Spellman and Pacelli visited each major Catholic population center.

Eugenio Pacelli at the age of six in 1882

In 1894, aged 18, Pacelli began his theology studies at Rome's oldest seminary, Tridentine Collegio Capranica Seminary, and in November of the same year, registered to take a philosophy course at the Jesuit Gregoriana University and theology at the Ataneo Pontificio di Sant ' Apollinaire.

Monsignor Pietro Gasparri, the recently appointed undersecretary at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, had underscored his proposal to Pacelli to work in the ' Vatican's equivalent of the Foreign office ' by highlighting the ' necessity of defending the Church from the onslaughts of secularism and liberalism throughout Europe.

Pacelli at the Headquarters of Wilhelm II, German Emperor | Wilhelm II

As there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of the German Empire.

" His recovery began with a ' rapport '" with the 24 year old Sister Pasqualina – she would soon be transferred to Munich when Pacelli " pulled strings at the highest level ".

Nuncio Pacelli in July 1924 at the 900th anniversary of the City of Bamberg

Pacelli supported German diplomatic activity aimed at rejection of punitive measures from victorious former enemies.

Pacelli was summoned back to Rome at this time – the call coming by telegram when he was resting at his favourite retreat, the Rorschach convent sanatorium.

Historian Walter Bussmann argued that Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State, dissuaded Pope Pius XI – who was nearing death at the time – from condemning the Kristallnacht in November 1938, when he was informed of it by the papal nuncio in Berlin.

Present at this meet were Goetz, Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Fred Burke, Gus Winkeler, Louis Campagna, Daniel Serritella, William Pacelli, and Bolton himself.

Eugenio Pacelli at the Imperial Headquarters with the peace proposal of Benedict XV to Emperor William II, German Emperor | William II

Cardinal Spellman's galero was also worn by Pope Pius XII ( as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli ) until the latter's election to the papacy at the 1939 Papal conclave.

He received his episcopal consecration on the following September 8 from Cardinal Pacelli ( whose old vestments Spellman himself wore ), with Archbishops Giuseppe Pizzardo and Francesco Borgongini Duca serving as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's Basilica.

Discussions between the two parties took place between 1931 and 1932 and at one point representatives of the Reich pointed out that Italy had an army Archbishop with Cardinal Pacelli indicating that that was because Italy had signed a comprehensive concordat with the Vatican.

On 4 August 1933 the British Minister reported " in conversations I have had with Cardinal Pacelli and Monsignor Pizzardo, neither gave me the feeling of the slightest regret at the eclipse of the Centre, and its consequent loss of influence in German politics.

" On 19 August Kirkpatrick had a further discussion with Cardinal Pacelli in which he expressed his " disgust and abhorrence " at Hitler's reign of terror to the diplomat.

" John Cornwell views Cardinal Pacelli as being an example of a " fellow traveller " of the Nazis who, through the Concordat, was willing to accept the generosity of Hitler in the educational sphere ( more schools, teachers and pupil places ), so long as the Church withdrew from the social and political sphere, at the same time as Jews were being dismissed from universities and Jewish pupil places were being reduced.

Two previous popes stayed at the Residence as cardinals: Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII ; and Giovanni Cardinal Montini, who became Pope Paul VI.

He was baptised at the home of his maternal grandmother, the Italian princess Donna Vittoria Ruspoli, of the princes di Poggio Suasa, the Palazzo Ruspoli, on the Via del Corso, 418, Rome, by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli ( later Pope Pius XII ).

After his ordination he worked in Berlin at Saint Matthias, where he became a close friend of Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, later to be Pope Pius XII.

The Concordat was initialled in Rome three days later by Cardinal Pacelli and von Papen, with signing taking place on 20 July.

On 23 July a British Minister met Cardinal Pacelli who appeared " very satisfied " with the signing of the Concordat.

Gordon Zahn felt that though the signing of the Concordat was distasteful for Cardinal Pacelli it had spared the Church in Germany from greater hardship and persecution.

Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany ( 1917 – 1929 ), and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany.

The Reichskonkordat was an integral part of four concordats Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States.

Between 1933 and 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of the Reichskonkordat.

Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber to help him write a protest of Nazi violations of the Reichskonkordat ; this was to become Pius XI's 1937 encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge.

In this book he purports to examine the position of Pacelli, the later Pius XII, towards Adolf Hitler ’ s seizure of power, the downfall of the Catholic Zentrum Party, the Reichskonkordat between Nazi-Germany and the Vatican, the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (‘ With Burning Concern ’), paganism, the national-socialist education programs, the ‘ T4-program ’ ( the murder of physically and mentally handicapped persons ), the invasion of Poland, Operation Barbarossa, the Jews in the Netherlands, priest-president Jozef Tiso of Slovakia, the Ustasha in Independent State of Croatia, the deportation of Jews from Rome, the Hungarian Holocaust, the help offered to war criminals, the resistance against Nazism, the alleged refusal of the Church to " give back Jewish " children who had been in hiding, the failures of the Allies, alleged antisemitism after the Holocaust, and the moral question of alleged guilt of the Church and the pope.

Ludwig Kaas was a scholar and prolific writer, addressing a wide range of issues in Latin or German concerning marital law, education reform, moral and systematic theology, canon law, prisoners of war, the speeches of Eugenio Pacelli, historical issues, policy issues of the Weimar Republic and the Reichskonkordat.

Hitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Eugenio Pacelli / Pope Pius XII before and during the Nazi era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933.

He further argues that Monsignor Kass, who was involved in negotiations for the Reichskonkordat, and at that time the head of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, persuaded his party members, with the acquiescence of Pacelli, in the summer of 1933 to enable Hitler to acquire dictatorial powers.

He further argues that Monsignor Kass, who was involved in negotiations for the Reichskonkordat, and at that time the head of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, persuaded his party members, with the acquiescence of Pacelli, in the summer of 1933 to enable Hitler to acquire dictatorial powers.

Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born on 2 March 1876 in Rome into a family of intense Catholic piety with a history of ties to the papacy ( the " Black Nobility ").

Pacelli on the day of his ordination, 2 April 1899.

While all other candidates from the Rome diocese were ordained in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Pacelli was ordained a priest on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1899 alone in the private chapel of a family friend the Vice-Regent of Rome, Mgr Paolo Cassetta.

In 1908, Pacelli served as a Vatican representative on the International Eucharistic Congress, accompanying Rafael Merry del Val to London, where he met Winston Churchill.

Pope Benedict XV appointed Pacelli as nuncio to Bavaria on 23 April 1917, consecrating him as titular Bishop of Sardis and immediately elevating him to archbishop in the Sistine Chapel on 13 May 1917.

Pacelli was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Germany on 23 June 1920, and — after the completion of a Bavarian concordat — his nunciature was moved to Berlin in August 1925.

In post-war Germany, in the absence of a nuncio in Moscow, Pacelli worked also on diplomatic arrangements between the Vatican and the Soviet Union.

Pacelli was made a Cardinal-Priest of Santi Giovanni e Paolo on 16 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI, and within a few months, on 7 February 1930, Pius XI appointed him Cardinal Secretary of State, responsible for foreign policy and state relations throughout the world.

Immediately on becoming Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli and Ludwig Kaas took up negotiations on a Baden Concordat which continued until the spring and summer of 1932.

The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on 10 September 1933.

The 47 questions by the six scholars were grouped into three parts: ( a ) 27 specific questions on existing documents, mostly asking for background and additional information such as drafts of the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, which was largely written by Eugenio Pacelli.

He named Pietro Gasparri to be his Cardinal Secretary of State and personally consecrated Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli on 13 May 1917 as Archbishop on the very day of the Marian apparitions in Fatima.

Prior to its tabling in Dáil Éireann and presentation to the Irish electorate in a plebiscite, an obfuscatory comment on the final amended draft by Secretary of State Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the future Holy Father Pius XII responded " We do not approve, neither do we disapprove ; We shall maintain silence.

Following the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli was elected as Pope Pius XII, and one of his first acts was to appoint Spellman the sixth Archbishop of New York on April 15, 1939.

In 1939, Eugenio Pacelli, who was consecrated bishop on May 13, 1917 — the day of the first apparition — was elected to the papacy as Pius XII, and became the Pope of Fátima.

It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli ( who later became Pope Pius XII ) and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg respectively.