Word: val
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...political tangle which precipitated Merry del Val on his so-glittering early career. Cardinal Rampolla was expected to succeed to the papacy when Leo XIII died in 1903. But objections were raised and the election finally went to Giuseppe Sarto, a simple priest, peasant by birth, peasant-hearted to the end of his days...
With infinite trepidation the new, tenth Pius looked about for some more worldly figure on whom to lean in the grave duty of administering affairs of state. At that time young Merry del Val, only 38, had acted as secretary of the Conclave of Cardinals and was director of the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics at Rome, where he had studied for the priesthood...
...peasant was Merry del Val, but scion of an ancient Spanish family, grandee by birth and inclination, rich, sophisticated. He was the son of Don Rafael Marquis Merry del Val, secretary to the Spanish ambassador at London. His mother, the granddaughter of Brodie McGee Willcocks, onetime M. P., had mingled a strain of English blood with Merry del Val's paternal Spanish. Born in London, Merry del Val had been educated at Baylis House. He completed his theological studies in Rome and was ordained priest...
Under Pope Leo XIII Merry del Val was Master of the Robes and Privy Chamberlain, and one of the youngest members of the papal household. He had ample exercise for his patrician tastes. He liked horses, liked dancing; he was an excellent shot. In ecclesiastical matters however he was not widely known. And when the new pope, Pius X, in his emergency, selected Merry del Val as ProSecretary of State the decision came as a distinct shock...
...expected, of course, that the appointment would be only temporary. On the contrary, three months later the Pope made Merry del Val a Cardinal and gave him the full secretary title. Thereafter for eleven years Merry del Val at the Vatican counselled, conferred, carried out the policies of the peasant Pius. He enunciated his Pope's vigorous disapproval of all modernistic tendencies, in religion and in society. He became a world figure...