See also: Benoit

Giacomo della Chiesa , born with Pegli, close to Genoa in Italy, the November 21st 1854, was pope under the name of Benoît XV (in Latin Benedictus XV , in Italian Benedetto XV ) of the September 3rd 1914 with its death the January 22nd 1922 with Rome.

Its reign is marked by the promulgation of new the canonical Code of right, big step in the centralization of the pontifical capacity, like by an intense diplomatic activity.

Youth

Giacomo Della Chiesa, wire of the marquis Giuseppe Della Chiesa (1821-1892) and of Giovanna Migliorati (1827-1904), is born in a family from old nobility from the town of Genoa, in the Italy of the North, which is attached to the pope Calixte II and the king de Lombardie Bérenger II. His/her mother also belonged to a family of former nobility but of the town of Naples: the Migliorati, family which had given the day, at the beginning of the 15th century, with another pope, Innocent VII.

After traditional studies, it enters in 1871 to the Faculty of Law of Genoa and obtains its Doctorat Civil law in 1875. At the time of its studies, the climate anticlerical pushed it to begin in the catholic Action, of which it chairs the local section.

Pope

On the doctrinal level

The new pope Benoît XV gets busy at once to calm the movements of the “modernistic Crise”. It is the object of its first Encyclique, AD beatissimi , dated November 1st 1914. The Sodalitium Pianum of Mgr Benigni, more known under the name of “the Fir plantation”, east dissolves in 1921. The cardinal Merry del Val is replaced by the cardinal Ferrata (who will finish assassinated), then Gasparri. Nevertheless, Of Lay remainder to the head of the Congregation of the Bishops, and Merry del Val is named with the head of the Sacrée Congregation of the Holy Office.

If the encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus (September 15th 1920) encourages the faithful ones to read the Bible, it supports “the perfect immunity of the Writings with regard to any error”. The biblical Manuel of Vigouroux is put at the Index in 1923, and Lagrange is seen prevented from publishing its work on the Genèse. The sulpician Jules Touzard also undergoes the lightnings of the the Holy Office to have questioned attribution at Moïse in person of the books of the Pentateuque. The anti-modernistic oath is maintained. In 1915, a Congregation of the studies, seminars and universities are created for better controlling the doctrinal training of the seminarists.

Benoît XV promotes a popular piety: he extends to the universal Church the festival of the Holy Family and supports the devotion with Crowned Heart, with the Virgin of the Pains, Notre Dame de Lorette, sponsors Italian city of Loreto, or with Very Invaluable Blood.

The First World War

In AD beatissimi (November 1st, 1914), Benoît XV gets busy to denounce the First World War, described in vigorous images in the encyclical:

“On all sides the sad image of the war dominates, and there is not so to speak an other thought, which occupies the spirits. Nations - most powerful and most considerable - are with the catches: should it be astonished if, provided with terrible machines, which had with last progress of the art of warfare, they so to speak aim at between-being destroyed with refinements of cruelty? More limits with the ruins and carnage: each day the ground, flooded by new brooks of blood, covers deaths and casualties. ”

He had proclaimed the Neutralité of the Holy See in the Osservatore Romano of the September 3rd 1914 and had called the belligerents with peace the 8. Thereafter, Benoît XV refuses with any judgment, in spite of the war crimes whose the two camps are shown, being satisfied to call in a general way to the respect with the rules of the right of the war the catholic and anticlerical Leon Bloy renames it “Pilate XV” and Clemenceau “the pope boche”. The proposal of Millerand to restore the embassy close the Holy See, at the end of 1914, does not meet any adhesion of the Council of Ministers thus. In 1917, André Tardieu reminds the pope that its first duty is “to take party between the good and the evil”. Conversely, Benoît XV is supported by the French Action and Charles Maurras devotes more than one hundred of articles to defend it.

On its side, Ludendorff sees as a Benoit XV the “French pope”. A mail of the Chancery of State addressed to Mgr Scapinelli, Apostolic nuncio in Austria, is thus refused at the Austrian border with the reason which it comes from an enemy country. ”

However, the non-intervention of the Holy See is not passive. Thus, Benoît XV makes an effort at all costs, in 1914 and 1915, to avoid the entry in war of Italy remained neutral: it second German attempts to buy Italian neutrality at the expense of Austria-Hungary, requested to give up the Trieste, the South the Tyrol and the grounds irrédentes.

These attempts were interpreted variously: attempt to protect Austria-Hungary from an Italian attack, and thus to thus allow to avoid with the central Empires that an additional face for the ones does not open, will to also keep the war far possible from Rome for the others. In the same way, Benoît XV asks for spring 1916 with Guillaume II of prevent the progression of the Russian troops towards Constantinople, fearing to see the two orthodoxe patriarchates linking itself against the Holy See. The request is withdrawn a few days later, Benoît XV finally preferring not to interfere into the conflict.

July 28th, 1915, Benoît XV launches his first attempt at negotiated peace, inviting “to solve the terrible conflict (…) otherwise than by the violence of the weapons” and “to recognize, the serene spirit, the rights and the right aspirations of the people. Side of the Agreement, Great Britain and Belgium make carry by their polished ambassadors of the refusal. Italy is satisfied to join this step; France, which does not maintain any more diplomatic bonds with the Holy See, does not answer. The public opinions of these two countries show the pope to want to sap moral their troops. One also reproaches him for claiming peace only after the entry in war of the United States, i.e. at the moment when the Agreement takes again the top. Clemenceau summarizes well the majority opinion of the French while denouncing in his newspaper, the Man connected (August 18th, 1917) a “German peace”.

The pontifical diplomacy is made very active to encourage the two camps with peace, without success. However, the war gave place to a renewal of the diplomatic relations: thus, Sir Henry Howard was accredited on December 30th, 1914 as ambassador plenipotentiary “on mission special” of Great Britain, thus joining again relations broken since the time of Elisabeth I {{Re}} of England. In July 1915, Serbia makes in the same way, followed in August by the Netherlands; in May 1917 it is the turn of Luxembourg. During the year 1916, the relations with the countries of Latin America are also standardized.

However, the national clergies do not pursue the pontifical policy. Thus French clergy - the Sertillanges father declares thus at the time of a ceremony patriotico-nun to Notre-Dame de Paris, the December 10th 1917: “Very Holy Father, we cannot for the moment retain your calls to peace. ” The catholics propose “martyrdom” undergone by the cathedral of Rheims, set fire to in September 1914, which will be followed in 1918, the day of the Good Friday, by that of the Parisian church Saint-Gervais. On the contrary, the national clergies undertake to set up their own cells of propaganda: Der Krieg und der Katholicismus (“the war and Catholicism”) published in Germany answer the German War and Catholicism and Germany and the Allies in front of the Christian conscience of the catholic Committee of French propaganda abroad. Benoît XV does not condemn any of these activities, which however go against its proclaimed wish of union of all the catholics.

Parallel to his diplomatic action, Benoît XV follows a voluntarist humane policy. In December 1914, he entrusts to Eugenio Pacelli, future pope Pie XII, the direction of a service of assistance to wounded and prisoner of war. In same time, he asks the belligerents to authorize the prisoner exchange wounded. Those accept and the exchanges start since 1915. Within this framework, 30.000 soldiers are hospitalized in Suisse. The Vatican is also used as office of information to the families: the Work of the prisoners receives 170.000 requests and sends 50.000 communications. On this subject, pacifist the Romain Roland will qualify then the Vatican of the “second Red Cross”. Nevertheless, Benoît XV obtains to send a representative at the time of the congress of Versailles of 1918.

The pope shows himself very pessimistic on the payment of the conflict. In its encyclical Pacem, Dei munus pulcherrimum of the May 23rd 1920, it disapproves the treatment considered too humiliating reserved in Germany and condemns the cutting operated by the Traité of Versailles from which it estimates that it “did not extirpate the germs of the old discords”.

Benoît XV also provides the foundations of a “new era of the legal settlements” in his consistoriale short speech of November 21st, 1921, by refusing the transfer of the prerogatives granted to the Emperor to the States born of the dislocation of Austria-Hungary