Lateran Possessed

It was 8:29 in Rome of a bright spring morning. A vast, good-humored mob filled St. Peter's Square, craned necks toward the Arch of Bells. Suddenly the cheers exploded. Through the Arch of Bells into the square came Pope Pius XII, in gold-embroidered cape, followed by a brilliantly robed procession. The Pope climbed into a glistening, open-topped convertible sedan. Into nine other limousines clambered his retinue. By a devious four-mile route across Rome, past kneeling and cheering thousands, past the packed stands in the Via dell' Impero, the Pope's motorcade wound its slow way.

At 8:52 the procession halted in the courtyard before the Lateran Palace. There, while ranks of Roman aristocracy knelt in homage, and Swiss Guards presented halberds, Rome's Vice-Governor, Prince Francesco Dentice d'Accadia, welcomed the Pope in the name of the city. Within the Palace, respectfully around the Pope, gathered his relatives, the former King of Spain & family, the entire diplomatic corps, high government and army officials, high lay dignitaries.

Thence, in his sedia gestatoria (portable chair) the Pope proceeded to the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the real business of the day. In a three-hour complicated ritual, he ascended and descended four Papal thrones, accepted two keys to the Lateran, gave his Cardinals special commemorative medals, laid an offering in a crimson velvet, gold-embroidered purse on the high altar. The long rite over, he appeared to the patient crowds on the balcony of the Basilica's portico. Mussolini's Italian guards struck up the papal hymn, the Pope's Palatine guards blared out the Fascist anthem, Giovanezza. The Pope had "taken possession" of his Church of St. John Lateran, "Mother of all churches."

Probably nobody living that day had ever before witnessed that ancient, elaborate ceremony, last performed 93 years ago by Pius IX. The late Pope Pius XI quietly took over St. John's without pageantry after the Lateran Treaty of 1929. More significant than its spectacular pageantry was the political meaning of this "taking possession." To Catholics throughout the world it marked a new militancy in the Vatican, a new deference from Mussolini. In Catholic eyes it was not so much a procession as a triumph.

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