By means of the three keywords ‘crisis’, ‘Pope Pius XI’ and ‘historiography’, the results yielded at the conference are summarized and subsequent perspectives are presented. In the realm of politics, Pius XI reacted to the crisis by coming up with the concept of an authoritarian Church, forged by the spirit of the First Vatican Council, the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917 and a centralization of the Church in Rome. The theological dimension of the crisis, however, is hardly ever broached. As research focuses on the pontificate of Pius XI and on curial governance, Achille Ratti’s personality, his characteristics and background are, if ever, considered only implicitly. This is something most desirable for future research. Additionally, there continue to be national and subject-specific segmentation as well as separation due to different academic cultures in research on Pius XI, which urgently need to be deconstructed.