Word: vals
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...last week Rafael Merry del Val stepped reluctantly out of the shadow of the retirement in which he has lived since the death of Pope Pius X, his beloved friend. He celebrated the silver jubilee of his elevation, at the hands of Pius X, to the cardinalate. He celebrated a high mass. He attended a banquet in his honor. Then once again he withdrew into the cloister of his memories...
...political tangle which precipitated Merry del Val on his so-glittering early career. Cardinal Rampolla was expected to succeed to the papacy when Leo XIII died in 1903. But objections were raised and the election finally went to Giuseppe Sarto, a simple priest, peasant by birth, peasant-hearted to the end of his days...
With infinite trepidation the new, tenth Pius looked about for some more worldly figure on whom to lean in the grave duty of administering affairs of state. At that time young Merry del Val, only 38, had acted as secretary of the Conclave of Cardinals and was director of the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics at Rome, where he had studied for the priesthood...
...peasant was Merry del Val, but scion of an ancient Spanish family, grandee by birth and inclination, rich, sophisticated. He was the son of Don Rafael Marquis Merry del Val, secretary to the Spanish ambassador at London. His mother, the granddaughter of Brodie McGee Willcocks, onetime M. P., had mingled a strain of English blood with Merry del Val's paternal Spanish. Born in London, Merry del Val had been educated at Baylis House. He completed his theological studies in Rome and was ordained priest...
Under Pope Leo XIII Merry del Val was Master of the Robes and Privy Chamberlain, and one of the youngest members of the papal household. He had ample exercise for his patrician tastes. He liked horses, liked dancing; he was an excellent shot. In ecclesiastical matters however he was not widely known. And when the new pope, Pius X, in his emergency, selected Merry del Val as ProSecretary of State the decision came as a distinct shock...