The late years of the pontificate, of Pope Pius XII were characterized by a hesitancy in personnel decisions. After a major illness in 1954, he redirected his energies from Vatican clergy to the concerns of lay people.
Famous quotes containing the words pius xii, late, years, pope and/or pius:
“The Church welcomes technological progress and receives it with love, for it is an indubitable fact that technological progress comes from God and, therefore, can and must lead to Him.”
—Pius XII [Eugenio Pacelli] (1876–1958)
“Roosevelt could always keep ahead with his work, but I cannot do it, and I know it is a grievous fault, but it is too late to remedy it. The country must take me as it found me. Wasn’t it your mother who had a servant girl who said it was no use for her to try to hurry, that she was a “Sunday chil” and no “Sunday chil” could hurry? I don’t think I am a Sunday child, but I ought to have been; then I would have had an excuse for always being late.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in the night. God said, Let Newton be! and all was light!”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“It is an error to believe that the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with, progress, liberalism, and contemporary civilization.”
—Pope Pius IX (1792–1878)