Word: pius
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Gregory Peter XV Cardinal Agagianian, 63, Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, an Oriental rite communion of the Roman Catholic Church with headquarters near Beirut. Generally considered one of the best brains in the church, Agagianian was appointed by Pope Pius XII to succeed the late Cardinal Stritch as chief of all Catholic missions, is the church's top expert on the Mideast and Communism. His Russian-Armenian origin, which militates against his choice, in another respect weighs in his favor: his election would greatly impress Russians and other Eastern peoples...
Giovanni Battista Montini, 61, Archbishop of Milan, is one of the ablest men in the church, served under Pius XII as pro-Secretary of State for ten years. Shifted from the Vatican to the Milan diocese in 1954, he still wears no red hat; not for almost 600 years has a noncardinal been chosen...
...stood over the body of Pope Pius XII, Eugene Cardinal Tisserant softly pronounced the words: "The Holy Father is dead." With his words began a solemn interregnum that will end only when the newly elected Pope walks from the Sistine Chapel to bless the crowds waiting in St. Peter's Square...
...Since Pius XII had not filled the office that would become most important after his death, that of Camerlengo (chamberlain), the 13 cardinals in Rome on the day he died hurriedly chose one: 79-year-old Vatican Diplomat Benedetto Aloisi Cardinal Masella. One of his first duties was the breaking of the Fisherman's ring worn by the late Pope as well as the larger papal seals used for documents. (Traditional purpose: to ensure against forging of papal documents...
...never in the 1,900-year history of the papacy has there been a clearer example of the life-giving powers of devotion to piety and duty (though there were longer-lived Popes) than Pius XII. Though he had been severely ill several times, and was eventually found to have a hiatus hernia (TIME, Dec. 27, 1954), he functioned with full efficiency well beyond his 80th birthday and until the strokes that swiftly killed him (see RELIGION...