Patient Improved

"His Holiness has asked for an egg," said the taut, nervous voice of Papal Physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi over the long-distance wire to Bologna. "What am I to do? How shall I tell him he can't have it?" The Pope's new doctor, Antonio Gasbarrini, was delighted. "Tell him he can have not only one egg, but two--and have them flipped with Marsala, if he agrees."

Romans were happily telling each other this incident as a sign that Pope Pius XII was better. The outlook was still chancy for a badly weakened man of 78, but by week's end the improvement was dramatic. No one was sure yet what had been wrong with him, but a measure of credit for the Pope's recovery was being given to Dr. Gasbarrini, 72, gastrointestinal specialist, who washed out the Pope's highly acid stomach with an alkaline solution, and discontinued the offbeat treatments of Swiss Dr. Paul Niehans (who injects animal cells into humans to replace worn-out tissues).

At his bedside, the Pope made a point of receiving his old friend and adviser, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini--a man who, if he had a red hat, would be one of the top candidates for the papacy. This week Msgr. Montini was consecrated Archbishop of Milan, and when His Holiness presented the archbishop-elect a pectoral cross, a gift not normally made until after the ceremony, the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano noted this demonstration of "very particular benevolence." Montini's consecration was cli maxed by a four-minute recorded speech of affection and blessing by the Pope.

To the young girls of Catholic Action, in a ceremony closing the Marian Year, the Pope wrote that he was "firmly confident" that with God's help the Roman Catholic Church would conquer the forces of evil "in a time perhaps shorter than humanly foreseeable."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.