Pope Pius XI

Ambrogio Ratti was born in 1857 and became head of the Catholic Church in February 1922, stepping into a Europe shredding itself between communism and fascism. He issued encyclicals attacking both capitalist greed and atheistic socialism, banned contraception for Catholics, and established the feast of Christ the King as a rebuke to anti-clericalism. In 1929 he resolved decades of papal-Italian hostility by signing the Lateran Treaty, making himself the first sovereign of the newly created Vatican City. He also signed a concordat with Nazi Germany in 1933, then condemned their violations four years later in Mit brennender Sorge. He canonized Thomas More and Thérèse de Lisieux, championed lay participation through Catholic Action, and died in the Apostolic Palace in February 1939 while speaking out against Hitler and Mussolini.