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Show Popes Blessings Go Out to World as Holy Year Opens. Thousands Throng Immense Basilica to View Breaking of Door at St. Peter's. April 1, 33. (By Associated Press) VATICAN CITY, April 1 Pope Pius XI blessed the whole world today upon inaugurating the holy year by breaking down the holy door of St. Peter's with a golden hammer before a throng of 55,000 persons. This Holy year, the pope said, addressing the canons of St. Peters who have custody of the Holy door, will remain the greatest of all Holy years. With incomparable solemnity it draws its importance from the infinite value of divine redemption, of which all receive benefits, the pontiff continued. Even after nineteen centuries we see the copious fruits thereof bestowed through the immeasurable love of the Divine Redeemer.Therefore, however profound may be our devotion, however assiduous and frequent our prayers, our zeal for living well and doing well, we never can succeed in approaching the greatness of the subject we are celebrating, that is, the redemption and the Redeemer. The popes words were carried by loud speakers throughout the immense basilica, which was packed with a cheering throng. An Italian women, Maria Riccioli, standing on tip toe in the hope of getting a gilmpse of the solemn papal procession through gorgeous lines of Swiss and noble guards, swooned and died while hundreds of Vatican City and Rome church bells proclaimed the opening of the Holy door. Throughout the afternoon after the ceremony thousands formed in line to cross the threshold of the Holy door, which had been barred for some time because officials feared the crowd might rush the consecrated portal. The Holy year, which the pope hopes will assist in lessening the sufferings the world is undergoing, is in commemoration of the 1900th anniversary of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. The ritual used at todays ceremony dates back to the time of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, who decreed a Holy year in 1500.Wearing a white cassock and cape, the pope left his private apartment at 11 a. m. and, with an escort of prelates and the noble guard, went to the hall of vestments, where the cardinals helped him put on the sacred vestments and the white damask mitre. Then the holy father, under a baldacchin, or canopy, went to the Sistine chapel to venerate the blessed sacrament. From there he went to the recently finished elevator next to the Pauline chapel and the elevator took him down to the right of the main altar of St. Peters. |