Word: pasqualina
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...heavy iron chain across the Gandolfo Palace entrance, and in Rome the great bronze doors of St. Peter's clanged shut. Attendants removed the flannel pajamas in which the Pope died and dressed the body in a white silk cassock and an ermine-trimmed crimson velvet cape. Sister Pasqualina, the German nun who had been the Pope's devoted housekeeper, had a small ritual of her own. She assembled the Pope's half-dozen pet birds and, carrying their cage and two suitcases, left for an unannounced destination. Her task was done...
...Pope's housekeeper, Sister Pasqualina, handed him a "barium breakfast"-a glass of gritty, ill-tasting barium sulfate which he swallowed slowly with unconcealed dislike. The Pope remained standing as the barium salt (opaque to X-rays) moved down his gullet, and the doctors made exposures to show its entrance into his recently inflamed stomach. Then the Pope lay down on the table and the X-ray camera shot more pictures showing the barium's slow course through the stomach and into the upper intestinal tract...
...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...
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