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Show THE POPE'S BIRTHDAY. Pope Pius X celebrated his seventy-fifth seventy-fifth birthday Thursday, June 2. The Holy Father spent the day very quietly. He celebrated mass in his private pri-vate chapel, only his sisters and niece attending. Later he gave audience to Cardinal Merry del Val, Papal Secretary Secre-tary of State, and the prelates of the Papal household. Then he gave ordinary or-dinary audiences. In the afternoon he walked in the Vatican garden. In consequence of the hostile celebration cele-bration secretly organized by the Giordano Bruno association, the Pope countermanded the plans for the usual evening celebration by the Papal Pa-pal troops. Rain prevented the Bru-noites Bru-noites from carrying out their malicious ma-licious plan. The Holy Father Is said to be in excellent ex-cellent health, and gives large audiences au-diences daily. During the last winter, says Rome, His Holiness has suffered less than usual from gout, he has grown slightly slight-ly heavier, his hair has become snow-white, snow-white, he takes rather less exercise than he used to do but he works as much as ever, he still retains an ease and grace of movement that are extraordinary ex-traordinary in a,jtan of his years, he continues to be the first to rise every morning in the whole Vatican palace, he has abated nothing of the simple austerity of his life, he observes the fasts of the Church with all his old regularity. In one respect the Holy-Father Holy-Father has greatly changed since his accession to the Pontifical throne. Eight years ago he knew comparatively compara-tively little of the world outside the province of Venice and outside Italy. Now he continually astonishes the bishops from all parts of the world who visit him by his intimate Knowledge Knowl-edge of the conditions affecting their countries and dioceses. Finally the Holy Father has not been ashamed to go to school In his green old age. For instance, somebody must have taught him English in recent years, for he not only reads English documents easily, but he evidently understands remarks that are made to him in English, and sometimes he will even venture to speak a few words in our language. Catholic Universe, |
