Pius the Tenth

Extract

A Catholic always finds a papal audience a thrilling experience and we know how men and women of every race, colour, creed and social station have been moved by the charm, graciousness and penetrating holiness of the present Holy Father. But it was a unique event in the life of a young priest, whose professional studies had synchronized with the first half of the reign of Pope Pius X, to see and hear and kiss the hand of that holy Pontiff as I did in 1912. Even then he was commonly regarded as a saint, as we now know that he was; and to have been in such close contact with a beatified or canonized saint is in itself something to remember for a lifetime.

I can see him now as he entered the large hall where he greeted many hundreds of people. He gave an impression of great age, but still more of extreme weariness. The years of responsibility and of constant strife had taken their toll. No longer was there the splendid physique and optimistic outlook which we recognize in the portrait of the Bishop of Mantua of thirty years earlier. I remember most vividly the tone of his voice and the rather sad and appraising eyes with which he gazed on each of us in turn; his very slow progress round the room; and, as a final impression, his quite different appearance as one glanced into a smaller audience chamber where a very small boy was almost romping about him and tugging at his cassock.