Religion: Patient Improved

"His Holiness has asked for an egg," said the taut, nervous voice of Papal Physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi over the long-distance wire to Bologna. "What am I to do? How shall I tell him he can't have it?" The Pope's new doctor, Antonio Gasbarrini, was delighted. "Tell him he can have not only one egg, but two—and have them flipped with Marsala, if he agrees."

Romans were happily telling each other this incident as a sign that Pope Pius XII was better. The outlook was still chancy for a badly weakened man of 78, but by week's end the improvement was dramatic. No...

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