The Catholic Lawyer

Volume 6 Number 1 Volume 6, Winter 1960, Number 1 Article 3

Pius XII's Legacy to

Rev. Robert F. Drinan, S.J.

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REV. ROBERT F. DRINAN, S.J.*

W HEN DEATH CALLED PIUS XII at 3:52 a.m. on Thursday, October 6, 1958, the world stood still in awesome admiration of the Pope of Peace whose ringing words and slender white-clad figure had become a unique and beloved symbol of stability and love during the previous two decades which had witnessed the worst upheaval in the history of the world. On October 25, 1958 - nineteen days after the death of the most international-minded of all modern - the Catholic Association for International Peace opened its thirty-first annual meeting. Some twenty of CAIP's annual gatherings had been held during the pontificate of Pius XII and it is not an exaggeration to state that his magnificent leadership in urging a true community of nations formed a large part of the inspiration of those dedicated men and women who have so developed and intensified the activities of the CAIP that it now stands as one of the most vital Christian groups in the entire English- speaking world. There was occasion in last year's gathering of the CAIP to mourn the greatest international jurist and statesman of this century, but his passing - so abrupt and so recent - precluded a quiet analysis of the legacy which Pius XII left to the family of nations concerning the urgency of their living together under a rule of love and of law. As the world grasps to understand and apply that legacy, lest it be plunged into a nuclear war more monstrous than imagination can portray, it is emi- nently fitting that the members of the CAIP contemplate and analyze that to which they are heirs. Many times, of course, the participants in this most important of all Catholic organizations have pondered on Pius' call to a world order, a symbiosis of free states, based on love. In this call the late Pontiff echoed with new clarity and dynamic inspiration the Catholic tradition of the law of nations which enriches the pages of Aquinas, Suarez and all the moral theologians of the Church.

*A.B. (1942), M.A. (1947), Boston College; LL.B. (1949), LL.M. (1950), George- town University; S.T.L. (1954), Weston College. Dean, Boston College Law School. Pius XII's LEGACY

But now that the voice of this century's pate his election and who beheld before most respected diplomat and most beloved his eyes the imminent renewal of world servant of peace is silenced forever, it is war, did not immediately enunciate the appropriate to consider what this gifted Church's position on a juridical world or- jurist stated concerning the Church's posi- ganization for peace. But in the years to tion on the growth and development of come, from , 1939 to October 6, international juridical institutions. Aside 1958, the Pope, destined by God to lead from the obligation of always re-examining His Church during mankind's greatest up- what the Papacy is teaching, the present heaval, gradually and realistically evolved reappraisal has a special urgency in view a detailed position on a world federation of the fact that American Catholics seem of nations which stands as a challenge to to manifest a massive reluctance to endorse humanity and a rebuke to those all too any form of internationalism which requires numerous Catholics who have not relin- the smallest surrender of American sover- quished their false notions of exaggerated eignty. nationalism and have thus failed to appre- The common opinion of Catholics in ciate the mind of the on the America has by instinct and tradition never most burning issue of our generation. been fully in total sympathy with the world Let us review the , year by year, federalism advocated by the late Holy of Pius XII's ideas on world organization. Father. It is indeed a tragedy that the aver- If we see chronologically how the late Pon- age Catholic in the , blessed tiff reacted to events, we will then be in a with remarkable fidelity to the teachings of better position to summarize and evaluate the Holy See, has failed in a notable way his over-all intellectual and spiritual legacy even to know, much less to radiate, the prin- concerning the problem upon the resolu- ciples of international brotherhood so bril- tion of which depends the very survival of liantly expounded to the world by Pius XlI. the human race. The first message of Pius XII adumbrates The Pope and the War the general themes which will make up the It seems true to state that Cardinal great symphony of this teaching. The morn- Pacelli was startled by his election as Pope ing after his election the Pope spoke to the on March 2, 1939 in the shortest conclave world in moving terms of "the peace which since 1623. No Papal Secretary of State joins -nations .. .by friendly helping alli- had been so elevated since 1775. The state- ances."' On June 2, 1939, the Feast of ments of Pius XII during the first few weeks St. Eugene, the Holy Father, speaking to of his pontificate seem to suggest that he in the , solemnly offered all humility felt unprepared to try to lead the services of the Holy See to stay the "im- the Church and to guide the nations of the minent eruption of force."' 2 Touchingly he world away from the brink of disaster. The called for a crusade of prayer and placed burden of virtually all of his messages dur- "the white legions of . . . children in the ing this time is an exhortation to Europe and to the world to preserve the peace by I KOENIG, PRINCIPLES FOR PEACE 554 (1943), every available means. It is probably under- hereinafter cited as KOENIG. standable that a Pontiff, who did not antici- 2 KOENIG 570. 6 CATHOLIC LAWYER, WINTER 1960 vanguard."'3 On August 24, 1939 the Shep- tion to an international tribunal because the herd of Nations urged upon the whole nations of the world are not willing to con- world that "nothing is lost with peace; all sent to any diminution of their 4 may be lost with war." by submitting to the authority of an inter- As the world plunged into a war which national court. called "a terrible scourge of The first of Pius' nineteen Christmas God," 5 the Pontiff initiated a long series of addresses looks ahead amid the chaos and appeals to the belligerents to observe "the calamities of the war and urges that "in laws of humanity and to act in accordance order to avoid . . . unilateral interpreta- with the stipulations of international agree- tions of treaties, it is of the first importance ments" 6 in connection with civilian popula- to erect some juridical institution which tions, occupied territories and prisoners of shall guarantee the loyal and faithful ful- war. He pleaded that "asphyxiating and fillment of the conditions agreed upon.... ' 7 poison gases . . .be excluded." The Pope does not spell out the nature of The late Pope's first , timed to this needed "institution" but does insist that coincide with the Feast of Christ the King, it be able to "guarantee" its objectives. is not merely a powerful denunciation of During the early years of the war the the omnicompetent state but suggests for Holy Father seemed to be too anguished the first time that after "the cruel strifes of over the millions of souls whose lives had the present have ceased, the new order of been devastated to ponder deeply on the the world, of national and international life, nature of a new international legal order. must rest . . . on the solid rock of natural. One does not think of a new family home law and Divine Revelation." s This "solid while the flames still consume the home rock" is the very essence of the Papal plan that one loves. The Holy Father expressed for peace; the nations of the world should his tender concern for humanity and for join together not because they will thereby the people of , among whom he spare themselves grief but because God had spent so many devoted years, when he intended by the law of nature that the denounced the demand for unconditional nations of the earth form one family. The surrender agreed to by the allied forces at Holy Father therefore rejects outright that Casablanca. Pius' tenderness for war pris- pernicious positivism which had for so long oners, refugees and orphans found expres- dominated the field of international law, sion in addresses truly classical in their that positivism which, in a vicious circle, moving compassion for the victims of war. would deny the status of law to interna- Many addresses assert repeatedly the need tional agreements because there is no tri- for a new international order, but the spe- bunal to enforce them and deny jurisdic- cific nature of that order is not treated in detail. As the war dragged on, the Holy Father 3 Id. at 571. 4 Id. at 585. spoke from time to time of his hopes for a 5 Id. at 589. new order. On September 1, 1944, for 6 id. at 588. example, the fifth anniversary of Hitler's 7 Ibid. 8 Id. at 607. ) Id. at 637. (Emphasis added.) Pius XII's LEGACY attack on defiant Poland, the Pope stated of an organ invested by common consent that with supreme power to whose office it would also pertain to smother in its germinal state An old world lies in fragments. To see ris- any threat of isolated or collective aggres- ing as quickly as possible from those ruins sion.' 2 a new world, healthier, juridically better organized, more in harmony with the exi- The call of the Pope for a "War on war" gencies of human nature - such is the long- includes a call for ing of its tortured people .... Since today The threat of judicial intervention by the • . .the desire to secure a new world-wide nations and of chastisement inflicted on the peace institution ...is ever more occupying aggressor by the society of states, so that the attention and care of statesmen and peo- war will always be subject to the stigma of ples, We gladly express Our pleasure and proscription, always under surveillance and form the hope that its actual achievement liable to preventive measures.... 13 may really correspond in the largest possible measure to the nobility of its end, which is The Holy Father was sterner in this mes- the maintenance of tranquility and security sage than ever before when he outlawed in the world for the benefit of all.10 "all wars of aggression as legitimate solu- disputes. 1 4 With the famous 1944 Christmas address tions of international on democracy, the Holy Father could be Five months after the ringing Christmas said to have entered a new phase of out- Eve message of 1944, the Pope exulted on lining his aspirations for a new world order. V-E Day; on that day, May 9, 1945, he The message struck the world like a thun- spoke on the radio in the most moving derbolt because, in the words of the docu- terms of the "moulders and builders of a ment itself, "beneath the sinister lightning new and better Europe, of a new and better 1 of the war ... the peoples have, as it were, universe."' Three weeks later the Holy awakened from a long torpor."" To avoid Father in an address to the College of another war there must be, Pius XII stated, Cardinals returned to the theme that the "the possibility of censuring and correcting peoples of the world "claim the right to their own hands.' 6 the actions of public authority" and this take their destinies into interest the Pope stated power must be vested "in the people." This With manifest deep democratic power calls for great "moral ma- that the "thought of a new peace organiza- turity" so that from the democracies of the tion is inspired... by the most sincere and world there will emerge an organization loyal good will." He goes on: with an authority which "must be real and What a bitter disillusionment it would be if effective over the member states." The it were to fail, if so many years of suffering and self-sacrifice were to be made in vain, Pope, expressing by implication the hope by permitting again to prevail that spirit of that the Dumbarton Oaks proposals would oppression from which the world hoped to be successful, goes on to state that see itself at last freed once and for all.' 7 An essential point in any future interna- tional arrangement would be the formation 12 Id. at 73. of an organ for the maintenance of peace, '3 Ibid. 14 Id. at 72.

10 POWERS, ed., PAPAL PRONOUNCEMENTS ON THE 15 Id. at 385. POLITICAL ORDER 172 (1952). (Emphasis added.) 16 Id. at 455. 1143 CATHOLIC MIND 66 (1945). 17 Id. at 456. 6 CATHOLIC LAWYER, WINTER 1960

The Pope and the "to prod the conscience of the world."' 19 The words just cited were enunciated by This address along with several others ex- the Holy Father as the United Nations Con- horted nations to make every possible use ference met in San Francisco. Forty-six of the UN while at the same time urging nations participated but the Holy See was them to work for its strengthening. "On not invited. If the Holy Father was disap- September 1, 1948 the Pope ex- pointed at the weaknesses inherent in the pressed his concern for the forthcoming UN Charter, signed on June 26, 1945, he session of the Assembly of the United Na- did not so indicate and in fact made no tions in these terms: reference to the UN until January 1946. If any assembly of men, gathered at a criti- On November 18, 1945 the Administrative cal cross-road in history, needed the help Board of the National Catholic Welfare of prayer, it is this assembly of the United 20 Conference in the annual message of the Nations. American hierarchy-made clear the bishops' In his 1948 Christmas message Pius XII objections: returns to the UN and expresses the fol- The charter which emerged from the San lowing aspirations: Francisco Conference, while undoubtedly May the United Nations Organization be- an improvement on the Dumbarton Oaks come the full and faultless expression of this proposals, does not provide for a sound, in- international for peace, erasing stitutional organization of the international from its institutions and statutes every ves- society. The Security Council provisions tige of its origin, which was of necessity a make it no more than a virtual alliance of 21 solidarity in war! the great Powers for the maintenance of peace. These nations are given a status Although the Pope spoke almost as bluntly above the law. Nevertheless, our country as the American hierarchy about the limi- acted wisely in deciding to participate in tations of the UN, the Pontiff, like the this world organization. It is better than American bishops, has repeatedly urged world chaos .... In time . . . we may have a sound institutional organization of the the fullest cooperation with this less than internationalcommunity which will develop, perfect world organization. The Pope in not through mere voluntary concessions of July 1951 stated that the nations, but from the recognition of the We are happy to assure rights and duties of international society.18 all the agencies and offices of the United Nations, destined to By the summer of 1947 the limitations of bring international assistance to the working the United Nations had become evident. man, that the Church is ever prepared to The smaller nations in particular were dis- support their efforts with her most sympa- collaboration. 22 satisfied with the domination of the great thetic powers in the Security Council. Speaking to the new Minister of El Salvador, one of 19 Koenig, Pius XII and the U.N., 52 CATHOLIC the world's smallest states, Pius XII urged MIND 143-48 (1954). the lesser nations not to "renounce the use" 20Id. at 147. of the forum of the UN but to employ it 21 Ibid. 22 Address of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to members of the International Catholic Congress 18 Cited in Conway, Catholics and Revision of the on Rural Problems, July 2, 1951, in 49 CATHOLIC U.N. Charter,88 AMERICA 230 (1952). MIND 708, 711 (1951). PIus XII's LEGACY

Pius XII and World to his endorsement of the program of the After the deficiencies of the United Na- world federalists: tions became ever more apparent the late You are of the opinion that this world politi- Holy Father began to work - cautiously cal organization, in order to be effective, in form. If by this you but clearly - to advance the ideas of world must be federal understand that it should not be enmeshed government or world federalism. In several in a mechanical unitarism, again you are in statements His Holiness impliedly expressed harmony with the principles of social and his dissatisfaction with the UN Charter and political life so firmly founded and sustained 24 at least by implication stated that the UN by the Church. was a series of compromises, that it ran The one qualification of Pius XII is that counter to the ideas he had enunciated the structure of a world federation of na- during the war and that it had been weak- tions must not be mechanical but organic ened by the concessions made at Teheran, and based on what he would later call the Yalta and Potsdam. But the Holy Father "divinely-willed unification" of humanity.25 was never bitter; he never once called for It is significant to note that in late July anything even approaching a preventive war of 1953 the Vatican Pro-Secretary of State, even though almost one-sixth of the mem- Giovanni B. Montini, writing bers of the Mystical Body were being mar- in the name of the Holy Father to the tyred behind the Iron Curtain in the satel- Semaines Sociales meeting in , in lite nations. strong terms rebuked Catholics insensible The Holy Father was well aware on to admonitions of the Papacy. The letter April 6, 1951 that the world federalists read: the United advocated the transformation of How many ... continue to shut themselves Nations by charter revision into an organ- up within the narrow confines of a chau- ization comparable to that which he himself vinistic nationalism, incompatible with the courageous effort to start a world commu- had called for at Christmas of 1944, a body 26 "with supreme authority and with power nity demanded by recent Popes. to smother in its germinal stages any threat On-October 3, 1953, Pius, in an address of isolated or collective aggression."23 Yet to the International Congress of Penal Law, in an historic address on that day the Holy vigorously called for an international penal Father stated: code and for a Court with jurisdiction sovereign states. Your movement dedicates itself to realizing reaching into individual an effective political organization of the On December 6, 1953 the Holy Father, world. Nothing is more in conformity with in perhaps his most significant address on the traditional doctrine of the Church ... , asserted that: It is necessary therefore to arrive at an or- ganization of this kind, if for no other rea- The setting up of a community of peoples, son than to put a stop to the armament which today has been partially realized, but race.... which is .striving to be established and con- His Holiness added only one qualification 24 Id. at 232. 5 2 4 THE POPE SPEAKS 195, 196 (1959). 23 See Conway, Catholics and Revision of the 26 Graham, War and Peace at PAU, 89 AMERICA. U.N. Charter, 88 AMERICA 230, 231 (1952). 497 (1953). (Emphasis added.) 6 CATHOLIC LAWYER, WINTER 1960

solidated on a more elevated and perfect 1955 that their work was an indispensable level, is an ascent . . . from a pluralism necessity in a "deeply divided world." 30 On of sovereign states to the greatest possible 2 7 June 6, 1954 he inaugurated an all Euro- unity. pean television network with a dramatic One can conclude from this that Pius XII appeal for a "world community. '31 On No- felt that the UN had "partially realized" vember 10, 1955 the Pope told the dele- the desired "supra-national juridical com- gates of 71 nations to the Food and Agri- munity" but that more was yet to be cultural Organization (FAO) of the UN achieved before the world would witness that the "Holy See could not hold aloof "a higher community of men, [the one] from so beneficial and necessary an under- willed by the Creator and rooted in the taking" and expressed gratitude that the unity of their common origin, nature and Holy See had been admitted in 1950 as a final destiny." After a carefully balanced permanent observer at the FAO - "a status definition of true sovereignty the Holy which it alone has up to the present. '32 In Father enunciates a "fundamental theoreti- his message of 1954 the Holy Father cal principle for coping" with the difficul- affirmed that he would "endeavor to bring ties in the "establishment, maintenance and about, by means of international agree- functioning of a real community of states, ments . . . the effective proscription and especially one which would embrace all banishment of atomic, biological and chem- the peoples. '28 The principle reads: ical warfare. '33 It seems important to point Within the limits of the possible and the out that the Holy Father cooperated in and lawful, to promote everything that facili- encouraged all these efforts towards peace tates union and makes it more effective; to even though they were not organized raise dykes against anything that disturbs on it; to tolerate at times that which it is im- a religious basis following that principle possible to correct, but which, on the other which he enunciated on another occasion: hand, must not be permitted to make ship- "[C] ooperation for the good of*the com- wreck of the community of peoples, be- munity, in institutions where God is not cause of the higher good that is expected recognized expressly as the author and law- from it.29 34 giver of the universe" is not forbidden. Pius XII and European Unity But the fearful "co-existence in terror," as Pius described the post-war period in While never retreating from the ideal of his brilliant Christmas message of 1954, a truly juridical supra-national organization Pius XII worked incessantly "to promote brought the attention of His Holiness back again and again to the limitations of the everything that facilitates union." He was existing juridical machinery for the preser- especially active in encouraging anything that advanced European unity; he told mem- vation of peace. On November 10, 1956, after witnessing a broken and an bers of the NATO college on November 3,

30 2 THE POPE SPEAKS 341-42 (1955). 2 7 Cited in Conway, Pius Xl on "The Community 31 1 THE POPE SPEAKS 161, 164 (1954). of Peoples," 90 AMERICA 335, 336 (1953). 32 2 THE POPE SPEAKS 327 (1955). 28 Id. at 335. 3852 CATHOLIC MIND 438, 439 (1954). 3 29 1d. at 336. 4 4 THE POPE SPEAKS 195, 197 (1957). Pius XII's LEGACY

exploding , the Pope made an ance of this obligation by assuming effective control of the armaments of all nations unprecedented radio appeal to 38 without exception. and peoples "to bind closely in a solid pub- who seek a peace worthy lic pact all those" Work for World Unity 35 of the sons of God. His eighteenth Christ- on Three Levels mas message spells out as never before the It can be seen from the foregoing that inadequacies of the United Nations. In an Pius XII urged work for peace on three address on December 23, 1956, relayed by levels - first and most important, the Radio Free Europe and the Voice of Amer- untiring reaffirmation of the necessity of a ica to all the conquered nations of Eastern supra-national juridical world order based Europe, the Vicar of Christ urges that the on the natural law; second, the accep- exercise of their rights, as members of this tance of the United Nations but with cease- organization [the United Nations] be denied less efforts to strengthen it; and third, the to states which refuse even the admission of observers - thus showing that their concept fullest cooperation and collaboration with of state sovereignty threatens the very foun- every agency that promotes international dations of the United Nations.36 friendship. The late Pontiff was an una- After the disillusionment of Geneva and bashed internationalist. He desired and the intervention of Suez the Holy Father sought and prayed for a "future world poli- writes with unusual directness: tical organization . . .. true to the spirit of federalism. '3 9 At the same time he was This organization [the UN] ought also to have the right and power of forestalling all using the influence of the Holy See to military intervention of one state in another, promote "the idea of a United Europe, the whatever be the pretext under which it is Council of Europe and other movements effected, and also the right and power of of the kind" which to Pius XII were "a assuming, by means of a sufficient police manifestation of the world's need to break force, the safeguarding of order in the state which is threatened.37 through, . . . politically and economi- cally, the old rigid lines of geographical The Pope goes on with specific directives: frontiers .... "40 We desire to see the authority of the United Nations strengthened, especially for affect- Conclusions ing the general disarmament which we have Pius XII therefore very firmly committed so much at heart. . . . In fact only in the the Holy See to the support of the basic ambit of an institution like the United Na- principles behind the movement for world tions can the promise of individual nations to reduce armaments . . . be mutually ex- federalism. By asserting that the present changed under the strict obligation of inter- legal machinery to preserve the peace is national law. [O]nly the United Nations is inadequate the late Pope had at least infer- at present in a position to exact the observ- 38 Id. at 345. 39 Cited in Pollock, Address to World Federalists, April 6, 1951. 35 96 AMERICA 214 (1956). 4 0 Address of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the 36 3 THE POPE SPEAKS 331, 344 (1956). First International Private Law Congress, July 15, 7 Id. at 344-45. 1950, in 48 CATHOLIC MIND 754, 755 (1950). 6 CATHOLIC LAWYER, WINTER 1960 entially stated that the United Nations is a national Court of Justice enacted on the compromise solution among nations too floor of the Senate in 1946 in the Connally jealous of their own sovereignty to form a Amendment? And who can deny the duty union of nations which would be in fact of Catholics to work for the reorganization a supra-national federation outlawing war of the United Nations in order to make it and giving juridical enforceability to the more consistent with that world institution unity of mankind. which Pius XII stated should have "su- How has the Catholic world responded preme power"? to the Pope's imperious demand for a new Time has not eroded but rather deepened and "juridically better organized" world? the urgent necessity of implementing the How have American Catholics reacted to commitments made by Pius XII and by the the challenge of Pius XII's statement that hierarchies of the entire English-speaking Catholics . . . are extraordinarily well world. A distinguished body, the Catholic equipped to collaborate in the creation of Association for International Peace, has a climate without which a common action met to explore and to analyze the greatest on the international plane can have neither legacy it has ever received, the intellectual substance nor prosperous growth. ... There and spiritual teaching of the greatest jurist is no other group of human beings so favor- - ably disposed, in breadth and in depth, for of our age. May its study be fruitful and international understanding. . . . Catholics its recommendations wise. And may its .. . above all . . . must realize that they deliberations - which are of such enormous are called to overcome every vestige of na- consequence to all mankind - be carried narrowness .... 41 tionalistic on in the spirit of the inspiring words of Do not Catholics therefore have a spe- the late Pontiff of Peace: to continue on all three fronts cial mandate The task confided to you by Providence in the work of Pius XII? Do not Catholics, this crucial hour is not to conclude a weak for example, have the obligation of insist- and timid peace with the world but to estab- lish for the world a peace really worthy in ing on the ratification by America of the 42 pact, the repeal of America's the sight of God and man. reservation to the jurisdiction of the Inter-

41 POLLOCK, ed., THE MIND OF PIUS XLI 81-82 42 Address of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, on (1955). Feast of St. Eugene, June 2, 1947.