The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-09 00:00:00

THE POPE'S CORONATION.

The Correspondent of Ms Til7l4S, writing from Rome, on
Sunday says :

The Pope's coronation, reduced to the proportions
of a strictly private domestic ceremony, was held this
morning. The day was unpropitious. Dense, heavy
clouds darkened the whole vault of heaven, causing a
gloom unusual in Rome. At nine St. Peter's and the
vast Piazza before it were thoroughly empty. The
Cardinale, Ambassadors and Princes drove mostly
in plain carriages round the ohurch to the back
door called Porta della Zecca. The few specta-
tors admitted by tickets, mostly monks, priests
and women, arrived on foot or in cabs at the
front Palace bronze door and went up the Scala
Regia. Before ten all were in, and the
Palace and Church remained solitary. No troops
were in sight, only a few policemen, some in plain
clothes, being seen. Even the Press was scantily re-
presented. The Osservatore Romano gives long and
minute particulars of the ceremony celebrated inside—
how Cardinals and other Prelates change their garb
and colours at various stages of the performance ; how
after mass and other prayers have been said or sung,
the Pope is carried from the Sala Ducale to the
Sixtine Chapel, and back again to the Sala Ducale;
how Cardinals are made to kiss him, face, hand,
and foot Prelates only hand and foot, and
other priests the foot only; how in the
Sala Ducale, after the anthem, "Corona aurea super
caput ejus," the Golden Mitre is removed and the
Tiara substituted on his head; after which the solemn
benediction, Urbi et Orbi, is bestowed cn the few hun-
dred bystanders. All this will be followed by the
congratulations of Cardinals and Princes. the Pope
alighting among them from the chair in which he has
been carried from the Chapel used as a Basilica to the
Hall doing duty as a throne-room.
The tow burnt before the Pope's august presence,
with the usual" Sic transit gloria munch," is on this
occasion a reality. The glory of the Papacy as a
worldly Power has passed away. The city and the
world unblessed know nothing of the doings of the
Vatican and of the grand Church overshadowed by it.
The cannon of the castle of St. Angelo are silent;
there is no glitter or massed battalions; the kingdom
of Christ's Vicar is no longer of this world. The
High Priest has laid aside his sceptre; faith can no
longer, even in Rome, be enforced at the bayonet's
point; a great revolution is accomplished; the era
of Pope-Kings is over.
LATER.
Towards eleven, a report having spread that there
would be the Pope's benediction from the balcony of
St. Peter's, the Church and Piazza were filled with
curious people, who remained till three, and then went
home disappointed. After the ceremony in the Sixtine
Chapel, the Pope retired to his apartments without
bestowing the expected benediction The elPrirel
at unifnination, whim
proved a failure.
The Government offioially contradicts the report of
their having intimated to the Vatican that they would
not be answerable for order in St. Peter's if the Pope
chose to celebrate his public coronation in the Church,
as was at first intended. Some battalions were, in
fact, drawn up in the square this afternoon.