"Christus Vincit!"

Snow sifted down upon the Alban and the Sabine hills, one night last week; and when a pink dawn came Pope Pius XI was seen to look out early from his palace window at the pinky snow.

Seldom enough is such a treat vouchsafed to the Supreme Pontiff; for it seldom snows in Rome, and since 1870 no Pope has left the Vatican. Last week, however, came joyous confirmation of the news (TIME, Jan. 14) that Pope Pius will soon cease to be "the Prisoner of the Vatican," self-cooped in his own palace because of a quarrel with the Italian Government.

The now fully elaborated project for a compromise between Church and State was said, last week, to await only the election of a new Italian Parliament in March, and will then be ratified.

Thus, as Pope Pius XI peered out at the pinky snow, he could look forward to leaving the Vatican next winter should he so choose. He might even go to Switzerland for a little decorous tobogganing.

Such a prospect would not have appealed to many former Pontiffs, but the present Holy Father, Achille Ambrogio Damiano Ratti, was an agile athlete and a daring Alpinist in his cold youth. Though never a fancy skater or ski jumper, His Holiness was once an intrepid bobsledder and a skilled toboggan steersman. The present twelvemonth, 1929, is his "Jubilee year"--the 50th since he first celebrated Mass--and therefore devout Catholics hoped, last week, that by next Christmas the "Prisoner of the Vatican" will be released and restored to an athletic life.

Additional revelations of the week concerning the Church-State compromise did not alter its cardinal points: 1) The Government of Italy will designate a considerable plot of land around the Vatican and extending southward down the River Tiber as "The Papal State"; 2) An indemnity of one billion lire ($52,631,600) will be paid by the Italian Treasury to the Papal State, in compensation for lands seized from the Holy See in 1870. It was learned, last week, that Pope Pius originally wanted four billion lire. Concerning the limits of the new State, the Holy Office intimated that it would encompass not only the environs of the Vatican but the sumptuous Roman Palazzo Doria-Pamphili--a storehouse of priceless art treasures--and also the present mansion of U. S. Public Utilities Tycoon Nicholas Frederic Brady, recently invested by Pope Pius with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (TIME, June 25).

Especially significant last week, in view of all that the Papacy is about to gain, seemed the well-worn inscription on an obelisk erected by Sixtus V, and which faces St. Peter's:

Christus Vintit Christus Regnat Christus Imperat*

*Christ is Conqueror! Christ is King! Christ is Emperor!