Story by Joe Pisani

While I was rummaging through some boxes in the attic, I found a small medal from 1950, when Pope Pius XII  proclaimed a Holy Year. On the front was his image, and on the reverse was the northern-most door of St. Peter’s Basilica, which is traditionally opened for jubilee years.

The inscription said: “ANNO JUBILAEI MCML” (Jubilee Year 1950) and “EGO SUM OSTIUM PER ME SI QUIS INTROIERIT SALVABITUR” (“I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.”)

The threshold of the 1950s seemed like such a different era compared with the world today. It seemed safer, saner, happier.

On the other hand, when you look at modern society, anything has to be better by comparison. I often wonder whether the Millennial generation will someday reminisce about these times and gush, “Wow, those were the good old days! Bring them back!”

Baby Boomers often delight in sending photos around of what life was like during the halcyon 1950s and early 1960s before things really began to fall apart.

It was the time of “Leave It To Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” “Lawrence Welk,” “I Love Lucy,” “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “Bonanza,” “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” … do you see a pattern? They were decent people in comical situations and courageous families in difficult situations. No graphic violence, no nudity, no foul language, and certainly no one constantly taking God’s name in vain.

I wasn’t old enough to appreciate all those shows, although I watched them in reruns and couldn’t believe how uplifting they were. Instead of tearing down, they built up. They also made you believe life was worth living, to quote Servant of God Fulton Sheen.

While many people look back on those years with nostalgia — they were outside playing with their friends instead of inside playing video games — they did have a darker side, not the least of which was segregation.

At that time, a few spiritual leaders recognized where the world was headed. One was Pope Pius XII. The world was a different place in 1950, when he proclaimed a holy year. Five years earlier, World War II had ended, and that trauma was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Now, there was a new peril, atheistic Communism. America was involved in the Korean War to stop its spread, while Europe was recovering from the ravages inflicted by Nazism.

In America, there was a new-found prosperity. Everyone wanted a TV set, a new car and a home in the suburbs. The so-called “Greatest Generation,” who lived through the Great Depression and fought to save Western Civilization from totalitarianism, seemed to be making up for all those years of deprivation by pursuing “the good life” and materialism, with a little too much zeal.

According to historians, Americans were returning to church in record numbers. The Baby Boom had begun, along with a migration to the suburbs. Church and family were two foundational pillars of society, but in a few years, they would be buffeted by the tumult of the 1960s, the Sexual Revolution, the Vietnam War and a young generation that denounced “The Establishment.”

Pius XII saw the storm clouds coming and recognized the problem before the sociologists and the media. It was the perennial problem that arises when believers put more faith in political leaders than in Christ, when they put politics before the Gospel … or confuse the two.

In his papal bull announcing the Holy Year, the pope urged Catholics to sanctify their lives, and he granted a complete indulgence to the faithful who visited the four major basilicas in Rome.

He assured Catholics that “A renaissance of humanity was possible if all people would turn away from earthly secular things to things eternal.” And if people in public policy “respected the commandments of Christ.” That message is as relevant today as it was 70 years ago, even more so.

For the pope, the goal of the great jubilee, which began on Christmas 1949 and ended a year later, was “to do penance and pray for the return to Christ of all those who were separated from him.”

That goal is even more urgent now than it was then, but now the obstacles seem more daunting because faith is under fire by secular society and militant atheism. Once-respected institutions, such as the government and the media, attack the Church as an enemy to social progress and  political agendas.

During the 1950 Jubilee Year, Pope Pius XII prayed for world peace and peace in families … and that those who hated God would be illuminated by his light and truth. He also prayed for us to have courage and hope in the face of religious persecution.

How much more urgent is that appeal today than it was in 1950. And how much more urgent it is for us to pray for the grace to achieve it.