One hundred years ago, on September 3, 1914, Italian cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa became Pope Benedict XV. Elected at the dawn of World War I, history remembers him as a peace-maker. \t <\/p>\n
His pontificate wasn't an easy one: back then, Europe was divided. \t <\/p>\n
FR. BERNARD \u00a0ARDURA\u00a0 This Pope witnessed the drama of World War I and dedicated his first encyclical, 'Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum,' to call for peace. He described war as a useless massacre. In particular, he defined World War I as a dark tragedy in human History. During the conflict the Holy See remained impartial, a stance criticized by the countries involved in the conflict. \t <\/p>\n In his quest for peace, Benedict XV even addressed an apostolic exhortation to Heads of State, where he gave clear instructions on how to reach a ceasefire. \t <\/p>\n His calls for peace, though, were ignored and war continued until November 1918, leaving behind millions of deaths. \t <\/p>\n Benedict XV was the first Pope to call on a week of prayer for the unity of Christians. He also founded the Vatican's Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The Code of Canon Law was published during his pontificate. \t <\/p>\n He canonized Joan of Arc, and promoted interreligious dialogue. A monument in Turkey celebrates him as the 'friend of the people.'<\/p>\n Benedict XV, is best known as the Pope of Peace. He passed away on January 22, 1922. \t \t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 3, 2014. ;He stood for peace during the Great War.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":30377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/fpDuK6LN7lU","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/","international_url":"","type":"rrp","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPresident, Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences <\/strong>
\n'During that period, nationalism was huge. Patriotism, to love one's country, is a virtue, but nationalism is not, because it excludes. Nationalism it's not about loving your country, but rather about rejecting the rest of them. Benedict XV had to face all of this.'<\/em><\/p>\n