The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-07-25
HOW SHE SAW LEO.

An American Woman's Story of a Mass in St. Peters.
 The rare occasions when the aged
 Pope Leo attended a public mass in St. Peters have been the greatest Ieyents to be looked forward to in Rome I Two years ago, when arrived in Rome
 a week before such function, I found
 the whole city talking of nothing but
 the ''pope's mass" I was amazed. I had thought that only kings could a2-
 pear in imperial pomp and raise royal commotion. I had yet learn that Leo
 was a right kingly. ruler. And this particular mass, I was told. would be unusually cerenlonious and thronged
 because of Pope Leo's recent survival
 of threatening operation and the fact | that, in his weakness therefrom, the
 people feared this would be their last Ichance of seeing their well-beloved holy l father. -"
 | I had come to Rome with my head l full of Raphael Madonnas, Sistine fres-
 coes, Greek marble gods; but who could resist the electrical thought waves of 8 1 whole city full of ardent Italians? I
 abandoned the echoing quiet of the long I picture galleries and walked the streets Il to see what was going on. Everywhere the people gathered into groups and discussed the great day. Would the pope be able to appear? Would he
 have strength to go through the ordeal?
 In all the shop windows Leo's photos
 caught the eye. z -.,e.s At St. Peters I always found crowd l fntently watching the pious dissertation | oyOi fY, al
 for workmen were erecting a wooden
 platform on which St. Pter's chair was
 to be placed for the pope.
 I soon became quite as eager to be | present at this mass as any devout I Catholic, for to me it was not only the last chance of seeing Pope Leo, but pos sibly the last opportunity of ever seeing
 any pope. Italian friends informed me I that no admission tickets to the mass I would be sold, and that my only hope
 of securing one depended upon the kind- ness of the rector of the American Cath l olic college for priests.
 called upon the rector on Friday
 before the Sunday of the pope's mass, and found that must wait my turn
 among a large number of other Alneri- cans upon the same mission, However, was given a seat upon a bench in the llinner court of the rector's palace, where from under a cool arcade I could look
 out upon most pleasing Italian scene la fountain splashing under a blue sky and marble statues cleaning among I green palms.
 A nilitary-l looking lackey, having dis
 posed of other applicants, ushered me l
 rector He urbanely regretted that he could not promise definitely at so late
 a date to procure me a ticket, but held
 out hope by. asking me to call again on Saturday morning at 10 o'clock. On I Saturday morning I promptly called, and found many connpatriots before me; but the yesterday lackey justified his
 military appearance by presenting a 3I firm front to us all at the street door,
 while he reiterated his orders in broken
 English: The rector got no more tick
 cts; they all gone away. And we went away.
 3I I left the American rector's palace, inclined in my disappointment to dub I this a Jesuit method of dealing. Hav- I ing now abandoned all expectation of I securing ticket, decided to go to the
 vatican sculpture gallery and obtain l what consolation I could from the
 Apollo Belvedere. As was passing St. Peters little boy held up to me I a duly signed admission ticket to the
 pope's mass. For this he demanded 4 lira $1 bought it without barley,
 arguing with myself that in America I would pay this amount for a theater I ticket, and that to see the pope at mass l would be infinitely more interesting, than any play. In buying the one tick
 ca from the small boy thought I had i made a bargain, and that he had, Esau- \ like, sold his birthright for lira. But #l when I entered the vatican gallery saw men there with their hands full of I tickets, which they were selling for I lira; and on my way home late that af- \ ternoon I found that tickets were being \ sold on the streets at any price.
 Although the mass was not to occur until F o'clock, people were going into 5I St. Peters at daylight of the appointed I Sunday, for peasants from the sur- I rounding provinces had camped over , night in the large open space in front of St. Peter's in order to secure their
 standing room in the church as soon
 as the great doors were opened. By l 8 o'clock the multitudes of Rome were
 streaming steadily n one Girectlon-. toward the San Angelo bridge that H spans the Tiber just beyond the en- l trance to St. Peters. The heterogene-
 ous mass that poured across this causeway was truly unique peasants
 in picturesque holiday costumes,
 monks in the varied garbs of their or I ders, spiritual-looking, white-robed I priests; specter-like friars, swathed in ] black from head to foot; bare footed, 8I portly Franciscans in brown; monks in
 scarlet hoods suggesting moving blos-
 soms; conventiona1ly- -clad Italians and foreigners, mingled in one kaleidoscop- ic throng. Between the pedestrians a
 continuous line of carriages. filled with i Italian patricians and red-gowned car-
 dinals, whirled over the bridge and
 drove up to the entrance of the vati- slcan. @H
 #l Across the imposing piazza of St. Pe- Iter's extended file of soldiers, through l the center of which the people passed I toward the doors of the church. The
 multitude that emptied itself into St. l Peters soon filled that immense build- ing to it's full capacity of 60,000. The only free space left was an aisle for the
 pope's passage down the center of the l =