Pius XI (1857-1939) was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 1922. In 1929, he negotiated the Lateran Treaty that ended a long conflict between the papacy and the Kingdom of Italy called the “Roman question.” The treaty gave the pope sovereignty over Vatican City (see Papal States ). Pius was increasingly confronted by the rise of totalitarian governments in Europe. In 1931, he issued an encyclical (letter to the entire church) condemning Italian Fascism. He negotiated a concordat (agreement) with Nazi Germany in 1933, but he condemned both Nazism and Communism in separate encyclicals in 1937. However, in 1936, he supported dictator Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War against the republican government’s increased persecution of the Catholic Church.
Pius was born on May 31, 1857, in Desio, Italy, near Milan. His given and family name was Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti. He was ordained a priest in 1879, and Pope Benedict XV named him a cardinal in 1921. Pius died on Feb. 10, 1939.
