Pope Emerges

It was the Feast Day of St. James, but not the placid sort of feast day Rome is used to. From early morning the cobbled pavings clattered beneath the feet of multitudes wending their way to St. Peter's Square. The day grew hot, the streets blazed. Black-shirted soldiers halted the crowds, inspected pockets, handbags. By 4 p. m. the immense elliptical plaza before St. Peter's was packed with 200,000 expectant, perspiring people. At the far end loomed the pillared portico of Christendom's mightiest church, draped with languid purple streamers, yellow and white papal flags, banners of Italy.

The crowd jostled and babbled, stood tiptoe to see over itself. Those who fainted were removed to a dozen handy Red Cross stations. On most lips was a question: Would the Pope ride on a resplendent podium, borne on the shoulders of twelve stalwarts? Or, as he had suggested, would he walk? Everyone hoped that he would ride. Pius XI is 72. He would have to carry the weighty monstrance containing the Host. The day was hot. Besides, riding, he could be seen better.

At 5:45 p. m. a half-million eyes watched the centre portal of St. Peter's, symbolic on this occasion of the Vatican's boundary. When the Pope crossed that threshold he would end Papai imprisonment, voluntarily undergone for 59 years.

At 5:50 a murmur swelled: "They are coming!" Out the portal, down the steps of the basilica marched detachments of Papal gendarmes in towering busbies. The blue-clad Palatine Guards wore helmets topped with lazy plumes. Followed many monks and the first of a host of 5,000 seminarians from all over the world. Four abreast, chanting, bearing lighted tapers, they followed the line of march beneath Bernini's massive colonnade which encloses St. Peter's Square. This took them in serpentine procession around a huge circle, back to the basilica steps. When the column's head drew up before the church, the last seminarian had not yet emerged. High above droned a squadron of airplanes, spying on the roofs for forbidden cinema cameramen. The crowd found it almost impossible to see across the vastitude. One smart girl's idea became contagious--hundreds of women raised their vanity mirrors aloft, saw the spectacle in reflection.

The sun sank. St. Peter's lofty contours slowly cast shadows over the throng. When the seminarians had all left the church there were silver trumpetings from the portico. Over the singing and stir of thousands, boomed the bells of Rome, echoing from the Seven Hills. A confusion of shouting arose: "Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!" Down the steps tramped the Swiss Guards with glittering breastplates and halberds, down strolled a vivid mass of ecclesiasts. Two long rows of Cardinals followed, dressed in scarlet, heads bent, hands clasped in prayer.

Behind them came the Pope Who Left the Vatican, Pius XI. He was riding--a minute figure almost immersed in a white mantle. Bareheaded because of the heat, he gazed fixedly at the Host. Around him strode a jeweled assemblage. Above him waved a velvet canopy of scarlet and gold which dispersed thick spirals of incense rising from argent censers. Behind him swayed two giant ostrich fans. As the podium was borne through the colonnade, the mass of heads turned, the air quivered with the clangor of bells, the shouts were hoarse and deafening: "Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!"

Returned before St. Peter's, the Pope dismounted. Night had fallen. In the glow of spotlights he walked solemnly to a bronze altar set before a tapestry of the Last Supper. Canticles were intoned by 6,000 voices. To the kneeling thousands the elevation of the host was announced by a salvo of bugles. The Pope raised his arms heavenward, thrice blessed the throng. Then, remounting the podium, he was borne into the awesome, shadowed basilica. As he passed, the dark fac,ade blazed with torches.

Thus was the conciliatory spirit of the recent Concordat between Italy and the Holy See expressed with churchly pomp. The Pope had chosen to duplicate the historic ceremonies held, before the rift of 1870, on the Feast of Corpus Christi. He had further chosen to synchronize his emergence with the presence of the seminarians, thus gathering about him the youth of the church.

These arrangements were greatly pleasing to benign, aged Vincenzo Cardinal Van-nutelli, Dean of the Sacred College, prefect of the Congregation of the Ceremonials. In the latter capacity he supervised the celebration. Cabling to U. S. Hearst-papers he declared: "If one thinks over the circumstances in which the Pope wished to effect his first public appearance outside the Vatican Palace and St. Peter's, it must be admitted that the Pope's conception could not have been either more pious or more original. . . .-- I will be the happiest among those present to receive the Pope. For me personally, tomorrow's procession will awake one of the dearest and most beautiful memories of my now distant youth." Cardinal Van-nutelli is 93.

*Also "pious and original" was an advertisement in the current The Colored Harvest, Negro Catholic magazine. A picture of Pius XI appeared, with his Apostolic Blessing. Above the picture was the following large-lettered slogan: "The 'Blindfold Test'." At one side this slogan was continued thus: "... may be a good way to select cigarettes, but it is not a wise procedure in making investments. Now the most important investment anyone can make is by taking out a few stocks in Eternal Life. They pay a high dividend and are backed by rock-ribbed security--the words of God. Membership in St. Joseph's Society entitles you to share in over 2,000 Masses a year, a share in the special daily prayers offered by our Students, Seminarians, Priests and people to whom they minister, and a share in all the merits of our Missionaries by participating in their good works and sacrifices. Finally, fourteen plenary indulgences, applicable to the souls in Purgatory may be gained yearly by all members. FILL IN THE ATTACHED BLANK. Four out of every five do!"