The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-03-07

does he dry his ink His pens are
quilts and his inkwell. of brass and
crystal, is quite within the reach of
the most modest clerk.
Just in front of the pope stands a
statuette of the Cure OARS, that VEN
cradle French parish priest whom the
head of the church reveres above some
more pretentious saints and doctors of
the faith. He never fails to speak of
his admiration for the good cure if he
sees the eye of his visitor wandering to
this ornament. He rates the parish
priest highest in his estimate of the
working body of clerics.
Just behind the desk in the pOpe's Of
flee are some cabinets, and in these he
keeps little gifts, which he makes spe-
cially favored guests. Invariably when
he wants these souvenirs he walks
briskly around his desk and swings
open the doors for himself
This habit of waiting on himself is
rather disconcerting to the vatican Of
| flcialS, who are always on hand to per-
form these little offices. His gifts are
modest, always being mosaics from the
vatican manufactures, medals, pic
lures and rOsaries which he has blessed
In making a gift he invariably requires
the recipients promise to say daily
| pI aver IOI HlIll. he is quite lnSlSI6IlI
about these prayers.
| A well known Sulpician priest re-
Gently resident in Rome, purchased
500 small photographs of the Holy Fa-
| ther, which he took with him to have
| blessed at his farewell audience. The
| pontif was interested in the fact that
the priest intended these as gifts for
his countless students and friends in
every part of the country
Tell your friends to whom you give
these pictures" he admonished, Ito
put them in their prayer books, and
| when they see my face to say a little
prayer for me-to say a prayer every
| time they look upon my pictured face
for L need prayers always. and many
of them"
Just as simple as the office-emi-
nently working office piled high with
letters and neatly folded papers-fs the
tiny chapel where the pope says his
| daily mass.
In the office there are no decora-
tiOns and few pictures The chapel is
so tiny that forty persons feel them
selves uncomfortably crowded and the
chamberlains rarely allow more than
half that number the privilege of at
| tending the Holy Fathers mass. The
room is lighted by one window, cur
tanned in cream lace and red silk bro
Cade hangings, like all the others in the
! suite.
On week days only the chaplain at
tends the mass, but on Sunday there is
more ceremony. The secretaries and
others close to the person of the pontiff
assist at the service. At the conclu-
sion of the mass Plus seats himself on
the left of the altar and hears a mass
| OF thanksgiving, said by his chaplain.
After this he has his frugal breakfast
The sisters, in Palazzo Rusticucci, sit
down to their dinner at exactly the
hour when the pontiff is dining.
The second sister, Anna, is famous
cook, and many a dish is struggled
into the vatican kitchen which has
been prepared across the way in the
small rooms in Palazzo Rusticucci. But
the brother is seldom in that secret,
and his good sister finds her reward
when she asks about his meal if he
mentions the dish and remarks, as he
sometimes, does, that it was almost as
good as if it were prepared in Venice
or Riese.
The pontiff is fond of talking over
the phone, and a day seldom passes
without a little chat with his family in
Riese and with some of the clergy in
Venice. It is his one solace for not see
ing his beloved Venice to hear the
voice of the speaker.
Last year a Venetian prelate, know
ing the pope's preference for the g6n-
dolier songs, ordered a specially con-
structed music box, by which all the
street ballads were finely executed.
But, like all those who love good mu-
sic, this arrangement did not appeal to
the popes artistic sense. Gondoliers'
songs in this form, he remarked, were
like canned fruit-good, if the fresh is
not procurable
The sisters usually speak only their
own tongue-the Trevisian dialect
though they have learned the Roman
dialect and, of course, were familiar
with that of Venice Their inter-
course with the world is much circum-
scribed even In Rome, where the |
ways of Riese are as the ways of for
eigners.
One of the lay sisters who attends |
them speaks French and few words |
of English. But conversation with the |
pope's sisters, unless one comes from |
their country, is limited. They possess
that elegance and stateliness of man
ner which seems the inheritance of the |
most humble Italian.
1t should be an encouragement to all |
youths wrestling over Caesar and the !
classics to know that the pope's sisters |
attribute his transeendent piety, his
broad humanism, his goodness of heart, |
his learning and his wisdom all to the
fact that "he was from the very be-
ginning so good Latin scholar"