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From the Magazine | Religion Ordeal in the Vatican
Posted Monday, Dec. 13, 1954
The tired, 78-year-old Pontiff was in his study working on a speech when
he felt the first attack of pain. It began in his lower abdomen and
rapidly became more and more intense. The old man lifted the phone. When he heard the Pope's voice, Msgr. Angelo Dell'Acqua, acting Papal
Pro-Secretary of State, rushed through the ringing marble corridors of
the Vatican to the tiny room on the third floor. He did what he could
to ease the Holy Father's suffering; he had called the Pope's
physician, Dr. Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi. Also to the Pope's bedside came
his three nephews, Swiss Dr. Paul Niehans,* and his old friend, Msgr.
Domenico Tardini. Stretched out on his plain brass bed, retching in pain, the Pope seemed
first to be suffering an appendicitis attack; then, as evidence of
intestinal hemorrhage appeared, the doctors feared a perforated ulcer.
X rays were ordered. The sacrament of Extreme Unction was administered.
Gradually the pain began to subside. Downstairs, meanwhile, a cluster of anxious monsignors waited for some
word. Newsmen gathered in a courtyard. At last Dr. Galeazzi-Lisi came down.
"The Holy Father's condition is disquieting but not unhopeful," he
said, "so long as there is no heart collapse." Misinterpreting the
doctor's last words, an excited Italian newsman breathlessly told his
paper that the Pope had suffered a heart attack. Soon the Roman papers were on the streets with the erroneous report, and
the shocking news blackened headlines around the world. Most disturbed
of all were those close enough to the Holy Father to know that his
heart always was exceptionally strong; if that has given way, they
reasoned, his last and best defense against death is gone. But next day
good news came down from the small, white bedchamber—the Pope was
feeling better, the X rays showed nothing alarming. The tentative
diagnosis: a "gastric or ulcerous condition [caused by] high gastric
acidity." The Pontiff still insisted that the doctors' bulletins be
brought to him for his personal editing. This week, after a few spoonfuls of gruel and a long nap, the Pope
broadcast a message "live" over Vatican Radio and the Basilica's
loudspeakers. Into the microphone held before his lips he spoke with
effort: "To our dear children of beloved Rome, to whom we feel as close
in prayer as we are close to the Divine Master in our suffering . . . we
impart, with our hearts turned to the Lord and the Immaculate Virgin,
our paternal Apostolic benediction." But the Pope was still gravely ill, and the long, anxious watch went
on—a watch in which millions of people in other faiths joined. Roman
Catholics all over the world prayed: "O God graciously look upon Thy
servant Pius . . . that he may profit his subjects both by word and
example and, together with the flock committed to his care, attain to
eternal life." *Who has stirred up much medical controversy in Europe with
his practice of injecting and grafting animal cells to replace wornout
human tissues.
From the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of TIME magazine
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