Reaction of Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII, who according to the authors, was not aware of the text before the death of his predecessor, chose not to publish this encyclical. However, his first encyclical Summi Pontificatus (On the Supreme Pontificate, October 12, 1939), published after the beginning of WWII, has an echo of the previous title in its sub-title: On the Unity of Human Society and uses many of the arguments of the text, avoiding most of the negative characterization of the Jewish people and rabbinic religion contained in the text of the original encyclical, planned and written before the invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War.
Summi Pontificatus sees Christianity being universalized and opposed to every form of racial hostility and against racial superiority. There are no real racial differences, because the human race forms a unity, because "one ancestor made all nations to inhabit the whole earth".
- What a wonderful vision, which makes us contemplate the human race in the unity of its origin in God. . . in the unity of its nature, composed equally in all men of a material body and a spiritual soul; in the unity of its immediate end and its mission in the world; in the unity of its dwelling, the earth, whose benefits all men, by right of nature, may use to sustain and develop life; in the unity of its supernatural end: God himself, to whom all ought to tend; in the unity of the means for attaining this end;. . . in the unity of the redemption wrought by Christ for all.
This divine law of solidarity and charity assures that all men are truly brethren, without excluding the rich variety of persons, cultures and societies.
Read more about this topic: Humani Generis Unitas
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