Word: val
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...Williams College, oil company clerk in Columbus, Ohio. Nephew Dawes had promptly, diplomatically accepted. Promptest of all was Oxford University, which was to make Ambassador Dawes a Doctor of Civil Law almost immediately on his arrival. Simultaneously receiving the same degree would be Spanish Ambassador Alfonso Merry del Val, brother of the urbane and genial Cardinal, and Egyptian Prime Minister Mohamed Mahmud Pasha...
Strangely ill-mated as the two seemed-the simple, ascetic Pope and the flashing knightly young Cardinal-they soon became united by the strongest bonds: dependence and admiration on the part of Pius, affection on the part of Merry del Val...
...when Pius died, Merry del Val seemed by all odds the likeliest candidate for St. Peter's throne. But a new force had arisen in the Catholic hierarchy, Giacomo della Chiesa, Archbishop of Bologna. Cardinal della Chiesa had delivered a striking address on the outbreak of the War, in which he insisted that the Holy See observe the strictest neutrality, yet make every effort to restore peace and mitigate suffering. The fine periods of that address were still echoing when the Cardinals met to elect a new Pope. Ten ballots were cast and as the smoke of their burning...
Then Merry del Val withdrew into the relative obscurity to which he has clung ever since. One dearest labor of these last years has been in the hope of achieving the canonization of simple, faithful, saintly Pius...
Although Merry del Val is 63 he is still the youngest Cardinal in the Curia. In 1920 he became Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church (administrator of the property and revenues of the Holy See). Should the present Pope die, Merry del Val as Cardinal Camerlengo would be in charge during the interim before the new Pope was consecrated...