True Catholic News

In 1938 Pope Pius XI was quoted as saying "When today the Pope dies, you'll get another one tomorrow, because the Church continues. It would be a much bigger tragedy, if Cardinal Pacelli dies, because there is only one. I pray every day, God may send another one into one of our seminaries, but as of today, there is only one in this world." 

After the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli would become Pope Pius XII, and in 1953, he too would endorse a man for the papacy, 46-year-old Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa. As Pius XII made Siri a Cardinal, placing the red hat on his head, a reporter in attendance remarked “this is an historic moment, the Pope meets the next Pope.” In fact, Siri wrote in his now published personal diary, “Pius XII said I had to succeed him, and was preparing for me the same system that Pius XI had prepared for him.”

Overview