The heretical Pope and the one criticised by the German newspapers

9 October 1958. Pius XII, the Roman Eugenio Pacelli, died; he had long served as nuncio to Germany before becoming Secretary of State under Pius XI. Immediately following his election in 1939, some German newspapers commented very negatively on the cardinals’ choice. The Berliner Morgenpost accused the new Pope of never having understood “the political and ideological motives that had begun their victorious march in Germany”, whilst the Frankfurter Zeitung stated that he had always been “hostile to National Socialism” and the official organ of the SS, Das Schwarze Korps, claimed he had shown “little understanding” towards its institutions. His election, however, met with approval elsewhere: in France, for example, it was stated that the newly elected Pope was “an enemy of racism and a friend of freedom of conscience and human dignity” (L’Humanité), “a champion of the European Resistance” (La Correspondance Internationale). Even the Jewish press (the Palestine Post, the London Jewish Chronicle, the Zionist Review) commented favourably on Pacelli’s election, recalling his opposition to racist theories and a famous anti-Nazi speech he had delivered a few years earlier in Lourdes. This very brief overview illustrates the extent to which various parties were keen to involve the Pope in their own perspectives and political plans. This attempt to exploit him, moreover, seems to have frequently characterised the pontificate of Pius XII, who is still much debated today regarding his ‘silence’ – his failure to speak out firmly against Nazi atrocities and what was happening in the extermination camps. He was, in fact, convinced that more explicit protests would have provoked barbaric reprisals.

12 October 638. Honorius I, a native of Campania, died; he was the only Pope ever condemned as a heretic. He found himself embroiled in the theological debate concerning the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ, and whether there were one or two wills present in his person. Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in support of the emperor and in an attempt to reunite the Empire’s fragmented forces – at least from a religious perspective – proposed a compromise formula (two natures but a single will) to put an end to the endless theological debate. Pope Honorius, failing to grasp the theological and political implications of the new theory, wrote to Sergius in 634 endorsing the formulation. More than forty years after his death, during the Third Council of Constantinople, Honorius’s letter to Sergius was deemed to favour Monotheletism, and the Pope was formally condemned as a heretic. Pope Leo II confirmed the condemnation, whilst clarifying, however, that Honorius had been negligent and, through his silence and ambiguous phrasing, had allowed the heresy to spread. The case was frequently cited in debates on papal infallibility, which was enshrined by the First Vatican Council in 1870, and was resolved by pointing out that Honorius had not spoken ex cathedra and that his letters to Sergius were private correspondence rather than dogmatic decrees addressed to the whole of Christendom.