"On 25 May 1914 Chiesa was appointed a cardinal and, in this capacity, on the outbreak of World War I—with the papacy vacant upon Pius X's death on 20 August—he made a speech on the Church's position and duties, emphasising the need for neutrality and promoting peace and the easing of suffering. The conclave opened at the end of August, and, on 3 September 1914, Chiesa was elected Pope, taking the name of Benedict XV.
His pontificate was dominated by the war, which he termed "the suicide of Europe", and its turbulent aftermath. His early call for a Christmas truce in 1914 was ignored, and though he organised significant humanitarian efforts (establishing a Vatican bureau, for instance, to help prisoners of war from all nations contact their families) and made many unsuccessful attempts to negotiate peace, his effectiveness even in Italy was undermined by his pacifist stance. The best known was the seven-point Papal Peace proposal of August 1917, demanding a cessation of hostilities, a reduction of armaments, guaranteed freedom of the seas, and international arbitration. Only Woodrow Wilson responded directly, declaring that a declaration of peace was premature; in Europe each side saw him as biased in favour of the other and were unwilling to accept the terms he proposed. This resentment resulted in the exclusion of the Vatican from the Paris peace conference of 1919; despite this, he wrote an encyclical pleading for international reconciliation, Pacem Dei munus." Via Wikipedia
PS: Como se vê também por este relato, Woodrow Wilson insistiu na continuação da guerra, o que facilitou o colapso na Rússia assim como o de todas as monarquias europeias, depois tivemos Versailles, os Impérios ainda mais alargados dos vencedores (com os cumprimentos da Liga das Nações), o comunismo e o fascismo e a Segunda Guerra - ou seja, como disse o Papa Bento XV: "the suicide of Europe". E assim foi.
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