He tried to stop the war but in vain.

The first public speech Pope Benedict XV gave after the Conclave which elected him as Pius X's successor on 3 September, marked the start of his mission to end hostilities, convincing the great powers to resolve pending questions through dialogue and negotiation.

This was the spirit of his first four public wartime speeches.

On 8 September 1914 Benedict XV "repeated his predecessor's call to people to pray for an end to the war," urging powers to put down their weapons.

But his calls fell on deaf ears.

He made another attempt at moral persuasion on 1 November 1914 with the "Ad Beatissimi" encyclical.

In it, Benedict XV denounced the general cultural barbarisation of the time: "the lack of reciprocal love between men," material wellbeing "becoming the only aim of human action" and the nationalistic hatred which led to paroxysm.

According to the Pope this was all rooted in a culture of positivism which exalted hatred, instinct and the fight for survival.

In the face of all this it was necessary to return to the "principles of Christianity" so that the exaltation of hatred can be replaced by "fraternal love".

Hence his appeal to Catholics to take humanitarian action. Another appeal was then made to the warring sides to put an end to the violence and find "other ways to ensure violated rights were respected."

This second appeal also fell on deaf ears.

A third attempt to persuade sides to put down their weapons was made at Christmas: "Benedict XV asked for a twenty-four hour ceasefire to remember the "Prince of Peace".

But the Russians and French said no.

On 10 January 1915 Della Chiesa published his Prayer for peace but Belgian and French clergy twisted its meaning to fit their own political and patriotic interests. Continue reading

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Image: Times of Malta

In a statement, the bishops said the Great War's dimensions were "shocking".

The conflict from 1914 to 1918 left 16 million dead and 21 million wounded.

The centenary of the outbreak of the war was on July 28.

The German bishops said the conflict was of "previously unimaginable proportions", in which poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction were used.

It added that Europe's Christian Churches had also played their part in "war-mongering" at the outbreak of fighting.

"Although the Catholic Church had distanced itself from nineteenth-century nationalism by virtue of its universal character, many bishops, priests and faithful took the side of those welcoming the war as a chance for spiritual and moral renewal," they said.

"We know today that many people, including those high up in the Church, brought guilt upon themselves, failing in the national blindness to perceive the suffering of the war's victims, and realising too late the consequences of absolute loyalty to their respective nations."

In their statement the bishops paid tribute to Catholic priests and military chaplains who worked for peace and reconciliation, and to Pope Benedict XV, who "repeatedly urged" the warring parties to go to the negotiating table rather than take up arms.

Nationalism, if taken to extremes, still posed a threat to peace today, the German bishops stated.

"Our times demand an effective response in asserting the common interests of the human family against destructive self-interest," they said.

Pope Francis referred to World War I in his Sunday address at the Vatican on July 27, one day before the centenary.

The Pontiff begged humanity not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

He also lamented the modern conflict between Israel and Palestine and the violence in Ukraine and Iraq.

The Pope begged for the world to avoid the carnage that took place a century ago, which then-Pope Benedict XV called a "useless massacre".

"Brothers and sisters, never war, never war!" Francis pleaded.

Sources

• The Tablet
• New York Daily News
• Image: Salon.com

On Aug. 20, 1914, with World War I less than a month old, Pope Pius X died, and on Sept. 3, 1914, Benedict was elected pope, only four months after being created a cardinal.

Crowned on Sept. 6, 1914, he possessed the diplomatic experience that the conclave had wanted.

The first four years of Benedict's seven-and-a-half-year papacy were to be consumed by his ultimately unsuccessful attempts to stop a war that he condemned as "the suicide of civilized Europe."

Born Giacomo della Chiesa in Genoa 1854, the sixth child of an ancient but poor patrician family, Benedict was ordained in 1878, spent much of his life in the Vatican's diplomatic service and became undersecretary of state in 1901.

In 1907, he became archbishop of Bologna.

As archbishop, della Chiesa spoke of the church's need for neutrality and to promote peace and ease suffering, but his role as a peacemaker and conciliator came up against several obstacles that predated the war.

The conflict ("the Roman question") between Italian state and church, which had existed since 1870, was unresolved.

Coolness between the Vatican and Russia stemmed from tensions with the Orthodox church, while the unification of Germany in 1870 had made it a dominant Protestant power in Europe, at the cost of Catholic Austria and thus lessening the Holy See's influence.

Germany's "Kulturkampf" had, among other things, banned religious orders, withdrawn state subsidies from the church, removed religious teachers from schools, imprisoned clergy, and when the training of priests reverted to the state, half of the seminaries closed.

In France, the church had forfeited property since the separation of church and state in 1905.

In November 1914, Benedict published the first of his 12 encyclicals, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum.

The greatest and wealthiest nations, he said, were "well-provided with the most awful weapons modern military science has devised, and they strive to destroy one another with refinements of horror." Continue reading

Sources

• Vassallomalta
• Image: Times of Malta.com