Climax in Rome

By 6 o'clock on Easter morning, the hose-washed streets of Rome were crowded with pilgrims from almost every country in the world, making their way through the pink dawn to St. Peter's. Soon the great church was packed, and latecomers waited patiently in the square outside for the pontifical High Mass to begin. For many of them this was the climax of a long journey.

Inside the basilica, Pope Pius XII read the Easter homily for the Holy Year: "When men follow Jesus, they know perfect peace even in the midst of affliction, persecution and injustice."

It had been Rome's most crowded week in the biggest Holy Year pilgrimage in church history since 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII drew two million pilgrims to the first Holy Year. Romei (pilgrims to Rome) crammed the ancient city's hotels and hostels, seminaries, convents and monasteries. To relieve the congestion and help keep hotel rates from going higher than the average 300% jump they have taken so far, neat villages of prefabricated houses have been set up along Rome's old consular routes, the Via Cassia, Via Flaminia and Via Appia. A small city of tents even sprouted near Tre Fontane, where St. Paul is said to have been beheaded.

Many of the pilgrims seemed surprised to find so many others like themselves. "There was no one calling these people here from the ends of the earth," marveled a Hungarian, "yet they came, they prayed, and most of them go away justified. How can the Communists hope to beat this?"

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