"The Day of God"

The son of a sheep herder and the son of a blacksmith entered the palace of a Roman emperor, last week, and there signed a concordat reconciling the State and the King of Italy with the Papal State and the Pope.

The son of a sheep herder is Pietro Cardinal Gasparri. This priest of strong and massive build can charm a Principessa with his wit, astonish a jurist by his profundity in canon law (which he has codi-fied), or paralyze a nervous opponent by the piercing glance of his large eyes, peering from beneath abnormally heavy, Mephistophelian eyebrows (see cut). Cardinal Gasparri has been Papal Secretary of State for 14 years, twice the length of the tenure of any Prime Minister in Europe. Last week he rose to the grand climax of his career by signing a document which liberates Pope Pius XI from his

"imprisonment" in the Vatican and restores the Supreme Pontiff to temporal power.

The son of a blacksmith is Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, a personage well able to return with interest the lightning of Cardinal Gasparri's glance. Unquestionably these two sons of peasants are the greatest Italian statesmen of their century. They met face to face, last week, in the Lateran Palace, an austere and gloomy pile, presented to the papacy 16 centuries ago by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Successive pontiffs resided in the Lateran until removal of the papal residence to Avignon (1309 A.D.). It contains the Sanctum Sanctorum, Chapel, "Mother Church of Christen-dom"; reached by a'flight of steps which no Catholic, not even the Pope, may ascend otherwise than on his or her knees.

Fortunately there are other staircases in the Latjeran. Cardinal Gasparri, Signor Mussolini and their suites entered not all kneeling, but militantly erect. They met and faced each other across a massive table, 16 feet long and 4 feet wide, the top hewn from a single log of deep red narra wood from the Philippines. Present at the signing were no guests, no newspapermen, no servants, and only two photographers who scuttled out as soon as they had snapped the awesome scene. The door was then locked and Papal Attorney Pacelli read solemnly the text of the Italo-Papal agreement which he was largely instrumental in negotiating.

The Vatican supplied a gold pen with which the document was signed, in deathly secrecy; and afterward back went the pen to the museum of the Vatican.

The greatest extreme to which secrecy can be carried was achieved, last week, when not a single Italian newspaper was allowed to mention or even hint at what was going to happen, up to the very moment when the signing occurred. Thousands of Italians in rural districts knew nothing about it although the rumor spread fast by word of mouth. In the cities the sole source of printed information was newspapers imported from abroad. No explanation was made by either the State or the Papacy.

Not until after the signatures had actually been affixed did the Vatican's news organ, Osservatore Romano, print the only authorized announcement, an editorial entitled "The Day of God."

"A political treaty, concordat and financial agreement has been signed today between the Holy See and Italy . . . they reaffirm the principle of the article in the Italian Kingdom statute of March 4, 1848, recognizing Catholicism as the absolute state religion.

"The treaty grants rights, exclusive and absolute sovereign power and jurisdiction of the Holy See over the Vatican as it is now constituted. It creates a 'City of the Vatican,' declaring that no interference by the Italian Government will be permitted, and that there will be no other authority in the city than the Holy See.

"The Holy See considers, in virtue of the agreements subscribed today, that it is assured of all that is necessary to provide liberty and independence to the Pastoral Government in the Diocese of Rome and to the Catholic Church the world over. The Holy See declares definitely and irrevocably, therefore, that it recognizes the Italian Government under the rule of the House of Savoy with Rome as its capital, and that Italy recognizes the state of the City of the Vatican under the sovereignty of the Holy Fathers."

Followed the briefest possible summary of the 65 articles of the concordat. This indicated that its chief purpose is to provide modification of the civil law of Italy so that it will cease to conflict with the canon law of the Church. Spain and Belgium and several Latin American States have long since made the identical adjustment of civil to canon law which Italy promised to make, last week. The change does not mean that canon law will be enforced upon any one by the state. It does mean that the performance of certain rites, such as marriage by a priest, will simultaneously validate the marriage in civil law.

The amount of the cash settlement arrived at to compensate the Holy See for lands seized" by the state in 1870, when the Pope was shorn of temporal power, was not revealed, last week. But papists of highest repute mentioned $105,000.000.

*Benito's Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Dino ("Mussolini's Handyman") Grandi, Minister of Justice Alfredo Rocco, Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister Francesco Giunta. Pietro's Monsignor Francisco Borgongini-Duca, Secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs; Monsignor Joseph Piz-zardo, Substitute Secretary of State, and Signor Francesco Pacelli, Papal Attorney.