was prompted and carried out by the zeal and energy of Patriarch
Sarto, who spared no pains to make it a success. Inaugurated as a
reparation for the many sacrileges offered to Jesus Christ in the
Blessed Sacrament, its aim was to stimulate the faith of the people
and to arouse in them a greater love for this mystery of their faith.
Each parish was to take its part in the celebration, the whole
congress being carefully organized by the cardinal himself. "The
heart of man," he said, "is inconstant in good; it grows cold and
careless if it is not stirred up to action from time to time."
Conferences were held and missions preached in many of the Venetian
churches to prepare the people. The bells of all the city rang out to
announce the beginning of the congress, which opened with a
magnificent procession to St. Mark's. The inaugural address was
preached by Cardinal Svampa, Archbishop of Bologna; and on the
following day the patriarch himself addressed the people.
"Jesus is our king," he said, "and we delight to honour as our king
Him whom the world dishonours and disowns. We, His true subjects,
offer our true homage to Christ the King; the warmth of our love
shall be greater than the coldness of the world. We meet around the
tabernacle where Jesus remains in our midst until the end of time;
there faith springs up anew in our hearts, while the fire of His
charity--the very fire that He came to cast upon the earth--burns
within us. The object of this eucharistic congress is to make
reparation to our Lord Jesus Christ for the insults offered to Him in
the Blessed Sacrament; to pray that His thoughts may be in our minds,
His charity in our institutions, His justice in our laws, His worship
in our religion, His life in our lives."
On the afternoon of the third day the final procession was one of the
most magnificent of all the magnificent pageants ever seen in the
City of the Sea, even in the days when the doge went in solemn state
to wed the Adriatic. Cardinal Svampa carried the monstrance, while
before and after him went cardinals in scarlet, bishops in cope and
mitre, religious orders, the confraternities with their banners and
insignia, hierarchs and priests of the Byzantine and Armenian rites
in their vestments. "Splendid as a dream," wrote one who was present,
"it seemed as if the very Greek saints had stepped out of the mosaics
in the cathedral to be present at the solemn passage of Christ in
their midst."
Cardinal Sarto had not been long at Venice before he determined on a
thorough reform of church music. He summoned Don Lorenzo Perosi, a
young cleric whom he had known at Mantua and a skilled musician.
Music, said the patriarch, was intended to excite the faithful to
devotion and to help them to pray: the music in vogue did neither.
The fearful and wonderful performances of string orchestras, dear to
the hearts of many, were banned, as was the use of drums, trumpets,
tambourines and whistles. No instrument but the organ was to be used
in the churches, and even that was to be subordinate. The words of
the Mass were to be sung to the Gregorian chant with solemnity and
dignity, and by men and boys alone. That the change was not
acceptable in all quarters was hardly to be wondered at. The operatic
efforts of loud-voiced ladies singing the _O Salutaris_ during Mass
to the air of the Serenade from _Faust_, or a Creed that was like the
Brigands' Chorus from an opera, still found many admirers.
Nevertheless, when a Mass of Palestrina was sung under the leadership
of Perosi for the first time in the cathedral of St. Mark, the
Venetians realized the difference. "Enchantingly beautiful," they
said. But it was uphill work, and Don Lorenzo would have lost heart
altogether had it not been for the support and encouragement of his
holy patron.
One of the poorest of the island parishes of Venice was Burano, which
in ancient times had been famous for its point lace. The cardinal,
moved by the misery of its inhabitants, determined to revive the
industry; but only one old woman remained who knew the art. A
benevolent lady, persuaded to interest herself in the work, got the
old woman to teach her, started a school of lace workers, and soon
had six hundred girls in training. Clubs were started for young men
and boys, not only here, but in many other parishes. There was no
difficulty, no misery for which the patriarch did not try to find a
cure. He had the art of giving without offending people whose decent
appearance covered a poverty often more bitter in that it had to be
hidden. He went one day to see a friend who had fallen on evil times,
and who was in dire need of help. "I am so sorry," said the
patriarch, "I have absolutely nothing left, but take this," giving
him an exquisite ivory crucifix which had been given him as a
present; "it is valuable, and will realize a good sum."
Although unflinchingly firm in everything that concerned the faith
and the rights of the Church, the frank courtesy of Patriarch Sarto
and his conciliating spirit kept him always on good terms with the
government. He bade his priests and people respect all lawfully
constituted authority, recognizing that "the powers that be are
ordained of God." "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and unto God the things that are God's," he would often say. When
King Humbert of Italy was assassinated he ordered that a requiem
should be sung for him in St. Mark's; and when the widowed queen came
to Venice for rest and change of air, he visited and consoled her
with the most heartfelt sympathy. "The restoration of society in
Christ is the only cure for all the world's evils," he would
constantly repeat. "No good is good which is not rooted and founded
in Christ." He had the gift of inspiring others and rallying them to
his own charitable schemes, filling them with a fire and energy like
his own.
The 14th of July, 1902, was a day of grief for Venice. The great
campanile of St. Mark's, which had stood for centuries watching over
the glories of the City of the Sea, crumbled and fell in ruins. The
universal lamentations were changed, by order of the patriarch, into
thanksgivings that no one had been injured, and that the cathedral
itself had not suffered. The reconstruction of the campanile was
immediately determined on, and on the 25th of April, 1903, the feast
day of the evangelist and patron saint of Venice, the first stone was
laid. The square of St. Mark was a sea of heads; every window and
balcony was crowded. The Duke of Turin, a prince of the house of
Savoy, was present as the representative of the king, who had
contributed generously to the reconstruction fund. The cardinal stood
opposite him. Church and state were face to face, with the memory of
all that had passed since the beginning of the Italian Revolution
between them. Was conciliation possible? It might have seemed that
day that it was--that in charity and justice lay the solution. The
cardinal's tact and courtesy on this occasion, as on so many others,
put everybody at ease, and his discourse won the admiration of all.
"It is a good and beautiful thing," he said, "for men to ask God's
blessing on their work. The genius of man is at its highest when it
bows before the Light Eternal. I rejoice, therefore, with you, most
noble representatives of Venice, that, as faithful interpreters of
public opinion, you have decided that the rebuilding of our beloved
campanile must be inaugurated with a solemn act of religious worship.
I rejoice that you have shown yourselves worthy sons of your Venetian
forefathers, who, knowing well that 'unless the Lord build the house,
their labour is in vain that build it,' began no enterprise without
asking God's blessing and the protection of His Virgin Mother in
their work." After having shown that all the glory of medieval Venice
sprang from her faith and her religion, he turned to the Duke of
Turin and the other illustrious guests with a word of thanks for
their presence. "A man of personal fascination and splendid
presence," wrote a member of the French government who was there,
"with handsome open face and strong clear-cut features, softened by
eyes in which shines the light of perpetual youth. Nothing proud
about him, nothing obsequious, his manner with the Duke of Turin was
perfect, that of a man who is completely at his ease."
Prince of the Church as he was, he was always ready to fulfil the
duties of a simple parish priest. He would carry holy communion to
the sick, hear confessions, give retreats in the churches of the
diocese, and visit the prisons, the hospitals and the reformatories,
preaching to their inmates and comforting all their sorrows. The
religious orders were amongst the most favoured of his children; he
was always ready to visit them on their feast days, and loved and
esteemed their work. Both saint and sinner found in him a kindly
strength and simple goodness which set them at their ease at once.
The very sight of his face was a welcome; there was no affectation of
piety or austerity which might repel or frighten anyone; no one could
feel stiff or awkward in his presence, all shyness and reserve gave
way before his gentle manner.
An intimate friend of the cardinal, who was staying with him, asked
one day if he might celebrate Mass at an early hour next morning, as
he had to catch a train. "Why not?" was the answer, "I will see that
all is ready for you."
What was the astonishment of the priest when he went to the
cardinal's private chapel at an early hour to find his host himself
preparing for the Mass.
"But who will serve?" asked the celebrant.
"I," answered the cardinal very simply.
"Eminence!" protested his guest, quite aghast at the suggestion.
"What!" he exclaimed, smiling, "do you imagine that a prelate of my
rank does not know how to serve Mass? A fine idea you have of the
princes of the Church!"
He hated ostentation of any kind and would often travel about the
country incognito. He was going one day to the convent of the Sisters
of Charity at Crespano when, feeling sure that at Bassano, where he
had to get out, there would be an ovation, he wrote to a friend
telling him that two Venetian priests going to Crespano who did not
know the country would be glad if a carriage could be sent to meet
them at the station. The train arrived, and the two priests made
their way to a ramshackle little carriage which was standing outside.
The friend, who was waiting to do the honours to the cardinal's
priests, came forward eagerly, and was just about to greet the elder
of the two when he recognized the patriarch. "Your Eminence!" he
stammered, utterly taken aback; but the cardinal, finger on lips in
warning, jumped into the carriage followed by his companion, and
drove away. Little did he guess that the time was close at hand when
his desire to be unnoticed could nevermore be fulfilled, when he who
loved to take the lowest place was to be obliged to take the highest
in the world.
V
THE PAPAL ELECTION
The news of the death of Leo XIII, on July 20, 1903, came as a blow
to the whole Catholic world. The old man of ninety-four, whose
wonderful intelligence had remained unimpaired until the very end of
his life, had guided the bark of Peter with sure and unswerving hand
during the twenty-live years of his pontificate. His blameless life,
his lofty ideas, and his indomitable moral courage have been borne
witness to by men who had small sympathy for the Catholic Church.
"The original attitude of Leo XIII towards the new social forces,"
wrote the _Quarterly Review_, "will make his pontificate a memorable
epoch, not only in the history of the Roman Church, but in that of
all Christian countries. His personal conception of the duties of the
Church towards the labouring classes was catholic in the broadest and
best sense of the term. It was such a conception as befitted the
chief pastor of Christendom." And this was only one side of the
activity of the great statesman and pope who had passed away. "Pray
that God may send to His Church a shepherd after His own heart," said
Cardinal Sarto when he announced to his people at Venice the news of
the pope's death. Little did he think how that prayer was to be
answered. Yet Leo XIII himself not long before his death had said to
an intimate friend, "If the conclave chooses a cardinal not resident
in Rome, it is Cardinal Sarto who will be elected."
The announcement of the death of Leo was sent to all the cardinals
throughout the world, with the intimation that the conclave for the
election of his successor would be held on the 31st of July. It was
not until the 26th that Cardinal Sarto was able to set out. He
laughed at the apprehensions of his sisters that he might not come
back to them. His secretary, Don Giovanni Bressan, was busy putting
together what was necessary for the journey. "Where is Don Giovanni?"
asked the cardinal of his niece Amalia. "Go and tell him that a
journey to Rome is not a journey to America."
"Get the conclave over and come back quickly," said Amalia.
"Sooner or later," replied the Cardinal, "it does not matter. In the
meantime you go to Possagno for a change of air and I will pick you
up on my way back." But the sisters were sad, and refused to be
comforted.
The whole city turned out to greet the patriarch as the gondola made
its way to the station; from every balcony and bridge good wishes and
farewells followed him. At the station there was a regular ovation,
poor and rich crowded round him to kiss his ring or catch a word from
his lips. With tears in his eyes he thanked them for that
demonstration of affection, and for the love they bore him.
"One more blessing! one more blessing!" pleaded the people, "who
knows if you will ever come back?"
"Alive or dead, I shall come back," was the answer.
The train began to move, and from its window Cardinal Sarto
unknowingly looked his last on his beloved Venice; it was good-bye
for ever.[*] He had written to the Lombard College for rooms, and
there he remained until the opening of the conclave. A Venetian lady
who lived at Rome, having come to see him, expressed a polite wish
that he would be the new pope. Cardinal Sarto laughed. "It is
sufficient honour," he replied, "that God should make use of such as
I to elect the pope."
[*] The story that he had taken a return ticket does not seem to be
true but he planned to return to Venice immediately after the
coronation of the new pope.
A French cardinal (Lecot of Bordeaux) who did not know him spoke to
him one day. "Your Eminence is an Italian archbishop?" he asked.
"I do not speak French," replied Cardinal Sarto, in Latin; "I am the
patriarch of Venice."
"Ah! if you do not speak French," answered his questioner, "you will
not be eligible for the papacy."
"Thank God, no," was the answer; "I am not eligible for the papacy."
"I think the election will be quickly over," said Cardinal Sarto to
an Italian journalist who came to visit him in Rome. "The pope will
probably be elected at the second scrutiny."
"I venture to disagree with your Eminence," was the reply, "and on
these grounds. I hope--for I think it is permissible--for a cardinal
who resides in his diocese. Not that the cardinals of the curia are
wanting in breadth or in experience, but as a rule those prelates who
live in the provinces are in immediate contact with the people. They
have a better chance of seeing things from the inside than those who
occupy an official post in Rome, important and indispensable though
these may be. But of necessity the non-resident cardinals are less
well known in Rome than those of the curia, their candidature must
therefore be slower and the election longer."
The election of a pope is one of the most solemn deeds of the Church,
and is safeguarded by strict regulations. On the death of the pontiff
the Cardinal Chamberlain, as representative of the Sacred College,
assumes charge of the papal household, notifying to all the cardinals
of the Church the death of the pope and the impending election. Every
cardinal has the right to vote in the conclave, but he must be
present in person to do so. Each one may take with him a secretary,
who is generally a priest, and a servant. In the meanwhile a large
portion of the Vatican palace has been walled off and divided into
apartments or cells for the conclavists. Access to it can be had
through one door alone, which is left open until the conclave begins,
when it is closed and barred from without by the Marshal of the
Conclave, and from within by the Cardinal Chamberlain. All
communication with the outside world is then at an end until the
result of the election is announced.
The conclave opens officially (now) not later than eighteen days
after the pope's death. The cardinals assist at Mass and receive holy
communion from the hands of the Cardinal Dean, who solemnly adjures
them to elect as pope him whom they believe to be the most worthy.
They assemble in the Sistine Chapel, where the actual voting takes
place. The stall of each cardinal has a canopy overhead and a small
writing-desk in front. The door is shut and bolted and the voting
begins. Each cardinal having written the name of his candidate on the
paper provided, deposits it in a chalice on the altar, taking as he
does so the required oath: "I call to witness the Lord Christ, who
will be my judge, that I am electing the one whom before God I think
ought to be elected." The ballots are then counted and read aloud,
and if no candidate has received the necessary number of votes, they
are burnt in a little stove together with a handful of damp straw. As
the chimney of this stove extends through a window of the chapel, the
colour of the smoke or _sfumata_ can be clearly seen by those
outside. Not until the election is made are the ballots burnt without
the accompanying straw, when the clear white smoke is the first
notification to the people that the pope is elected. Voting takes
place twice a day, morning and evening, until a majority of
two-thirds of the votes has been attained.
The _veto_ was the alleged right of certain Catholic rulers to object
to the election of a cardinal of whom they do not approve. It was
exercised rarely and has never been formally approved by the Church.
Although Pius IX had forbidden any interference by the secular power
in a papal election, an attempt was made to exercise the _veto_ at
the conclave which resulted in the election of Pius X. At the third
scrutiny, in which Cardinal Rampolla came first with twenty-nine
votes, Cardinal Puzyna, Bishop of Cracow, who had accepted the
mandate of the Austrian government in the name of the Emperor Francis
Joseph, read (it is said after signs of severe embarrassment) a
declaration excluding Cardinal Rampolla, without giving any reason
for the exclusion.
The cardinals protested against the interference, and the votes in
Cardinal Rampolla's favour were found to have increased by one in the
evening scrutiny. But Cardinal Sarto's had been mounting steadily
from the beginning and continued to do so until they reached the
number of fifty.[*]
[*] The opinions of those best qualified to judge seem to agree that
Cardinal Rampolla's failure to be elected was quite uninfluenced by
the Austrian action. Soon after his election Pius X definitively
abolished the exercise of the veto.
At five o'clock on the 31st of July the Cardinals, sixty-three in
all, assembled at the Vatican. At nightfall the last door was closed
and bricked up; the conclave had begun. At the first scrutiny
Cardinal Rampolla had twenty-four votes, Cardinal Gotti seven, and
Cardinal Sarto five. There was nothing alarming in this; but when, at
the second scrutiny, the votes in favour of the Patriarch of Venice
had doubled, and at the third doubled again, it was another matter,
and his anguish was obvious to all. With trembling voice and tears in
his eyes, he spoke to the Cardinals, begging them to give up all
thought of him. "I am unworthy, I am not qualified," he pleaded,
"forget me."
"It was that very adjuration, his grief, his profound humility and
wisdom," said Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, "that made us think of
him all the more; we learnt to know him from his words as we could
never have known him by hearsay." The voting continued. In the
evening of the second day Cardinal Sarto, who at the last scrutiny
had obtained twenty-four votes, on returning to his room found
several of his colleagues who had come to beg him not to refuse the
burden if God should call upon him to bear it. "I was one of those
who went to visit him in his cell in the evening, to try to induce
him to accept," said the American cardinal. "Those who had gone
before had shaken his resistance, so that I almost hoped he would
resign himself to what seemed to be inevitable." On the third day the
votes for Cardinal Sarto went on increasing, until on the morning of
the fourth day fifty out of the sixty-two were in his favour, eight
more than the forty-two required for a valid election.
They asked him if he would accept, but he had already accepted in his
heart after a most grievous inward struggle. "I accept," he said,
with tears.
"What name will you take?" they asked him. "I will be called Pius,"
he replied.
Pale and trembling, he was clothed in the white cassock, the ring was
placed on his finger, and he was led to the throne to receive the
obedience of the cardinals. When at last the pope returned to his
cell he remained for long in prayer before the crucifix. The faithful
servant who had come with him from Venice begged him several times in
vain to take some food. At last he rose, and, turning to his
secretary, Monsignor Bressan, with something of his old serenity:
"Come," he said, "it is the will of God."
Immediately after his election, when leaving the balcony from which
he had given his first blessing inside St. Peter's, Pius X expressed
his wish to go and visit Cardinal Herrero y Espinosa, Archbishop of
Valencia, an old man eighty years of age who was lying sick in his
cell. He had been taken ill a few days before and had received the
last sacraments. The pope blessed and prayed over him. Three days
later the man for whom the doctors had declared there was little hope
was well enough to get up. He returned soon after to Spain, cured, as
he himself always declared, by the prayer of Pius X.
The news of the election was received with joy in Italy. Outside of
that country Pius X was little known. "What kind of a pope will he
be?" was the question on many lips. The world had not long to wait
for the answer. Two months had scarcely passed before his first
encyclical letter rang through the Catholic world.
"It matters not to tell with what tears and earnest prayers we sought
to avoid this appalling burden of the pontifical office," he begins.
"We could not be other than disturbed at being appointed the
successor of one who, after having most wisely ruled the Church for
well-nigh six-and-twenty years, showed such power of genius and so
shone with virtue that even adversaries were constrained to admire
him."
Going straight to the heart of the world's unrest, the pope lays bare
the cause of the disease--"the falling away from and forsaking God,
than which there is nothing more nearly allied to perdition. As,
borne up by God's might, we set our hand to the work of withstanding
this great evil, we proclaim that in bearing the pontifical office
this is our one purpose, 'to restore all things in Christ, so that
Christ may be all in all'." Beautiful words, which embody the
teaching and the work of a lifetime spent in God's service. No empty
ideal either, but the one that Giuseppe Sarto had set steadfastly
before himself from the very day of his consecration to the
priesthood, to which he had devoted himself strenuously ever since.
He foresaw the hostile judgments that were to be expected from
certain quarters on every action of the head of the Catholic Church.
"There will be some, assuredly, who, measuring divine things by those
that are human, will study our mind to wrest it to earthly ends and
the aims of parties. To cut off this vain hope of theirs, we affirm
in all truth that in human society we desire to be nothing, and by
the help of God we will be nothing, but the minister of God whose
authority we bear. God's cause is our cause, to which we are
determined to devote all our strength and life itself Therefore, if
any ask of us a token to show forth the purpose of our mind, we shall
ever give this one alone--'to restore all things in Christ'."