'Pope of the Gondoliers'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 43, 22 October 1903, Page 1

' Pope of the Gondoliers '

Venice feels widowed for the loss of its great-heart-ed patriarch There is grief in the queen city of the Adnatic because the gentle ' Pope of the gondoliers ' is now the Prisoner of the Vatican and his kindly face shall ne\ er be seen again upon the pale green waters of its canals. The heart of Pius X., too, Is in his beloved Venice and with the po\erly->stricken poor who hunger for bread in its rickety tenements and under the eaves of its moss-grown and half-deserted palaces. At the Conclave (says an Italian writer in the ' Contemporary ' for September) he ' yielded slowly, painfully, conscientiously, to the repeated entreaties of (Cardinals) Agliardi, Satolli,

and Ferrera, and, construing the choice of the Cardinals as the will of God, resigned himself to the breaking of the links which bound him to the only life which he lenew, loved, enjoyed, and took over a burden which will probably shorten his earthly career.'

The same writer—who, by the way, is no lover of the Papacy—says that the present Pope is ' above all else a genuine, warm-hearted priest, who cares nothing about high-sounding phrases and possesses divine fire enough within him to purify what it touches. . . . The charity wMoh actuates him, and about which a whole cycle of legends has grown up, has its roots in •selflessness and its fruit in dried-up tears, in assuaged sufferin-gs,,in healed hearts 1 and hopeful souls. It is not too much to say that Sarto, who was always a spiritual shepherd and never fully entered into the role of (< Eminence," is characterised by true lowliness of spirit.' Emerson says somewhere that nothing is more simple than greatness. ' Indeed,' he adds, 'to be simple is to be great.' Pius X. is highly gifted with the blessing of simple tastes. He is an utter stranger to the pomp of circumstance and the pride of power. The instructions which he gave to the architects regarding the preparation of his suite of rooms in the Vatican weie characteristic of the man. ' Above all things,' said he " don't lejt them be too beautiful, and let there be no mirrors.' 'In the city of the hundred islands,' says the • Contemporary ' writer, • Archbishop Sarto was extremely popular. All classes of the population revered him as a public benefactor and looked up to him as an exemplary pastor. The breath of calumny never once assailed him. His simplicity, modesty, and sympathy with human suffering conquered the hearts of all, while his love of justice, which was not always relished by his own colleagues, especially when applied to persons and institutions outside the communion of Rome, caused justice to be meted out to himself even by the outspoken adversaries of his Church. Whenever the archiepiscopal gondola glided along the Grand Canal or over the side waterways the jovial gondoliers gave a hearty greeting to their smiling patriarch who liberally scattered his blessings on all sides. When he left Venice recently for the Conclave, il was they who prophesied that he would never return *' But when he becomes Pope," they added, "he ,will surely open wide the gates of Paradise to us all, if only that he may have the pleasure of meeting us again and giving us his blessing " His habits were simple, his tastes lefined, his affections warm and enduring. He was wont to rise every morning at five o'clock, in winter as m summer, and, having celebrated Mass at six, to hire a gondola and take a trip to Lido, accompanied by his secretary, Bressan At eight he was back in his palace in excellent spirits, ready for work and accessible to eveiy one. At noon he sat down to a frugal lunch, which three or four times a week consisted of rice and mussels cooked by his! own sisters, who always chine; to their simple rural habits. These dovoled ladies, when called to the telephone on the day of their brothel's election and informed that he was Pope, at first fancied tlhey were being mystified by some practical joker and resented the h'berty. But when the truth was borne in upon them a harrowing cry came from the depth of their soul : " O God ! we shall never see him more ! " '