Papal conclave, 1939
Coat of arms during the vacancy of the Holy See
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| Dates and location | |
|---|---|
| 1–2 March 1939 Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City |
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| Key officials | |
| Dean | Gennaro Granito Pignatelli di Belmonte |
| Sub-Dean | Donato Sbarretti |
| Camerlengo | Eugenio Pacelli |
| Protopriest | William Henry O'Connell |
| Protodeacon | Camillo Caccia-Dominioni |
| Secretary | Vincenzo Santoro |
| Election | |
| Ballots | 3 |
| Elected Pope | |
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Eugenio Pacelli (Name taken: Pius XII) |
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The Papal conclave of 1939 was convoked on the brink of World War II with the death of Pope Pius XI on 10 February that year in the Apostolic Palace. With all 62 living cardinals in attendance, the conclave to elect Pius' successor began on 1 March and ended a day later, on 2 March, after three ballots. The cardinals elected Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, then Camerlengo and the deceased pontiff's Secretary of State, as the new pope. He accepted the election and took the pontifical name of Pius XII.
Like St. Pius X, Pope Pius XI was seen as a blunt-spoken, no-nonsense pontiff, and so the cardinals decided that they needed a soft-spoken diplomat to guide them through the forthcoming war.
Time magazine announced that among the likely contenders for the papacy were August Hlond of Gniezno-Poznań, Karl Joseph Schulte of Cologne, the Curial Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Tisserant, Ildefonso Schuster of Milan, Adeodato Giovanni Piazza of Venice, Maurilio Fossati of Turin, and Camerlengo and Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli. The prospect of a non-Italian pope (the last of which, until that point, had been Pope Adrian VI, 1522) was considered better in 1939 than in previous conclaves.
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