Am I the only one who raises an eyebrow at Pius XII's strict teaching on jurisdiction, considering the timing of it?
If he were a prisoner in the Vatican, as some believe, and knew about Freemasonic encroachment, shouldn't it have been the exact opposite? Why didn't he write something to ease up the law on jurisdiction in the event of an emergency HE KNEW WAS COMING? Why did he instead change the liturgy and relax the disciplinary laws and teach NFP? Why did almost all his policies speed Vatican II along instead of checking it or hobbling it?
Pius XII knew about persecution of the Church in communist countries, as well. Why didn't he give permission to bishops to consecrate other bishops in case they weren't able to contact Rome, for instance, if they were trapped in China? No, he did the exact opposite. His reasoning was that the communist bishops were taking over the dioceses of the legitimate ones with jurisdiction. But why make this a matter of jurisdiction, per se? The problem with the jureur priests of the French Revolution was not that they didn't have jurisdiction; it was that they had a revolutionary mindset, which is anti-Catholic. The same principle applies to the communist bishops of China.
What does this have to do with jurisdiction, and why did Pius XII make such a big issue about it? Could it have been that he knew a revolution in the Church was coming and he wanted to scare people away from "disobeying the Pope," so he tried to reinforce the power of the Pope over all bishops? I'll just leave the question hanging out there with no answer, because no answer is possible for now.
Pius XII was conservative when he should have been liberal, like with jurisdiction; and liberal when he should have been conservative, like with NFP and the liturgy and the disciplinary laws. In a time where the Pope should have been on the defensive, why did he take such radical steps, why was he so proactive and aggressive and tinkering with everything? Way too many trads base their entire theology ON PIUS XII, and that is again the case with the French sedes who think no one has jurisdiction. Pius XII is the one they cite most often to bolster their position on that.