Urbi et Orbi

(See Cover)

Joseph Stalin (at Teheran) : How many divisions has the Pope?

Pius XII (later, to Winston Churchill) : Tell my son Joseph he will meet my divisions in heaven.

An old man who commands no military divisions rode through the streets of Rome one day this week. Once he would have ridden on a white mule, but in 1953 he went in a black Cadillac. Crowds jammed the lovely, narrow streets of the city of Augustus, of St. Peter, of Garibaldi, of Comrade Togliatti. The cheers shook the ancient stones. Women wept. Children, perching on their fathers' shoulders, waved and repeated the shout they heard all about them: "Viva il Papa, Viva il Papa!"

The old man waved back, his pale, sharp face bearing an extraordinarily charming smile.

The office which this man embodies is the oldest witness of Western civilization. One of his predecessors faced Attila on his march to Rome; another preached the first Crusade against Islam; another excommunicated Martin Luther; another was taken prisoner by Napoleon.* It is an office that has often been near destruction, often corrupt, often hated. Nevertheless, Viva il Papa, Viva il Papa! shouted the crowds in Rome. They were cheering not only the office, not only a faith, not only the past in which they glory. They were cheering not only the Pontifex Maximus as they have almost always cheered him, but a man. For Eugenio Pacelli, for the past 15 years known as Pius XII, Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Jesus Christ, is a new kind of Pope.

He is a man of his city, the first Roman to wear the triple crown in two centuries. He is also a man of the world, in the sense that he has seen more of it and knows it better than any other Pope in history. He is a man of his time, in the sense that he uses its technology (he put a radio station and a power house in the Vatican) and understands its social needs (he allowed Mass to be said in the afternoon so that more workers could attend). He is also a man of reality, for he is one of the world's leading spiritual fighters against Communism.

More than any other Pope in history, Pius XII is heard outside his own Church, for millions of non-Catholics--disagree as they might with Roman Catholic dogma --have come to expect from him an occasional, tonic reminder of Christian morals, phrased with a lofty sense of verities.

Above all, he is the Pope of the people, in the sense that he is accessible to all. He has met more people than any other Pope in history--hundreds of thousands, of all nations, all stations and all faiths: Italian miners and French peasants, Hindu holy men and Baptist ministers, soccer players, bicycle racers, mezzo-sopranos, movie stars, perfume manufacturers, poets, bakers, boilermakers and, undoubtedly, thieves.

He is, to Romans and to much of the world, something of a living and familiar saint.

Jubilee Year. The purpose of this week's Roman holiday was the formal inauguration of the Marian Year, proclaimed by the Pope to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the promulgation .of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (which holds that the Mother of Jesus Christ was preserved from original sin). For the occasion, the Pope drove through downtown Rome for the first time since the war. In the Piazza di Spagna, at the foot of the magnificent Spanish Steps, he stopped to place a bouquet of flowers at the column commemorating the Immaculate Conception. Then he drove on to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore (where, 55 years ago next April, at 23. the future Pope celebrated his first Mass).

Pius entered the basilica, under a velvet and damask canopy, while the choir sang the triumphant Tu es Petrus. Then, with members of a Catholic Action youth group, he recited the prayer he wrote for the Marian Year: "Enraptured by the splendor of your heavenly beauty, and impelled by the anxieties of the world, we cast ourselves into your arms, O Immaculate Mother of Jesus . . . Bend tenderly over our aching wounds. Convert the wicked, dry the tears of the afflicted and oppressed, comfort the poor and humble, quench hatreds, sweeten harshness, safeguard the flower of purity in youth, protect the Holy Church, make all men feel the attraction of Christian goodness . . ."

The ceremony had a meaning beyond the purely religious. The veneration of Mary, considered sentimental, superstitious or downright sinful by most Protestants, is historically significant. Mary in Catholic theology is the No. 1 saint. In the imagination of many Catholics, she is even something of a radical, the special friend of the "poor and humble."* Like individual Catholics, the Church has traditionally turned to Mary in times of trouble, and has drawn strength from what, in politics, would be called her mass following.

When Pius IX proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception a century ago, the Age of Enlightenment had proclaimed sin to be a word with which to frighten children, scientific progress was god, and man was widely regarded as merely a higher animal. The Marian dogma challenged this non credo of the age--an assertion that man is sinful but touched by God, that the greatest mysteries are beyond science, that the supernatural and the spiritual are real. That is also the significance of Pius XII's attention to Mary, including the proclamation three years ago of the Dogma of the Assumption./- For the crisis the Church faced 100 years ago continues.

It is as serious as any since the Reformation. But the Reformation was a revolt only against the Church; the present crisis is, essentially, a revolt against God. It has many aspects. Its climax is Marxism; its accompanying symptoms include many ills of modern society--lack of moral certainty, an overdose of materialism, worship of the state, negation of all things spiritual. Therefore it is a threat not only to the Catholic Church, but to all Christian ideals. Despite the gulf that divides them, both Protestants and Catholics have found that they can be allies in defense of common values against the common enemy.

It is this great but often obscured fact, as well as his particular personality, that helped make Pius XII a new kind of Pope, a spiritual power outside his own Church and, incidentally, a figure whom people from all over the world want to meet.

They come on all the roads that lead to Rome, the devout alongside the curious. What do they find?

An Audience with the Pope. The atmosphere recalls a dentist's waiting room, but it is more solemn. A dozen people in the room are seated uncomfortably on high-backed chairs. They speak in whispers or not at all. Men have the trapped look of those who want to smoke but cannot, women keep poking at their hats. An usher scurries back & forth, checking a list, his coattails flying. From the brocaded walls, well-dusted gilt cherubs look coldly at the visitors who have come to Castel Gandolfo to see the Pope.

A papal chamberlain in flowing robe appears, carrying a huge brown leather book, his face as stern as the recording angel's. A second member of the chamberlain's staff poses the visitors about the room. The chamberlains seem almost as nervous as the callers. Footsteps echo on marble, and all face the tall white door. A false alarm: it is a group of African seminarians who have just seen the Pope in his study, and all of them are smiling broadly. Then, suddenly, without announcement, the Pope is in the room.

He walks briskly to the first caller, a tall, white-haired Irish-American. Looking at his book, the chamberlain whispers: "American." The man kneels, kisses the ring of the fourth finger of the Pope's right hand--a long, thin hand that grips the visitor's with remarkable force and gently draws him up from his knees. "Ah, you are an American," says the Pope, in heavily accented but clear English. "We want to welcome you to Rome. We want to bless you and all your family and wish you happiness."

The Pope's manner is almost shy. He speaks haltingly, as if he were thinking out every word beforehand. The tall man says: "Your Holiness, I have been waiting for this moment all my life. I will never forget this." A few more questions from the Pope: "Where are you from . . .?" "What is your work . . .?" Then he moves on.

Bits of muted conversation fill the room. A well-dressed young woman: "Your Holiness, I am Italian-American. But I don't speak any Italian . . ."

An Italian woman, in tears, almost swooning as he approaches, tells the Pope something in an urgent whisper. He pats her shoulder comfortingly. She fervently kisses his hand.

A slight, earnest man in his 40s: "I am head of the Catholic Boys' Clubs in . . ." The Pope, beaming: "Very important work, very important."

To a French Canadian: "Mon fils, nous sommes heureux de vous voir . . ."

To a pudgy American journalist, who has some difficulty getting off the floor: "We bless your work . . ."

Each visitor gets a small medal with the Pope's picture. Then Pius XII stands in the center of the room, and for the first time since he came in, he seems dramatic. He spreads his arms in a way that no actor could imitate, a gesture that suggests real effort, as if it were literally seeking to include everyone. Looking upward, he murmurs a Latin blessing.

There is a press around the door as the Pope moves to leave; people rush forward to talk to him again. But his valet has already placed a small white fur cape around his shoulders, and the chamberlains wait impatiently. A last smile, and he is gone.

1,200,000 Servicemen. Thus went a typical recent group audience at the Pope's summer residence (where he stayed until the end of November). The proceedings are similar at the Vatican. There are several categories of audiences: private, for VIPs; special, for groups of six to a dozen; baciamano (literally, kiss-the-hand), for groups from two dozen to a hundred; general, for groups in the thousands (sometimes held in St. Peter's Basilica). This year, the Pope has seen a total of 700,000 people. Total for the Holy Year of 1950 with its great mass audiences in St. Peter's Square: close to 3,000,000.

Almost any congress held in Rome is received by the Pope. During the last six weeks, the Pope received more than 20 groups, ranging from the Italian National Convention of Professional Nurses and Hospital Assistants to the American Society of Travel Agents. To such audiences the Pope usually makes a 15-minute speech, discussing their profession or aims in glowing terms, but always with some moral admonitions. Afterwards, he mixes with the group. People push and jostle toward him, eager for a word. Some hand him a white zucchetto (skull cap), and he puts it on, giving the visitor his own; somehow, during this hat-switching, he manages to look completely dignified. Many bring rosaries for him to bless. Once, a U.S. Congressman fumbled for a box of religious medals, instead came out with a pack of Chesterfields; an Italian, in the same situation, produced a Communist Party card.

Since the war, the Pope has received more than 1,200,000 U.S. servicemen, at least half of them non-Catholics. Once he welcomed 60 sailors from the U.S. Sixth Fleet. After the Pope's speech, a chief petty officer suddenly broke out with "Waddya say, boys? Three cheers for His Holiness!" The "Hip, hip, hooray ... His Holiness!" rattled the crystal chandeliers.

In talking to people, he goes easily from one language to another (Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese). He has a memory for people that any politician would envy. He also displays an extraordinarily close knowledge of the countries they come from. He concentrates intensely on each visitor, even if he speaks to him for only a few moments, showing that all are important to him. Few visitors have come away without being moved. What moves them is the feeling he seems to have for people and the world, a feeling variously described as sympathy, kindness, or (perhaps more accurately) love.

Roman Boyhood. Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born in 1876, five years after Communism's first major appearance in Europe, the bloody Paris Commune. The Pacelli family had served the Holy See for two centuries: his father was dean of the Holy See's lawyers. Eugenio, a shy and serious child, was early drawn to religion. With candlesticks, tablecloths and saints' pictures begged from his mother, he played at celebrating Mass. Once, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he answered: "I would like to be a martyr--but without the nails."

Eugenio Pacelli, who was to see a time when Christian martyrdom was once more a practical issue, soon learned that the existence of his Church was not without nails. Six years before Eugenie's birth, the newly formed Italian state deprived Pope Pius IX of the Church's last temporal domains (which the Popes had ruled for 1,114 years). In school, Eugenio felt the anticlerical storm. He scandalized his classmates and teachers by refusing to write an essay defending the seizure of the papal states, instead denounced the action with the scorn worthy of a papal bull.

He decided to become a priest. Too sickly for the rigors of seminary life, he was allowed to prepare for the priesthood while living at home. He was a brilliant student, took doctorates in theology, philosophy and canon law. Promising young Don Eugenio was soon tapped by the Vatican Secretariat of State.

The Diplomat. He went to work as an apprendista (trainee), then as a minutante (confidential secretary). He also taught canon law and "diplomatic style" at a papal academy for young Vatican diplomats. Mostly, Pacelli drafted diplomatic notes, looked up quotations, dates, legal references. He called himself a "library mouse," but he did not stay in the library long.

In 1911 he went to London with the papal delegation to King George V's coronation. Entrusted to his care was a parchment bearing Pope Pius X's personal greetings to the new King. On the journey, an iodine bottle in Pacelli's valise broke and stained part of the document. The papal academy had taught no solution for such an emergency, but Pacelli thought fast. He spilled the iodine over the rest of the document, turning a soiled paper into a dignified-looking parchment apparently yellowed with age. The King was delighted.

In 1917, Pacelli was sent to Munich as papal nuncio with the rank of archbishop. His assignment: to interest the Kaiser in a negotiated peace. He failed in that task (when he received the stubborn Kaiser's final no, Nuncio Pacelli wept), but he stayed on in Germany. He moved to Berlin, and after nine years of hard bargaining concluded a concordat between the Vatican and the Prussian government. Germans liked the gentle but courageous archbishop. Some still remember the occasion when, in Munich, a Red mob sprayed his nunciature with machine-gun fire, later broke into the building. Archbishop Pacelli faced them calmly. "It is never wise to kill a diplomat," he said. The rioters left, later apologized.

Transatlantic Cardinal. In 1930, Pius XI made his friend Pacelli, 53, Cardinal Secretary of State, the No. 2 office at the Vatican. Pacelli became the most traveled prelate in history. The Pope sent him all over Europe, to Latin America, to the U.S. In 1936, for one month, Pacelli traveled 8,000 miles up & down the U.S., and airline passengers often saw the slim, intense cardinal whip out his portable and begin typing in midflight. The U.S., "so young, so sturdy, so glorious," impressed him deeply.

In Rome, Pius XI jovially called him "Our transatlantic, Pan-American Cardinal."

Increasingly, Pacelli became the aging Pope's alter ego. In February 1939, Pius XI died, and Eugenio Pacelli faced the most fateful event of his life.

"Habemus Papam . . ." The Fisherman's Ring (showing St. Peter fishing from a boat), which had been worn by the dead Pope, had been broken. Torch-bearing guards searched the Apostolic Palace to see that no intruders were present. Then, as Camerlengo (prelate in charge of the Holy See between pontificates), Cardinal Pacelli personally locked the big bronze door. Next day, after the Mass of the Holy Ghost, he marched with 61 other cardinals into the conclave. On 62 throne chairs around the Sistine Chapel, facing Michelangelo's Last Judgment, sat the princes of the Church. One by one, the cardinals advanced to the altar, knelt in prayer, and then slid their ballots into a chalice.

Then a teller solemnly read the names on the ballots. The cardinals kept score on printed tally sheets. On the third ballot, the decision came. Cardinal Pacelli suddenly hid his deathly pale face in his hands. At the end of the roll, it was evident that only Pacelli had voted against Pacelli. Outside, before the wildly cheering crowd, a cardinal solemnly pronounced the ancient formula: "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus papam . . . [I announce to you a great joy: we have a Pope . . .]."

To Eugenio Pacelli, 63 that day, the event was anything but "a great joy." Later that day, the new Pope went to see an ailing cardinal, an old friend, who had been too ill to attend the voting. The old man raised himself up in his bed and began: "Your Holiness . . ." The Pope interrupted him sadly. "Not yet," he said. "For now, let it still be Francesco and Eugenio."

After his election, Pius XII received the first "obedience" of the College of Cardinals, each kissing his red leather slipper. During the ceremony, he was heard to murmur: "Miserere mei, Deus [Pity me, Lord]."

Prisoner in the Vatican. Like other Roman Catholics, the Pope confesses. He does so in a small confessional in his private chapel. His confessor is a German Jesuit. Afterward, as the two men emerge from the wooden booth, the confessor kneels to the penitent and kisses his ring.

This incident illustrates one great burden of the papacy: solitude. For no one can really guide or console the Pope. More than king or prisoner, he is alone.

Pius XII, now 77, works an 18-hour day, seven days a week. He rises at 6:15 every morning, opens his windows, prays, and takes a cold shower. He shaves with an electric razor. While he shaves, a goldfinch named Gretel--one of five small pet birds he keeps--perches on his arm as it moves with the razor.* Until he goes to sleep in his simple brass bed between 12 and 2 a.m., Gretel is his only entertainment. He rarely listens any more to the records from his fine collection (favorites: Bach, Brahms, Wagner), and he has given up poetry and the classics (favorite: Virgil) for the lives of the saints. During his hour's daily walk in the magnificent Vatican garden, he studies state papers.

His meals are sparse--spaghetti, vegetables or eggs, watered wine. He always eats alone, waited on by German-born Sister Pasqualina Lehnert, his housekeeper (sometimes jocularly known in Rome as La Papessa), or one of the four other nuns who are assigned to serve in the papal household.

He insists on writing all his speeches himself (about 150 a year), in his own fine hand. He has a research and secretarial staff and a personal theologian, an Irish priest named Michael Browne, but, as in the days when he was a "library mouse," the Pope loves to do his own research. He will not trust a secretary to verify a quotation. Unlike his predecessor (who locked it in a closet), Pius XII uses his telephone constantly; he has a one-way line--no one can dial the Pope.

The Bark of St. Peter. The Pope is chief executive of a unique organization. No secular government, no other church is comparable to it. It includes some 1,500 dioceses, 2,500 bishops, 500,000 priests, nuns and brothers in religious orders, with some 100,000 of them serving in the Church's missionary areas throughout the world. Into the brocaded offices of the Vatican Secretariat of State, cables carry news from its nunciatures around the world. To this organization, nothing can be unimportant, be it a new philosophical school in France or new playgrounds in an American diocese. It must deal with God and Caesar, with salvation and with society, with Freud and Marx, with hydraulic elevators and the levitation of saints.

This vast organization is administered by twelve sacred congregations (i.e.., departments), three tribunals and five offices at the Vatican. The Pope sees their cardinal prefects or secretariats according to a fixed schedule, in most cases at least once a week. He reviews, approves or rejects their decisions. The business of the day may include anything from the establishment of a new diocese (responsibility of the Consistorial Congregation) or plans for a seminary in Africa (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith) to consideration of a new heresy (Holy Office) or creation of a new saint (Congregation of Rites).

The Pope obviously cannot steer the bark of St. Peter alone. It is false to assume that he only has to say something into a speaking tube to alter course or speed. The officers and the crew, while disciplined and obedient, have views of their own that the man on the bridge cannot ignore. The Pope's advisers reflect all shadings of opinion. Among notable men around the Pope:

MSGR. GIOVANNI BATTISTA MONTINI, 56, and MSGR. DOMENICO TARDINI. 65, pro-Secretaries of State, who run Vatican diplomacy under the Pope's direct supervision (since the death of Cardinal Maglione, in 1944, the Pope has not appointed a new Secretary of State, has since remarked: "The man would have to be my shadow, and I haven't found one"). Montini, in charge of day-to-day operations, is thin, suave, cool, precise, and politically a middle-of-the-roader. Tardini, in charge of long-range planning, is thickset, jovial, sharp-tongued, and further left.

ALFREDO CARDINAL OTTAVIANI, 63, a sturdy, placid expert in canon law, pro-Secretary of the Holy Office and one of the Vatican's leading reactionaries. He is an advocate of Vatican friendship with Franco.

RICCARDO LOMBARDI, 45, a brilliant Jesuit preacher and a vigorous progressive, who agitates for land reform, better working conditions for labor, curbing of Italian capitalists.

JEAN-BAPTISTE JANSSENS, 64, General of the Society of Jesus, an energetic, polylingual Belgian who heads the largest (32,008) order in the Church. (The Jesuit General has been known in Rome for centuries as "The Black Pope.") Pius XII relies heavily on Jesuits for advice.

NICOLA CARDINAL CANALI, 79, first Deacon of the College of Cardinals, a pudgy, pleasant but stern prelate who runs the tiny (1/6 sq. mi.), cramped world of Renaissance palazzi and medieval ceremony that is the Vatican city-state.

These men, and perhaps a dozen others, try to make their opinions felt. Sometimes political rivalries arise between them. Ottaviani, for instance, will write an article defending the stiff-backed stand of Spain's Cardinal Segura toward Protestantism (TIME, Aug. 3). A week later, Lombardi might preach a sermon urging that tolerance is a Christian virtue and required by Catholic beliefs. Sometimes local issues have a way of influencing decisions. Last February the Pope was urged to send a telegram to President Eisenhower asking mercy for the Rosenbergs, presumably by a small neutralist faction around Giuseppe Dalla Torre, editor of L'Osservatore Romano. Montini, while against it on principle, thought it would squelch a lot of Italian Communist propaganda about the Pope being "a prisoner" of the American reactionaries, and did not object. The Pope, who is not always as well informed as he would like to be, sent the telegram.

Generally, however, the Pope is surefooted amid such politics. As an Italian and a diplomat, he even enjoys them, and sometimes plays the game himself.

The Score. What has Pius XII accomplished in the 15 years of his pontificate?

It has been a period of great danger, but also of great activity. The Christian Democratic parties came to the fore in Europe, and decisively helped to stop Communism; the Church in the U.S. grew so mightily that now it is one of the most important units in the Catholic world; the Catholic missions in Asia and Africa grew so fast that one of the Church's biggest headaches today is to train enough native priests to keep up with the new converts, relieve missionaries. Catholic intellectuals reached a new degree of influence in Europe and the U.S.

Pius has diligently kept up with this growth (he has produced 24 encyclicals, ranging in subject from the holy places in Palestine to modern heresies), steering whenever possible a moderate course.

P: In church affairs, he has been a moderate modernizer. He has told nuns to modernize their dress, ordered priests to study economics and sociology, unobtrusively replaced some old-fogy bishops.

P: In temporal affairs, he struggled against endorsing or attacking specific states or political systems. Yet, as persistently as any public figure, he has denounced totalitarianism ("the Godless state"). Then, in 1948, he made the most difficult political decision of his reign: he took the Church straight into the Italian political arena ("the great hour of the Christian conscience has struck") and announced that Communists and their supporters would be denied the sacraments. The Pope still maintains that the intervention against Communism was moral, not political, since Communism represents an atheistic attack on morality itself.

P: Toward Communism behind the Iron Curtain, the Pope's policy has been "pastoral," i.e., he has tried to get along with the Communist regimes as long as they allow the Church to perform even a minimum of its functions, in order to spare the faithful persecutions and the prospect of martyrdom. There is also a "muscular"' faction in the Church--among its spokesmen are Cardinals Ottaviani, Canali and New York's Spellman--which believes that the Red regimes are slowly strangling Catholicism in Eastern Europe, and that it might be better to take a tough line, even if this should force the Church to go underground. Pius, gentle by nature, and diplomatic, will not accept this view unless there is clearly no alternative.

P: On social issues, he has followed Leo XIII (1878-1903), who perceived, like Marx, that the key to the Western World was the worker. In his famed social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, Leo proclaimed the worker's inalienable right to a decent living, the employer's duty to provide it, and the right of both to private property. Pius XII has reasserted Leo XIII's line. In 1945, he approved (reluctantly) the daring social experiment of the French worker-priests.*

Answer to Stalin. This week, after the ceremonies in Santa Maria Maggiore, the Pope appeared on the balcony of the church before the great crowd, and stretching out his arms, he spoke his blessing urbi et orbi--to the city and to the world. It was more than a traditional phrase. Pius XII is part of his city, as he is part of his Church. But he has also shown for all the world a deep feeling that is above its theological and political dividing lines.

He has been guardian rather than daring reformer, diplomat and preacher rather than crusader. He has (in his own phrase) "sown among ruins." He has shown his time that Stalin's famous question was not so much cynical as naive, and that anyone who perceives power only in divisions, or in bread and machines, sees the world about as realistically as a pre-Copernican astronomer.

In that perhaps unspectacular sense, he too has faced Attila on the march.

* Leo I (the Great), Urban II, Leo X, Pius VII.

* A recent children's book, Catholic Truth Thru the Keyhole, makes the point in a cartoon strip that shows the Lord remonstrating with St. Peter about all the undeserving characters in heaven. "I didn't let them in, Lord," replies St. Peter. "Your Mother pulls in all her friends through the window." The last panel shows Mary pulling up several sinners on a huge rosary.

/- I.e.. the belief that Mary went bodily to heaven after death.

* Recently a German Protestant churchman, so the story goes, gave the Pope a cardinal bird. But the old. established birds would have none of the newcomer, and the Protestant cardinal had to leave the papal household.

* An attempt, by putting young priests into secular clothes and letting them work in factories, to regain the confidence of the French working class, which has almost completely abandoned the Catholic faith. The experiment while successful in some ways, backfired Of some 90 priests, ten married and an estimated 15 are now working with the Communists Recently, on the urging of the Holy Office, the Pope sent verbal orders that the movement be suppressed, but the French cardinals managed to persuade the Pope to allow the worker-priests to continue "in principle," after some major changes in the setup.

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