Pope Pius XII's step was springy and he mounted his throne with more than usual vigor. To thin, 87-year-old Msgr. Alfonso Carinci, Deacon of Protonotaries, he handed a brilliantly illuminated parchment manuscript—the papal bull* which proclaimed 1950 a Holy Year of pilgrimage to Rome. Then, with his face almost constantly lighted by smiles, he spoke to the mauve-robed Apostolic Protonotaries assembled before him, in the most optimistic terms he had used since before war's end.
"Let our humble thanks go to divine Providence, which, after formidable events which shattered the earth during the second world conflict and in postwar years, has granted...
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