The Pius XII Seminary was completed in 1941. It was possibly the last private civil building completed in Brisbane before wartime shortages of both building materials and tradesman forced all construction to concentrate upon military projects. The seminary was named after the Roman Catholic Pope Pius XII, who resided in the Vatican City located in Rome which itself was part of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. The seminary’s foundation stone was laid on 19 November 1939, the same day that Pius XII was elected Pope, a position he held throughout World War Two, The seminary enrolled its first trainee priests on...