Editing Pope Pius XI (section)

== Internal Church affairs and ecumenism ==
In his management of the Church's internal affairs, Pius XI mostly continued the policies of his predecessor. Like [[Benedict XV]], he emphasized spreading Catholicism in Africa and Asia and training native clergy in those territories. He ordered every religious order to devote some of its personnel and resources to missionary work.

Pius XI continued the approach of Benedict XV on the issue of how to deal with the threat of [[Modernism in the Catholic Church|modernism]] in Catholic theology. He was thoroughly orthodox theologically and had no sympathy with modernist ideas that relativized fundamental Catholic teachings. He condemned modernism in his writings and addresses. But his opposition to modernist theology was by no means a rejection of new scholarship within the Church, as long as it was developed within the framework of orthodoxy and compatible with the Church's teachings.{{Citation needed|date=November 2007}} Pius XI was interested in supporting serious scientific study within the Church, establishing the [[Pontifical Academy of the Sciences]] in 1936. In 1928 he formed the Gregorian Consortium of universities in Rome administered by the [[Society of Jesus]], fostering closer collaboration between their [[Gregorian University]], [[Pontifical Biblical Institute|Biblical Institute]], and [[Pontifical Oriental Institute|Oriental Institute]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Storia del P.I.O. |language=it-IT |work=Orientale |url=https://unipio.org/it/storia/ |url-status=live |access-date=20 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222050804/https://unipio.org/it/storia/ |archive-date=22 December 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pope Pius XI |date=30 September 1928 |title=Motu Proprio Quod Maxime |url=https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/la/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-xi_motu-proprio_19280914_motuproprio-quod-maxime.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180209090529/https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/la/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-xi_motu-proprio_19280914_motuproprio-quod-maxime.html |archive-date=9 February 2018 |access-date=20 December 2017 |website=w2.vatican.va }}</ref>

[[File:Pius XI after Coronation.jpg|thumb|Pope Pius XI (1922–1939). Warsaw forced his departure as Nuncio. Two years later, he was pope. He signed concordats with numerous countries, including Lithuania and Poland.]]

Pius XI strongly encouraged devotion to the [[Sacred Heart]] in his encyclical ''[[Miserentissimus Redemptor]]'' (1928).

Pius XI was the first pope to directly address the [[Ecumenism|Christian ecumenical movement]]. Like Benedict XV he was interested in achieving reunion with the [[Eastern Orthodox]] (failing that, he determined to give special attention to the [[Eastern Catholic]] churches).<ref>{{cite web |title=Pius XI |url=https://www.pas.va/en/magisterium/pius-xi.html |website=The Potifical Academy of Sciences |access-date=14 February 2024}}</ref> He also allowed the dialogue between Catholics and [[Anglo-Catholics|Anglicans]] that had been planned during Benedict XV's pontificate to take place at [[Mechelen]], but these enterprises were firmly aimed at actually reuniting with the Catholic Church other Christians who basically agreed with Catholic doctrine, bringing them back under papal authority. To the broad pan-Protestant ecumenical movement he took a less favorable attitude.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}

He rejected, in his 1928 encyclical ''[[Mortalium animos]]'', the idea that Christian unity could be attained by establishing a broad federation of many bodies holding conflicting doctrines; rather, the Catholic Church was the true Church of Christ. "The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it." The pronouncement also prohibited Catholics from joining groups that encouraged interfaith discussion without distinction.<ref>Pope Pius XI, [https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19280106_mortalium-animos.html ''Mortalium animos''], 6 January 1928.</ref>

The next year, the Vatican was successful in lobbying the [[Fascist Italy|Mussolini regime]] to require Catholic religious education in all schools, even those with a majority of Protestants or Jews. The Pope expressed his "great pleasure" with the move.{{sfn|Kertzer|2014|loc=3329}}

In 1934, the Fascist government at the Vatican's urging agreed to expand the prohibition of public gatherings of Protestants to include private worship in homes.{{sfn|Kertzer|2014|loc=3323}}

=== Activities ===
==== Beatifications and canonizations ====
{{Main|List of people beatified by Pope Pius XI|List of saints canonized by Pope Pius XI}}
Pius XI canonized 34 saints during his pontificate, including [[Bernadette Soubirous]] (1933), [[Thérèse of Lisieux]] (1925), [[John Vianney]] (1925), [[John Fisher]] and [[Thomas More]] (1935), and [[John Bosco]] (1934). He also beatified 464 of the faithful, including [[Pierre-René Rogue]] (1934) and [[Noël Pinot]] (1926).

Pius XI also declared certain saints to be [[Doctor of the Church|Doctors of the Church]]:
* [[Peter Canisius]] (21 May 1925)
* [[John of the Cross]] (24 August 1926; naming him "''Doctor mysticus''" or "Mystical Doctor")
* [[Robert Bellarmine]] (17 September 1931)
* [[Albert the Great]] (16 December 1931; naming him "''Doctor universalis''" or "Universal Doctor")

==== Consistories ====
{{Main|Cardinals created by Pius XI}}
Pius XI created 76 cardinals in 17 consistories, including [[August Hlond]] (1927), [[Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster]] (1929), [[Raffaele Rossi]] (1930), [[Elia Dalla Costa]] (1933), and [[Giuseppe Pizzardo]] (1937).  One of those was his successor, Eugenio Pacelli, who became [[Pope Pius XII]]. Pius XI in fact believed that Pacelli would be his successor and dropped many hints that this was his hope. On one such occasion at a consistory for new cardinals on 13 December 1937, while posing with the new cardinals, Pius XI pointed to Pacelli and told them: "He'll make a good pope!"<ref name="Fisherman" />

Pius XI also accepted the resignation of a cardinal from the cardinalate in 1927: the Jesuit [[Louis Billot]].

The pope deviated from the usual practice of naming cardinals in collective consistories, opting instead for smaller and more frequent consistories, with some of them being less than six months apart. Unlike his predecessors, he increased the number of non-Italian cardinals.

In 1923, Pius XI wanted to appoint Ricardo Sanz de Samper y Campuzano ([[majordomo]] in the [[Prefecture of the Papal Household|Papal Household]]) to the College of Cardinals but was forced to abandon the idea when King [[Alfonso XIII]] of Spain insisted that the pope appoint cardinals from [[South America]] despite the fact that Sanz hailed from [[Colombia]]. Since Pius XI did not want to appear to be influenced by political considerations, he chose in the December 1923 consistory to name no South American cardinals at all. According to an article by the historian Monsignor Vicente Cárcel y Ortí, a 1928 letter from Alfonso XIII asked the pope to restore [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Valencia in Spain|Valencia]] as a cardinalitial see and appoint its archbishop, Prudencio Melo y Alcalde, a cardinal. Pius XI responded that he could not do so because Spain already had the habitual number of cardinals (set at four) with two of them fixed ([[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toledo|Toledo]] and [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville|Seville]]) and the other two variable. Pius XI recommended that Alfonso XIII wait for a future occasion, but he never did make the archbishop a cardinal, and not until 2007 was the diocese given a cardinal archbishop. In December 1935, the pope intended to appoint the Jesuit priest [[Pietro Tacchi Venturi]] a cardinal, but abandoned the idea given that the [[United Kingdom|British]] government would have regarded the move as a friendly gesture toward [[Fascism]] since the priest and [[Benito Mussolini]] were considered to be close.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cardinals.fiu.edu/consistories-xx.htm#PiusXI|title=Pius XI (1922–1939)|publisher=The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church|author=Salvador Miranda|date=|accessdate=18 February 2022}}</ref>