Why I Love The Venerable Pope Pius XII Most (Con't.)

Pope Benedict XV Episcopal Ordination of Eugenio Pacelli

I like the Venerable Pope Pius XII the most because he was the pope of my father's youth, also that of my spiritual directors' over the years, the pope under whom Pope Emeritus Benedict was ordained a priest and also Pope Saint John Paul II. It was during the reign of Pope Pius XII that Jorge Bergoglio entered seminary and the Jesuit novitiate. He was also the one who made Blessed Pope John XXIII a cardinal. It just seems to me that his solidly traditional papacy in a war torn world was the foundation of all of the great men of God of our era and of the great men who have most influenced me, including the past two popes, and the present pope, over the past half century and more.

Just to expound on one of the influences. The mentality and work of Ratzinger during the past more than half century began in his seminary years under this great pope and was guided by the light of the Pacelli papacy. Pacelli had been Papal Nuncio to the Kingdom of Bavaria and Germany. During the early days of his ecclesiastical career he worked closely with the master diplomat Cardinal Merry del Val and was consistently effective and promoted during all the papacies before his own reign. He was by far the churchman of greatest influence during the entire first half of the twentieth century. And it was Pope Emeritus Benedict who heroically named Pius XII Venerable.

Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, Eugenio Pacelli and Nicola Canali at the
1914 signing of the Serbian concordat underneath a portrait of Pope Pius X.

I do confess that Benedict is my man, but the source of Benedict was largely Pius XII (in whom also breathed Pope Saint Pius X's spirit and that of his successors, hence the same name of close continuity)! That is why I love him so, because he was the great patriarch of our fathers! He received a great heritage which he loyally passed on.
And one other thing, he never gave communion in the hand, predating, providentially, the confused Novus Ordo! He lived, reigned, and died in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the penultimate pope to do so! A true and most noble prince and great monarch of the Church, by God's design.
And, last, but not least, I love the Venerable Pope Pius XII above all the modern papacies because he loved and was so loved by the Jews., e.g Eugenio Zolli.