Word: xii
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Many things a Pope can do which are denied to other men. One thing which Pope Pius XII could not do last week-so it was reported-was to get 50 extra tickets for his own coronation in St. Peter's Basilica. For before last Sunday, when the coronation was performed with pomp befitting the first such occasion since the Vatican again became a temporal state in 1929, some 71,000 tickets to St. Peter's had been distributed, and six times as many applications had been turned down...
...procession filed through the Basilica, Pius XII was halted thrice. Before him a master of ceremonies thrice lit wisps of flax, chanting: "Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi." Thus was the Visible Head of the Holy Church reminded that, even for him, the world's glories pass...
Without, some 200,000 people packed St. Peter's Square, eager to see a Pope crowned in public for the first time since 1846 (before the Popes became "prisoners" in the Vatican). The people waited patiently while, within, Pius XII went through long rituals. At last the Pontiff appeared on St. Peter's balcony. The great moment arrived. Cardinal Deacon Caccia-Dominioni chanted "Accipe tiaram" (Receive the tiara). The crowd below saw the Cardinal lift the gem-studded, beehive-shaped triple crown of the papacy and place it on the head of its wearer. Then the multitude dropped...
Diplomacy. Forty nations sent diplomatic missions to the coronation, including the U. S., represented by Ambassador to England Joseph Patrick Kennedy. Germany, however, sent no envoy. What were to be the relations between the Third Reich and the Holy See, was the biggest question of Pius XII's first week of rule...
When Pope Pius XII (see p. 36), then Cardinal Pacelli, visited the U. S. in 1936, he was flown over 4,000 miles in a chartered plane, piloted by Captain Jack O'Brien. Last week Pilot O'Brien reminisced: "Everywhere we flew those three days and four nights, north, east or south or west, we were favored with tail winds and clear weather, and just as soon as we went through, the weather behind us closed in and conditions were unflyable. . . . I decided to catch up on my religion...