Christian Medal
Pius XII - Pope: March 2, 1939 - October 9, 1958
Peru - 1954 - Unofficial Medal for Marian Year
Silver 35mm (20.68 grams)
Reference: C&M 213
◦PROPULSOR DE LA PAZ UNIVERSAL- ANO MARIANO 1954 ◦ INIC-L.M.B around Pope Pius XII left.
BEATO MARTIN DE PORRES PATRONO DE LA ASISA-SOCIAL around Beatus Martin de Porres (later saint), 1579-1639, born in Lima. Patron of interracial justice; founded orphanage.

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Marian years are decided on and declared exclusively by the Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. In Church history, only two Marian years were pronounced by Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II.

In 1953, with the encyclical Fulgens corona, Pope Pius ordered a Marian year for 1954, the first in Church history. The year was filled with Marian initiatives, in the areas of Mariology, cultural events, and charity and social gatherings.

• The principles of Christianity, which the Virgin Mother of God incites us to follow with eagerness and with energy, can be entirely and lastingly productive only when actually put into practice. Taking this into consideration, We invite each and every one of you, .. to celebrate the Marian Year which We proclaim to be held the whole world over from the month of December next until the same month of the coming year

The Pope promotes appropriate sermons and discourses to explain Marian beliefs. The purpose is to increase the Faith of the people and their devotion to the Virgin Mother. Marian churches and Marian shrines all over the world, "or at least an altar, in which the sacred image of the Blessed Virgin Mary is enshrined" should invite to public services for the devotion of the Christian people. The Pope invites especially to celebrations at the Grotto of Lourdes, "where there is such ardent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived without stain of sin".

In 1987, Pope John Paul II initiated a Marian year in preparation of the forthcoming millennium. He published the encyclopedic Marian encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which constitutes the longest Marian encyclical ever written by a Pontiff. It represents the status of Marian belief and Mariology for the beginning of the 21st century. For the beginning of the Marian year, a large copy of the Madonna della Colonna was completed for outside Saint Peter's Square. Pope John Paul II had been approached by a student who told him that Saint Peter's Square was cold and incomplete without the portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In both Marian years, Marian devotion, Marian pilgrimages and Marian meetings were promulgated.

Pope Pius XII (Italian: Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as Pope from 2 March 1939 to his death in 1958. Before his election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany (1917–1929), and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany, with which most historians believe the Vatican sought to protect the Church in Germany while Adolf Hitler sought the destruction of "political Catholicism". A pre-war critic of Nazism, Pius XII lobbied world leaders to avoid war and, as Pope at the outbreak of war, issued Summi Pontificatus, expressing dismay at the invasion of Poland, reiterating Church teaching against racial persecution and calling for love, compassion and charity to prevail over war.

While the Vatican was officially neutral during the war, Pius XII maintained links to the German Resistance, used diplomacy to aid the victims of the war and lobby for peace, and spoke out against race-based murders and other atrocities. The Reichskonkordat of 1933 and Pius's leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II remain the subject of controversy—including allegations of public silence and inaction about the fate of the Jews. After the war Pius XII advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towards Axis and Axis-satellite nations. The Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc. Pius XII was a staunch opponent of Communism and of the Italian Communist Party. He explicitly invoked ex cathedra papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 Apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus. His magisterium includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His forty-one encyclicals include Mystici corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ; Mediator Dei on liturgy reform; and Humani generis on the Church's positions on theology and evolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

In 1954, Pius XII began to suffer from ill health, which would continue until his death in 1958. The embalming of his body was mishandled, with effects that were evident during the funeral. He was buried in the Vatican grottos and was succeeded by Pope John XXIII.

In the process toward sainthood, his cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by Pope Paul VI during the final session of the Second Vatican Council. He was made a Servant of God by Pope John Paul II in 1990 and Pope Benedict XVI declared Pius XII Venerable on 19 December 2009.