Pascalina Lehnert

Madre (Mother) Pascalina Lehnert (25 August 1894, Ebersberg, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire – 13 November 1983, Vienna, Austria), born Josefina Lehnert, was a German Roman Catholic nun who served as Pope Pius XII's housekeeper and secretary from his period as Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria in 1917 until his death as pope in 1958. She managed the papal charity office for Pius XII from 1944 until the pontiff's death in 1958. She was a Sister of the Holy Cross, Menzingen order.

"Madre Pascalina", as she was called, led the Pacelli household in the nunciature in Munich, Bavaria from 1917 to 1925 and in the nunciature to Germany and Prussia in Berlin from 1925 to 1929, where Nuncio Pacelli was Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. There she became known for organizing the Pacelli parties, "which were auspicious, tastefully sprinkling glitter with the strictest European etiquette.... The nunciature was soon a major center of Germany’s social and official worlds. Streams of aristocrats, including President Paul von Hindenburg (one of Germany’s Field Marshals during World War I), were frequent callers, blending with students and workers, anyone whom Pacelli, the shrewdest of diplomats, chose to smile upon".

Pacelli was recalled to Rome in 1929 to become Cardinal Secretary of State. Madre Pascalina soon resided as housekeeper with two other sisters in the Vatican. and were the only women inside the Papal conclave, which, on 2 March 1939, elected Pacelli to become the successor of Pope Pius XI.

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