When Saints Go Marching In

摘要

Shortly after john Paul II returned from his historic visit to Israel last April, Vatican officials quietly exhumed the body of another pope from a crypt in Rome. Their purpose was to verify the remains of Pius IX, who has been dead for 122 years. The identification was easy, the Vatican newspaper reported, because the pope's body was "almost perfectly preserved," and his face still exuded "striking serenity"—a sign, it was suggested, of his sanctity.