PAPAL STATE: Wicked Widow

An anecdote with a moral was told in Vatican City last week to illustrate the familiar saying that "Pope Pius has never told a lie."

As related, the incident concerns a visit known to have been paid to the Holy Father by one of his nieces and her husband, on the day before the recent Italo-Papal Treaty, Concordat and Financial Agreement was signed (TIME, Feb. 18). Such was the iron efficacy of Dictator Benito Mussolini's censorship that the Italian press had not yet printed a single word of what was to occur. None the less the Pontiff's niece, like everyone else,...

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