QUOTATION: Private Judgement

Wherefore, let the faithful also be on their guard against the overrated independence of private judgment and that false autonomy of human reason. For it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty. Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord.

--Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 104

QUOTATION: Assent

Nor must it be thought that the things contained in Encyclical Letters do not of themselves require assent on the plea that in them the Pontiffs do not exercise the supreme power of their Magisterium. For these things are taught with the ordinary Magisterium, about which it is also true to say, 'He who hears you, hears me.'

--Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis

QUOTATION: The Right to Life

Every human being, even a child in the mother's womb has a right to life directly from God and not from the parents or from any society or authority.  Hence there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral 'indication' that can offer or produce a valid juridical title to a direct deliberate disposal of an innocent human life; that is to say, a disposal that aims at its destruction whether as an end or as a means to another end, which is, perhaps, in no way unlawful in itself.

--Pius XII, Allocution to Large Families, November 26, 1951

QUOTATION: The Sacrifice of the Mass

In order that the oblation by which the faithful offer the divine Victim in this sacrifice to the heavenly Father may have its full effect, it is necessary that the people add something else, namely, the offering of themselves as a victim.

--Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 98

QUOTATION: Voting

Consequently, there is a heavy responsibility on everyone, man or woman, who has the right to vote, especially when the interests of religion are at stake; abstention in this case is in itself, it should be thoroughly understood, a grave and a fatal sin of omission.

--Pope Pius XII,  Allocution of Pope Pius XII to the Congress of the International Union of Catholic Women's Leagues, Rome, Italy, September 11, 1947.

QUOTATION: The Church

We deplore and condemn the pernicious error of those who dream of an imaginary Church, a kind of society that finds its origin and growth in charity, to which, somewhat contemptuously, they oppose another, which they call juridical. But this distinction which they introduce is false: for they fail to understand that the reason which led our Divine Redeemer to give to the community of man He founded the constitution of a Society, perfect of its kind and containing all the juridical and social elements - namely, that He might perpetuate on earth the saving work of Redemption.

--Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi

QUOTATION: Pain

Bodily pain affects man as a whole down to the deepest layers of his moral being. It forces him to face again the fundamental questions of his fate, of his attitude toward God and fellow man, of his individual and collective responsibility and of the sense of his pilgrimage on earth.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Clothing

It might be said that society speaks through the clothing it wears. Through its clothing it reveals its secret aspirations and uses it, at least in part, to build or destroy the future.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: The Unborn Christ

But the knowledge and love of our Divine Redeemer, of which we were the object from the first moment of His Incarnation, exceed all that the human intellect can hope to grasp. For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the beatific vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love.

--Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, #75

QUOTATION: The Unborn Christ

The Body of Jesus Christ, formed by the work of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, enjoyed in the fullest degree the power of feeling and perceiving, more perfectly in fact than the bodies of all other men.

--Pope Pius XII, On Devotion To The Sacred Heart Of Jesus

QUOTATION: Modesty

How many young girls there are who do not see any wrongdoing in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep. They certainly would blush if they could guess the impression they make and the feelings they evoke in those who see them.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Religion in the Public Square

To wish to draw an exact line of separation between religion and life, between the natural and the supernatural, between the Church and the world, as if they had nothing to do with each other, as if the rights of God were valueless in all manifold realities of daily life, whether human or social, is entirely foreign to Catholic thought and is positively anti-Christian.

--Pope Pius XII, On Christian Rebirth, 1947

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary and Grace

To desire grace without recourse to the Virgin Mother is to desire to fly without wings.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Pope Pius XII on The Nazis

The Nazis are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: The Church as Foundation of Society

It is Christianity, above all others, which teaches the full truth, real justice, and that divine charity which drives away hatred, ill will, and enmity. Christianity has been given charge of these virtues by the Divine Redeemer, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and she must do all in her power to put them to use. Anyone, therefore, who knowingly ignores Christianity -- the Catholic Church -- or tries to hinder, demean, or undo her, either weakens thereby the very bases of society, or tries to replace them with props not strong enough to support the edifice of human worth, freedom, and well-being.

--Pope Pius XII, Memnisse Iuvat, 1958

QUOTATION: Bishops

Bishops, who are the successors of the Apostles, and priests, who according to their proper office cooperate with the Bishops, have been charged with announcing and teaching that gospel which Jesus and His Apostles first announced and taught, and which this Holy See and all the Bishops united to it have preserved and transmitted pure and inviolate through the centuries. The holy pastors, therefore, are not the inventors and the composers of this gospel, but only its authorized custodians and its divinely constituted heralds.

--Pope Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentem, 1954

QUOTATION: The Sense of Sin

The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.

--Bl. Pope Pius XII.

QUOTATION: Abortion

However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent.

--Pope Pius XI

QUOTATION: Holy Virginity

Holy Virginity and that perfect chastity which is consecrated to the service of God are without a doubt the most precious treasures which the Founder of the Church has left in the hertiage to the society which He established. -

-Pope Pius XII, Sancta Virginitas

QUOTATION: Personal Virtue and the Communion of Saints

In that Mystical Body, thanks to the communion of saints, no good can be done, no virtue practiced by individual members, without its contributing something also to the salvation of all.

--Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis