Benedict died relatively young. Though not the youngest man to be elected Pope this century – John Paul II was only 58 when he was elected, whereas Benedict was two months short of 60 – he was the youngest reigning Pope at his death – 67. His death on 22 January 1922 was unexpected. Despite his delicate health in childhood, he had been of a robust constitution throughout his adult life: he told Gasparri that in all his life he had only spent one and a half lire on medicine.1 In old age his only infirmity appears to have been rheumatics.2 His death was caused by the catching of a chill while waiting to say Mass for the nuns of the Vatican’s Santa Marta Hospice.3 Rarely indisposed, Benedict did not take much care of the illness which he developed, which eventually went to his lungs and gave him pneumonia. Without antibiotics, there was little his doctors could do for him.
According to Jemolo, there was unprecedented public mourning in Italy for Benedict’s death.4 Hebblethwaite says that Tor the first time since 1870, flags were flown at half-mast on all government buildings’.5 No such tribute had been paid to previous popes. This reaction may only have been only an indirect tribute to the man, that is, it reflected the extent to which Benedict’s pontificate had improved the relationship between Italy and the Papacy. Though, as expected, the Catholic newspapers paid handsome tributes, the secular press was grudging. Il Corriere della Sera, the leading organ of the Liberal-Conservative establishment, was extremely critical of his peace efforts and the best encomium that it could offer was that he was ‘Not an exceptional pontiff by reason of his wisdom or love, he was all the same, in very difficult times, a Pope worthy of his high office’.6 Other Italian reactions were even less positive: the Socialist newspaper L’Avanti! described him as ‘cold, mediocre and obstinate’ and prophesied that ‘Tomorrow history will have forgotten him’.7 The prophesy was not far wrong. But he was mourned beyond Italy. Giuseppe Motta, the Swiss president of the League of Nations, paid him a fulsome tribute.8 Charles Schol, the president of the American Union of Hebrew Congregations, wrote to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, sending his condolences and calling Benedict ‘a constant exponent of the finer spiritual values of life and a great standard-bearer of morality among men and of peace and concord among nations’.9 Some Jews since then have passed a rather harsher judgement on him.
What kind of Pope was Benedict XV? His predecessor Pius X is often considered to have been a ‘religious’ rather than a ‘political’ Pope, that is one whose overwhelming interests and concerns were with the Church, rather than the secular world and its problems, in contrast to Leo XIII. Of course, Pius X also had to contend with the problems of the secular world, most notably anti-clericalism in France, and he also adopted his own policy to do with the political consequences of economic and social change in Italy during his pontificate. Nevertheless, by comparison with Pius X, Benedict could still be described as ‘political’, certainly the problems of war and peace, and peace, that is both between and inside nations, largely engaged his attentions and those of Gasparri. Yet he did dedicate himself to his pastoral mission, the government of the Church, as is seen in Chapter 8. Benedict was the very epitome of an ecclesiastical bureaucrat and diplomat, but he also remained a priest in the full sense of that term, a saviour of souls with a pastoral concern for those around him. One of the most moving episodes narrated by Carlo Monti in his diary concerns himself. In early 1918, Benedict discovered that Monti, a widower, was effectively ‘living in sin’.10 He might well also have been concerned about the danger of scandal were the facts to become public knowledge, but it is clear that his primary concern was for Monti’s spiritual welfare and he eventually persuaded Monti to remarry, performing the ceremony himself.11 Boselli, the Prime Minister of Italy, once asked Monti whether Benedict was a pious man: Monti replied that he was a man of great but quiet piety.12 He clearly was deeply pious, though much of his piety would nowadays perhaps be regarded even in Catholic circles as narrow and old-fashioned. Frugal and abstemious in his habits, he was also very conventional about matters of public decency: he was, for example, scandalized by the rage for the tango in the years just before the First World War.13 On the other hand, there was nothing exceptional about his piety, no ‘heroic virtues’ of the sort which Merry Del Val quickly noticed in his master Pius X who was beatified in 1951 and canonized in 1954. Benedict has never been considered for beatification or canonization, unlike his successors Pius XII and John XXIII. Yet, though his human defects were very evident – irascibility was his besetting sin, offset by immediate remorse – he was also full of human virtues, the most conspicuous of which was undoubtedly his boundless charity.
Where does Benedict’s reign fit in the modern history of the Papacy? On the one hand, his pontificate marked a clear break with that of his predecessor, both in terms of his abandonment of the anti-Modernist ‘crusade’ and of the change of direction of papal diplomacy. But Benedict changed nothing of the reforms which Pius X initiated in the field of liturgical practice, and it was in his reign that Papa Sarto’s great project for the codification of Canon Law was brought to fruition. On the other hand, it could be argued that in some important respects Benedict returned to the policies of Leo XIII, and of his mentor, Rampolla. This is certainly true in regard to the diplomatic policies of Benedict and Gasparri. It is also true of the concern and commitment which Benedict showed for the Oriental Church and for the Missions, and his encyclical on biblical scholarship, Spiritus Paraclitus. It can also be argued that in Benedict’s reign the Roman Catholic Church assumed the most characteristic features of its modern physiognomy, with the Code of Canon Law, the attempt to introduce a universal catechism, the emphasis on the autonomy and special needs of the Oriental Churches and the reinvigoration of its missionary outreach through a renewal of the underlying ideology of that endeavour in an anti-colonialist direction. In this sense, Benedict laid the foundations for the massive presence in Africa and Asia which the Roman Catholic Church enjoys today. Perhaps most important of all, Benedict, ably assisted by Gasparri, was responsible for revitalizing papal diplomacy, which had languished under his predecessor. Under Benedict XV, the Holy See assumed a high profile in international affairs, becoming a major diplomatic player in its own right, in a far better and stronger position to defend its interests. Whereas, in 1914, the Papacy seemed doomed to follow the fate of the Ottoman Caliphate, which by then was on its way out, by the end of Benedict’s reign the Papacy had completely emerged from its pre-war isolation.14
It is perhaps the greatest evidence of the success of Benedict’s policies that they were all followed by his successor, Pius XI. Ironically, Achille Ratti was not Benedict’s favourite as his successor, it was Cardinal La Fontaine of Venice who filled that role, presumably because he had had considerable pastoral experience.15 But the real battle in the 1922 conclave was not initially between La Fontaine and Ratti, but between Merry Del Val and De Lai on the one hand and Benedict’s ‘followers’, most notably Gasparri, on the other.16 Benedict did not make sufficient creations to reduce the strength of the integristes in the College of Cardinals – they could still count on 31 per cent of votes in the 1922 conclave according to Zizola.17 There is no evidence that he consciously sought to do so, and even if he had, he reigned for too short a time to seriously affect the composition of the Sacred College. Nevertheless, Merry Del Val’s attempt at a comeback was a failure: Gasparri had built up a strong following after twenty or so years as a curial cardinal. But when it became clear that Gasparri could not win, partly because of fears of his nepotistic tendencies and partly because he had no pastoral experience, he persuaded his supporters to give their votes to Ratti instead.18 The election of Ratti still can be counted as a triumph for Benedict because he stuck to the latter’s policies and indeed developed them further, particularly in the mission field, in the pursuit of concordats with states, in the continuation of the Malines conversations and in the attempt to ‘convert’ Russia.19 Indeed, the British Minister at the Vatican remarked on the lack of changes in Vatican policy and personnel after the election of Benedict’s successor, the most significant element of continuity being provided by the retention of Gasparri as Secretary of State, which was almost unprecedented in the history of the Papacy.20
Several historians have referred to the greatness of Benedict XV, most notably Scoppola and Pizzuti.21 It might at first sight seem rather extravagant to apply such an epithet to a Pope whose reign, apart from anything else, was so short. What makes a Pope ‘great’ is, in any case, very hard to say. In Benedict’s case, what made him great was the way in which he rose to meet the tremendous challenges posed by the state of the secular world, and especially the horrors of the First World War. Though he regarded both as the being the result of mankind having rejected the Church and followed the path of error for the previous one hundred and fifty years, he did not stand back from them in complacent self-righteousness. Instead, he responded to them in a Christian, humane and humanitarian way. Above all, his pursuit of peace in all spheres was sincere, committed and courageous. He steered the barque of St Peter through some very stormy waters, waters which Pius X and Merry Del Val would have carefully avoided, and in the process he left his enduring mark on the Roman Catholic Church.
1. Diario, II, p. 398, 20 January 1922.
2. Molinari, Benedict to Menzani, 23 June 1919.
3. Vistalli, p. 34.
4. Jemolo, p. 168.
5. Hebblethwaite (1983), p. 105.
6. Corriere della Sera, 23 January 1922, front page.
7. L’Avanti!, 24 January 1922.
8. Rope, p. 314.
9. ASV, DAUS, V, scatola 97, letter to Bonzano of 22 January 1922.
10. Diario, II, p. 287, 24 March 1918.
11. Ibid., pp. 312–14, 9 May 1918.
12. Ibid.
13. Corriere della Sera, 23 January 1922, p. 2.
14. Stehlin (1994), p. 13.
15. Falconi, p. 42.
16. Zizola, p. 198.
17. Ibid., p. 199.
18. Ibid., pp. 202–3.
19. Stehle (1981), chap. III.
20. Hachey (ed.), p. 13.
21. Pizzuti, p. 54.