Word: pontiff
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...Peter) sang the choir, and the ancient hymn set off a roar that swept across St. Peter's Square and down Via della Conciliazione to the Tiber's banks: "Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!" His Holiness John XXIII, Bishop of Rome, 262nd Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, paused at the entrance to the Basilica of St. Peter, a square, strong rock of a man beneath the jeweled miter and glistening white robes...
...Pope was halted by the master of ceremonies to receive a small brazier of glowing coals and a handful of flax that the Pope threw upon the fire. Then, as the flax flared up and was gone in a puff of smoke, the master of ceremonies looked into the Pontiff's eyes and intoned the ancient warning: "Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi" (Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world). In the course of the Mass, an assisting cardinal placed on the Pope's shoulders the pallium, a white wool band symbolizing his authority as Bishop...
...awesome burdens of the papacy have hardly grown lighter since the 13th century, and they were defined last week in solemn ceremony for the man who would leave the conclave as the 262nd Pontiff. At a Mass in St. Peter's before the cardinals retired into their sealed-off quarters, Monsignor Antonio Bacci, Secretary of Briefs to the Princes (an ancient office in the papal household), told them in finely chiseled Latin what sort of man they must choose...
...enough that the Pontiff be gifted, that he know human and divine sciences and that he will have explored and experimented the subtle reasons of diplomacy and politics. That which is above all needed is a saintly Pope . . . The new vicar of Christ should be a bridge between heaven and the earth . . . a bridge between the social classes . . . a bridge among nations, even those who reject and persecute Christian religion...
Peter's to align the lid of the Pope's lead coffin, all Rome was humming, too, in preparation for the suspense and mystery of electing the 262nd Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church...