Contemporary Period

The period that goes from 1914 to the present day

is thus called, marked as a time of spiritual crisis.
A notable fact of this period is the Second Vatican
Council and the universal call to holiness.[4]

The beginnings of the 20th Century

Leo XIII was succeeded by Cardinal Sarto, who
took the name Pius X and was later canonized. He
began the work of unifying ecclesiastical laws that
would later become the Code of Canon Law of
1917, determined the writing of a Catechism,
fought modernism and recommended communion
for children from the age of discernment. He died
in the first weeks of the First World War.

Benedict XV, Cardinal della Chiesa, would hold

the pontificate from 1914 to 1922. During the
War, the Holy See would carry out a great deal of
work in favor of its victims and in locating
missing soldiers. Benedict XV succeeded Pius XI
(1922-1939): during his period in the Holy See he
signed the Lateran Treaty that established the
Vatican City State. He condemned the errors of
fascism in the Encyclical letter Non abbiamo
bisogno, written not in Latin, but in Italian, so that
there would be no doubt who he was addressing.
He created and encouraged Catholic Action aimed
at guiding the apostolate of lay people, and also
developed missionary action. He inaugurated
Vatican Radio, inserting the Church into the era of
communications technology, created an
astronomical observatory and Catholic
universities were created in Italy, Holland and
Poland.

During the pontificate of Pius XI, the Lateran

Treaty was signed, beginning the international
recognition of the Vatican State with the Pope as
its sovereign and determining the end of the so-
called Roman Question.

He also published the Encyclical Mit brennender

Sorge (With burning anxiety) in German, to
condemn the errors of Nazism and its racist
doctrine, which was read in all German churches
in 1937, which led to the resurgence of the
persecution of Catholics by the Nazis. It was a
time of flourishing for the Church that had as its
counterpoint the persecution and martyrdom of
many Christians. In communist Russia and
Mexico the persecution had unprecedented
dimensions. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-
1939), seven thousand Spanish clergy were
murdered out of "hatred of religion", simply
because they were Catholic.[27]