Pius XI: echoes of that era...

(Vatican Radio) It was the 10th February 1939 when the founder of our radio station, Pope Pius XI died after a 16 year pontificate. For the record he was elected on the 6th of February 1922 and it was during his pontificate that the singning of the Lateran Pacts between the Holy See and the Italian State brought an end to the Roman Question.
His stature as Pope did not go unremarked by the international media and in 1933 Time Magazine dedicated its cover to him. Also remarkable were his twenty or so encyclicals. Famous in a special way is the one focusing on social justice known as 'Quadragesimo Anno' written as the title indicates to mark forty years since Leo XIII's encyclical 'Rerum Novarum'. But also 'Mitt Brennender Sorge' in which Pius XI accuses the Nazi Government of violations of the 1933 Concordat and of sowing "the tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church"...
However on a more personal note who was Papa Achille Ratti and what kind of an era did he encounter as Pope?

To mark this special anniversary Veronica Scarisbrick brings you an adapted feature taken from her series "Echoes of an era : the popes of the twentieth century remembered by those who knew them" .

In this programme she brings you the personal witness of some of those who lived through that era. Guests who include members of the papal court of the time such as the late Count Carlo Cardelli and the late Marquis Mario Theodoli. But also some of those who did not belong to that papal court such as the late Princess Orietta Doria Pamphilj and Rosminian Father Jean Charles- Roux.

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