“Bareheaded and carrying a lighted candle in his left hand, the frail figure of Pope Pius XII crossed the threshold of the Holy Door at St. Peter's, Rome, yesterday morning as the great bells of the Basilica boomed out over the Eternal City, announcing to the world the inauguration of the 25th Holy Year.”
So announced the Sunday Independent in its lead story of Dec. 25, 1949.
The Christmas Eve ceremony was world news, as were various papal statements in the run-up to Christmas Day. The Irish Press ran with this main headline in all caps, “Halt an epoch of guilt, hypocrisy,” with the subhead, “Pope’s Message to All World.”
On the same day, the New York Times went with a story along the left side of Page 1 that began, “Pope Pius XII called today upon all Protestant and Orthodox Christian churches to ‘return’ to that of Rome and urged all Christians as well as Jews to support the Roman Catholic Church in the creation of a united front against militant atheism.”
In contrast to the daily Irish Independent, which at the time still had mostly classified ads on its front page, the Sunday paper could make a splash and it did so in its first-hand account from Rome. “Bells of Christendom Peal As Pope Enters Holy Doorway” was the headline.
The Sunday Independent report continued, “The ringing of the bells was taken up by all the other churches of Rome. At noon the church bells rang the joyous news throughout Christendom, a great carillon that echoed around the world—save in the countries behind the Soviet ‘iron curtain,’ where the Cominform has banned all Holy Year celebrations. Some 80,000 people — among them a queen, statesmen and diplomats — watched the rich ceremonial of the Opening of the Holy Doors that goes back unchanged for six centuries.”
Pope Pius XII in 1949.
In a related item, the New York Times reported that Italy’s Prime Minister Alcide de Gaspari had meetings with Irish Foreign Minister Sean MacBride and Spain’s Foreign Minister Alberto Martin Artajo, who were both in Rome to attend the Christmas Eve ceremony. At the time, the Spanish dictatorship was in bridge-building diplomatic mode and it wished to emphasize that it was a Catholic state. Artago denied, though, reports that his boss General Franco would visit Rome at some point during the Holy Year of 1950.
Life and politics went on beyond the walls of Vatican City, and publications in Ireland and elsewhere focused on the usual concerns of holiday time and other news, of course, as Christmas Day 1949 approached. We provide a few excerpts here. (For a subscription to Irish Newspaper Archives click here.)
“Mr. MacBride for Rome,” Anglo-Celt, Co. Cavan
Mr. MacBride, Minister for External Affairs, left Dublin on Sunday for Rome to attend the ceremonies in connection with the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s to celebrate the beginning of the Holy Year. During Mr. MacBride’s absence, his duties as Minister will be undertaken by Dr. Noel Browne, Minister for Health.
“Pantomime Season,” from “Notes from the Capital,” Longford Leader
Cashing in on the usual Christmas ballyhoo, worked up by the daily papers for commercial gain— what to give him—what to give her—at 35/- [shillings] an inch, the theatres have arranged special Christmas shows which will last into the New Year. So far they are getting meagre audiences because the public are perhaps pre-occupied with spending cash in other directions. But things will improve. There is plenty of money around. One imagines, however, that that remark in the Olympia pantomime, "a blithering idiot, like a Fianna Fail back-bencher,” will not survive many more rehearsals—that is, if the insurance company has its way.
“Home For Christmas,” By Terry Ward, Sunday Press
LONDON, Friday — By air and by sea the Irish here are going home for Christmas. Even if those of us who have to remain behind were enabled by some last-minute dispensation to make the trip there would be no means — short of chartering a plane — of getting across the Irish Sea. Every route to Ireland is fully booked for the next two days and those who put off a decision until the last minute will spend Christmas in Camberwell or Camden Town rather than in Cavan or Connemara.
I had the annual melancholy task and duty of seeing a friend off to Ireland to-night. We went to Euston in a taxi—he brimming over with seasonal good cheer and I sunk in melancholic nostalgia. Nominally I was seeing him off though I preferred to put it that he was leaving me behind. A traffic jam in New Oxford Street temporarily punctured his bonhomie, but an unruffled policeman soon straightened things out and we reached Euston station with 20 minutes to spare.
The porter at Euston, who must have been something of an ethnologist, diagnosed the Irish Mail as soon as we left the taxi and led us along the familiar paths to Platform 13 without any prompting from us. We took this as a compliment.
The Irish Mail was in two parts and both parts were full. The platform was crowded with travellers and those who had come to wish them God speed. It was easy telling one from the other. Those who were going were gay—those who were staying behind—were selfish enough to be sad. The tempo of the conversations quickened as the hands of the platform clock crawled nearer 8.40. From vantage-points at windows and at doorways the fortunate homeward bound leaned from the train and assured friends on the platform they would not forget to remember them to the folks at home.
A guard, appropriately enough, waved a green flag, porters hastily swung doors closed, there was a long keen blast from a whistle, the Irish Mail jerked in convulsive protest and in a minute the red light on the last coach was disappearing around a bend. The platform was soon cleared of stragglers and shortly was as lonely as Croke Park on the morning after an All-Ireland final. On the underground I got a ticket to Blackfriars. It might well have been to Derry — so near and yet so far.
“Xmas in the Post Office,” Ballina Herald, Co. Mayo
The volume of traffic in Ballina Post Office preceding Christmas exceeded that of any other year, particularly in the dispatch of gift parcels to England which reached the colossal number of 6,566. To meet the situation a new compartment, which adjoins the Post Office, was availed of and on several nights work ceased at 4 a.m. One evening no less than 600 bags of parcels were dispatched. There was a slight drop, however, in the flow of registered letters and up to the present one thousand have been delivered in Ballina. The postmaster and his exceedingly competent staff deserve to be complimented on the way they facilitated the public and for succeeding in running things so smoothly in spite of the heavy pressure.
From “Paris Diary,” The New Yorker
For the first time since 1939, there is plenty of fine French game for the holiday table. French pheasants and partridges multiplied during the war years, when men were shooting only at each other. Until two seasons ago, sportsmen could not get the shells to kill enough birds to count. The heavy prewar supply of pheasants from the Hungarian estates and of woodcock from the Polish estates — the nobles in both countries operated their shoots for export as a means of making the land pay — has naturally been shut off by the Iron Curtain. The French birds are accordingly without competition in the market and high-priced, but, being fresher, less high in taste than the imported birds were.
“Programmes for Three Days,” Irish Independent
The cross-Channel holiday rush of three matches in four days puts a severe strain on professional footballers, many of whom face the prospect of long and arduous train journeys.
This time of the year generally produces a number of surprise results, and by Tuesday night there may be several notable changes in the English League tables.
Liverpool should retain their position at the head of Div. 1, despite the fact they lost their last two matches. They entertain their neighbors Everton, to-day, and two encounters follow with Chelsea.
Should Liverpool falter they could be replaced by a number of teams, since only four points separate the first from the seventh club.
“Christmas Story,” The New York Times
The December sunlight slanted with little warmth across the park whose leaves were too dead to answer any breeze. In the early day there were no sounds or smells or people. The stone tables marked with colored squares for chess or checkers had no audience and no players.
Then an old man came, with a newspaper, and unfolded it upon the table as he gave his mind to the printed words while he hunched his body against the cold. He put a gnarled finger on the page before him, and looked up at the policeman who approached him.
“Which one?” demanded the old man, tapping the page with his fingers.
“This kid who can’t see,” said the cop, making his choice among the Neediest Cases.
“The mother who has lost her job at Christmas,” replied the old man.
Case by case each argued for his choices.
Then from his ragged coat the old man fumbled a dirty envelope. The officer found he had a postage stamp. The old man searched for something more difficult to find and finally found it, a grimy dollar bill.
The officer produced another, identical in all but dirt.
The old man pushed the money in the envelope and wrote with a stubby pencil, “The Hundred Neediest.”
“Are you sure you can spare it?” asked the cop.
“Sure,” said the old man. “I got my health, ain’t I?”
