Wicked Widow

An anecdote with a moral was told in Vatican City last week to illustrate the familiar saying that "Pope Pius has never told a lie."

As related, the incident concerns a visit known to have been paid to the Holy Father by one of his nieces and her husband, on the day before the recent Italo-Papal Treaty, Concordat and Financial Agreement was signed (TIME, Feb. 18). Such was the iron efficacy of Dictator Benito Mussolini's censorship that the Italian press had not yet printed a single word of what was to occur. None the less the Pontiff's niece, like everyone else, had heard rumors, and she asked:

"Is it true? Please tell me. I should be so glad!"

Gently Pope Pius inquired, "Have you read of it in the newspapers?"

"No, Holy Father."

"Then perhaps," said her uncle, with his slow, ineffable smile, "there may be nothing in the rumor."

It is positively affirmed that after a further attempt had been made to penetrate the Pontiff's reserve, he sternly exclaimed:

"I do not like women to meddle in the diplomatic affairs of the Holy See. Such matters are not their concern. The action of one woman, the widow of a man who had important documents, has done much harm already."

In the light of subsequent events, it is clear that the wicked widow thus flayed is Donna Barone, relict of the Fascist diplomat who began negotiations on behalf of Signor Benito Mussolini with the Holy See. She it was who divulged to foreign correspondents in Rome the half-truths which caused half the newspapers of the world to print maps showing that the new Papal State would be some six times larger than has turned out to be the case.