottoman Empire and Benedict XV tried to support these persecuted in every way possible. He tried in particular to avoid, also through the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, the massacre of the Armenians in Turkey in 1915. This did not prevent him from being erected by the Turks in Constantinople in 1919, although he was still alive. seven meters with the inscription “To the great Pontiff of world tragedy, Benedict XV, benefactor of peoples, without distinction of nationality or religion, as a sign of gratitude, the East”.
Genoa, his city, dedicates to him in these days study days by the University and a small but interesting exhibition, promoted by the Municipality and the Curia and curated by Marzia Cataldi Gallo, in the sacristy of the Basilica delle Vigne where Giacomo della Chiesa was baptized after his birth on November 21, 1854. Third of four children of the Marquis Giuseppe and Giovanna Migliorati, of the Church to please his father, he graduated in Law at the University of Genoa in 1875. After continuing his studies at the College Capranica in Rome, was ordained a priest on December 21, 1878. As Cataldi Gallo recounts, from 1881 he was in close contact with Monsignor Rampolla, who always wanted him to follow him and was an important reference figure for him. Having become a substitute for the Secretariat of State in 1901, Pius X personally ordained him bishop in 1907, simultaneously transferring him to the episcopal chair of Bologna as the successor of Cardinal Svampa. A pastoral experience that marked him for the rest of his life.
The purple for Della Chiesa arrived in June 1914. Two months later, Pope Pius X died. The enclosure in the Sistine for the Conclave was judged to be the most complex of the last two centuries. Benedict of the Church was elected Pope on September 3, with thirty-eight votes: the minimum necessary. Cardinal Gaetano De Lai, opponent of the “little guy”, got up from his seat and asked that the card of the archbishop of Bologna be opened. At that time the sheets were recognizable and, if necessary, they were checked to confirm whether or not the person elected had voted, a practice not allowed. It so happened that it was the elected sub judice who acted as scrutinizer, who opened his own card revealing that the preference had been granted by him to others.
Unlimited access to all site content
€ 1 / month for 3 months, then € 3.99 / month for 3 months
Unlock unlimited access to all content on the site
#Benedict #years #death #pacifist #pope