The Visit

Giuseppe Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice, summoned to Rome to help elect a new Pope after the death of Pope Leo XIII, left his desk strewn with papers, borrowed enough money for a ticket, and started for the station. His flock blocked the path. "Bless us once more," they cried. "Come back soon." Cardinal Sarto stretched out his arms. "Dead or alive," he said, "I shall come back."

This week, after 56 years, Venice finally saw its patriarch again. At that 1903 conclave, to his surprise, Giuseppe Sarto was himself elected Pope, and in 1954, 40 years after his death, he became what would have surprised him still more--a saint ("I'm no santo, I'm Sarto," he once quipped), enshrined in the Vatican. Now the Pope's body was returning through the thoughtfulness of another ex-Patriarch of Venice, Pope John XXIII, who decided to keep St. Pius X's promise.

A special train with the coat of arms of Pius X was made up at Vatican City station. A group of 23 Vatican officials, plus government bigwigs accompanied the Pope's body on its journey. In Venice, the body of St. Pius X, enclosed in a glass coffin, was borne to a navy barge rowed to the rhythm of a drum. Followed by a procession of gondolas, the barge headed up the Grand Canal to St. Mark's, where a choir of 2,000 children and almost everyone in Venice waited.

For the next month, Pius X will lie before a special altar in the basilica. Venice was only disappointed that Pope John himself had not been able to make the journey. "Without your help," he told the Vatican workers who carried the coffin of Pius X, "I hope to go alive."

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