In Peter's City

The piety of the Italians does not prevent them from cheering in church. Last week, as they packed St. Peter's to witness the pageantry which in turn witnessed that Rome was still, more than any other city, the heart of Christendom, they joyously cried "Ecco il Papa! Ecco il Papa!"

After a golden fanfare of trumpets from high in the nave, Pius XII, gold-mitred, red-robed, and flanked by the Swiss Guards in uniforms designed by Michelangelo, was borne through the throngs on the Sedia Gestatoria to his throne.

Trailing their crimson capes, 28 high prelates* came forward one by one to kiss the Pope's foot and be embraced, came forward again to receive their cardinals' hats (which rested only a few seconds on their heads and will never again be worn or used until they lie on their owner's bier). Then the cardinals, men of 16 nations from six continents, embraced each other in a gesture of man's brotherhood. As the Pope left St. Peter's and the Sistine Choir sang the Te Deum, the new cardinals, in a gesture of humility, prostrated themselves, their red capes over their heads.

Day before, in his Consistorial allocution, Pius XII emphasized the "supranational" character of the Church's spiritual empire, contrasted its view of man with the machinations of earthly empires. The Pope mentioned no nations as he deplored:

"Modern imperialism ... an unbridled tendency toward expansion which has within it the gnawing worm of ceaseless unrest. . . ."

P: Governments which "have no real moral background; they evolve of necessity in the direction of ever greater centralization and more stringent uniformity."

P: "Any idea of migration, expatriation, or those deportations by which governments . . . snatch populations from their lands and homes ... the forsaking of healthy traditions and venerable customs ... the degradation of men in the humiliating status of a formless 'mass.' "

P: "The repatriation of men against their will and the refusal of the right of asylum ... to those who, for grave reasons, wish to fix their residence elsewhere."

This week the New York Times's Herbert L. Matthews cabled from Rome that the Pope meant to censure not only Russia, but especially Britain and the U.S. for a still-undisclosed section of the Yalta agreement which sanctioned Russian views on repatriation (see INTERNATIONAL).

*Two of the 32 new cardinals were too ill to come to Rome; two more lay abed in Rome with flu. Cardinal Mindszenty, who arrived late from Budapest, was delayed by the Russians, would not have reached Rome at all but for a plane lent by the U.S. military mission in Hungary.

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