POPE’S MOTOR GAR

Evening Star, Issue 20585, 10 September 1930, Page 4

POPE’S MOTOR GAR

— JUBILEE GIFT TO PONTIFF The gift of a motor car to tho Pope by tho Citroen Italiana as a record of the Lateran Treaty and of his sacerdotal jubilee again brings up the question of whether Pius XL .will not soon be “going abroad,” says the Rome correspondent of the ‘ Observer,’ London. This new car is luxurious enough to tempt him across the Alps, but it is more likely to take him to his summer villa on Lake Albauo, and perhaps to Monte Cassino, the great Benedictine sanctuary of learning near Naples. The far was driven into the courtyard of San Damasco in the Vatican on June 9 by Count Bezzi-Seali, and was drawn up at the foot of the great staircase, down- which Mis Holiness wont to inspect , it. On his approach the directors of the Citroen Company and representatives of the workers, who had nil contributed to the, gift, knelt down as one man to receive the Papal blessing. , In the course of his speech expressing gratitude and pleasure, the Pope said be always felt happy to lind. himself among workers, for ho had been born among them, had grown up among them, and, no slack_ worker himself, had passed his life amid work. Wherefore ho invoked the blessing of Heaven upon them all. Enthusiastic applause greeted the Pope as ho seated himself in the car and drove off toward the Vatican gardens? his hand raised in benediction and a smile on his face. Tlie interior of the car is decorated in the Venetian style of the eighteenth century, and upholstered in amai'anthino damask. Electric lighting and heating completes tho comfort of the illustrious traveller. There is an ingenious electrical arrangement by the Pope’s chair enabling him to communicate. his orders to the chauffeur, who finds them written on a luminous board at lut) side. After comparing this motor car with the herlines in which Pius XI. used to drive through Rome one cannot say that the church is not moving with the times.