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##### February 10, 1939 OBITUARY ## Pontiff Spent His Life in Religion From His Boyhood Years ##### By THE NEW YORK TIMES Before he was elected Pope on Feb. 6, 1922, Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti had made a distinct, although restricted, name for himself in the vocations of priest, scholar, librarian and diplomat, and in the avocations of bibliographer and alpinist. He was born May 31, 1857, in the village of Deslo, Province of Milan. He was the fourth of seven children. The survivors came to visit him at the Vatican when he celebrated his seventy-second birthday in 1929. They were the first born, Count Fermo Ratti, and his sister Camilla. There were also his niece, the Marchesa Ugolino Persichetti, and her husband. In the middle of the last century there was in the village of Deslo a retired priest named Don Giuseppe Volonteri, who conducted a school for the children of the elite of the neighborhood on condition that he could dismiss deficients at will. From him and later from his uncle, Don Damario Ratti, Achille received his earliest education and his mind turned toward the church. At the age of 10 he was showing such a pronounced trend in this direction that he was sent to the seminary of St. Peter the Martyr and then to the seminary of Monza, where he spent two years, and a third year at the College of San Carlo, Milan. The three following years were spent at the Seminario Maggiore [Grand Seminary] whence at the age of only 16, by the choice of the Archbishop of Milan, he was sent to Rome as a pupil at the Collegio Lombardo, with a scholarship to continue his studies at the Gregorian University. In later life, whenever he visited Rome, he always stayed at the Collegio Lombardo, and in 1922 packed his trunk there before he had it taken to the Vatican. He was graduated from the Gregorian University in 1879, when he was "licensed" as a priest by the State, ordained by the church, and celebrated his first mass. The records show that he had few, if any, oratorical gifts. Excelled in Mathematics Until the last he held all his teachers in affectionate esteem and would, on occasion, relate anecdotes of Don Giuseppe Volonteri and of Luigui Talamoni, who taught philosophy and Greek at Monza, and of Giovanni Riboldi there, who taught mathematics. Talamoni and Riboldi were still living when he became Pope. At that time they looked up their college files and were glad to discover that young Ratti had always received the proficiency mark of 10. Talamoni said: "Ratti was a great inspiration to a teacher and kept us constantly preparing." Riboldi's comment at the time was: "Ratti excelled in mathematics. He would have made a great scientist. I wanted him to go to the University of Turin, but, alas, the church claimed him." The first three years of his priesthood Father Ratti spent in the parishes of Rome, and in 1882 he was called back to Milan as instructor in theology at his alma mater, the Seminary of San Carlo. At the age of 31, in 1888, he received his Doctor's degree and was appointed assistant director of the Ambrosian Library and later director-in-chief. For twenty-seven years his sojourn in Milan was almost uninterrupted--his vocation principally that of librarian, his avocation that of mountain climber. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is one of the sights of Milan; for more than 300 years--since it was founded by Cardinal Borromeo in 1609--it has been the Mecca of scholars, whose researches were often doomed to failure until Dr. Ratti became chief director in 1907. It is one of the most valuable collections in Italy--nearly a quarter of a million volumes and about 10,000 manuscripts, together with rare pictures and engravings and a collection of antiquities. Became Assistant Director When Dr. Ratti entered upon his duties as assistant director the director-in-chief was the famous Orientalist, Don Ceriani. He could always find when asked the most remote and hidden treasure of the library, but nobody else could. Don Ceriani believed in neither catalogues nor indices. He had written his world-famous "Monumenta Sacra et Profana" without the aid of either. Dr. Ratti tried first logic and then persuasion to have order brought out of the existing chaos, but it was of little use. "Yes," Don Ceriani would say, "I suppose some persons who have no memories make use of catalogues. If you need one I have no objection to your making one, but don't bother me. I have no time for such superfluous things." After two years' work, Dr. Ratti asked his chief for permission to engage assistants to move the manuscripts and books to their places in the diagram he had made. "How much will it cost?" inquired the Orientalist. "Oh, possibly 100,000 lire." "No," replied Don Ceriani, adding plaintively: "Let me die in peace. When I am dead you will be able to do what you like." Although for this event Dr. Ratti had to wait seventeen years, he resorted meanwhile to an expedient. He asked to be made "administrator of the library funds," and the request was granted. So Dr. Ratti let the funds accumulate in anticipation of the time when he could use them and make the library a genuine benefit to scholars. When Don Ceriani died in 1907, Dr. Ratti became Don Ratti as his successor and at once began to spend the accumulated funds--about $12,000. He obtained a troop of volunteer clerks from the seminary and engaged the services of able indexers and practical bibliophiles. By the time Giacomo della Chiesa was elected Pope and took office as Benedict XV on Sept. 3, 1914, a successful revolution had taken place in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana--all books and manuscripts had been rearranged and catalogued in accordance with the most approved methods, with the precious items behind locked glass cases in the Sala Antica. Of this work Don Ratti wrote from time to time articles in the reviews--the Rendiconto dell'Instituto Lombardo, the Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiano, and the Archivio Storico Lombardo. In conjunction with Mgr. Magistretti, he published a volume entitled "Missale Ambrosianum." Don Ratti remained at the famous library until late in his fifty-eighth year and might have died there had not his work as librarian attracted the attention of the new Pontiff, Benedict XV, who called him to Rome and made him librarian of the Vatican collection. Don Ratti would have liked to be able to decline the honor; he loved the famous library at Milan whose restoration he had brought about and he loved the beckoning heights of Monte Rosa. But "when Rome calls, one must go"--Quando Roma chiama, bisorgnera andarci. So Don Ratti went and was made a monsignor. Suggested a Compromise But the Pope, who had once been a member of the Instituto Lombardo and one of the committee of the famous Pinoteca of Milan, fully appreciated the new monsignor's feelings. He suggested a compromise: The librarian should alternate every two months between Rome and Milan. He did so until 1916, when the Pope persuaded him to stay in Rome altogether, gave him a private apartment in the Vatican and permitted him to say mass in his room. The methods of coordinating and cataloguing he had found so successful in Milan he employed at the Vatican. He learned restoration and binding and had a special studio for the work with one or two proficient helpers. During the parlous years of the World War a close friendship grew up between Benedict XV and Mgr. Ratti. His Holiness, without ceremony, often visited him at his work, while Mgr. Ratti was privileged to enter the private apartments of the Pope without formality. Among the questions discussed was: What could the Vatican do in order to hasten the peace which all the world craved? It is not known whether the man who was to succeed Benedict XV had a hand in drafting the famous Peace Note of Aug. 1, 1917. It is said, however, on excellent authority, that the note was drafted by the Pope, his Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, and Mgr. Ratti, and that the last named, when he ascended the throne of St. Peter, retained the Cardinal in his old position on account of the opinion he had formed of him in those days. Diplomacy was an art with which he had already some superficial acquaintance. During his directorship of the Ambrosiana he had been twice employed on diplomatic missions. In 1891 he had been sent to Vienna to carry to Cardinal Gruscha the credentials of his office-- that is the Cardinal's hat, "per portare il berretto cardinalizio." Two years later he was sent to Paris to do the same for Cardinal Bourrett. Although these missions had been principally of form, they required tact and an observing eye. His mission to Poland was far more important, particularly as the peace of Brest- Litovsk had just been signed (March 3, 1918) and the interests of the church in Poland were somewhat in jeopardy. His passport and "laissez-passer" are dated April 28, 1918, and give him the title of Apostolic Visitor. It was a most difficult mission. Other than ecclesiastical interests had to be dealt with. Although by this time the delegate had acquired several titles, in the church he merely ranked as a priest. He was not even a titular Bishop. Poland was then occupied by Austro- German troops under command of General Beseler, while the Civil Governor was Prince Leopold of Bavaria. First as Apostolic Visitor and then as Apostolic Nuncio he was to remain in Poland three years--to be made an Archbishop there--and then to proceed on a similar visit to Russia. Before he arrived in Warsaw a Council of Regency consisting of the Archbishop Kalowski, Prince Lubomirski and Baron Ostrovski, had been established, but was looked upon with suspicion by the Poles as an expression of Imperial if not Protestant Germany. As his title was then Apostolic Visitor, Mgr. Ratti's instructions at first limited him to spiritual matters. He was so successful in these that in the second year of his presence he was made Papal Nuncio and his mission extended to all of occupied Russia. Here and in Poland his first care was to establish a regular ecclesiastical regime in the regions where for centuries every effort had been made by the Greek Orthodox Church, through the vehicle of the Czarist Holy Synod, to oust Catholicism. Mgr. Ratti provided for the re-establishment of many sees suppressed by the synod, and in spite of revolutions and counter-revolutions, created an ecclesiastical organization which had never existed under the Czars. With the armistice of November 1918, and the collapse of Austro-German authority and power, Poland regained her independence, a regency was constituted under Marshal Pilsudski and a Constituent Assembly was summoned. Mgr. Ratti was first, in the name of the Holy Father, to greet the new government. But new and grave questions immediately arose. First there was the partition of the great landed estates, many of which comprised ecclesiastical property. Mgr. Ratti constituted a commission of Bishops to deal with the matter, for he had received instructions from the Vatican to allow a division of the property to be carried out so long as it was without detriment to the spiritual interests of church and people. Mgr. Ratti became the medium between the Bishops and the government, and was so successful with the latter that he was responsible for at least two clauses in the Polish Constitution. The first provided that the Catholic Church should hold the first position in the new Polish State; the second, that any measures regarding this church were only to be taken after consultation with the Vatican. All this so pleased Benedict XV that he re-established the ancient nunciature at Warsaw, and in the Consistory of July 3, 1919, made Mgr. Ratti Archbishop over the Titular Archiepiscopal See of Lepanto. This was not without significance to the Poles, who with Venice had taken part in the Battle of Lepanto, which shattered the Turkish control in the Levant in 1571. He was consecrated Archbishop in the great Cathedral of Warsaw on Oct. 28, 1919. In the presence of the entire Polish Episcopate, members of the government and nearly all of the Constituent Assembly. It was an unprecedented event that a simple priest, a former librarian, should be simultaneously made Papal Nuncio and Archbishop. When the partition of Upper Silesia by plebiscite came, Archbishop Ratti was specially appointed as Ecclesiastical High Commissioner, not only at the request of Poland but also at the behest of Germany and the Supreme Council of the Allied and Associated Powers. This office he filled without criticism and with considerable advantage to the church. Other questions with which he was intimately concerned were the deliverance from Russian prisons of the Bishop of Minsk and the Archbishop of Mohileff, and the distribution of funds among the suffering mothers and children, to which the Pope had personally contributed 8,000,000 lire. Made a Cardinal Archbishop He returned to Rome in the Spring of 1921. Andrea Ferrari, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, had just died. On March 4 Benedict XV, on the strong advice of Cardinal Gasparri, but with misgivings on the part of certain Cardinals resident in Rome, decided to have Archbishop Ratti succeed to both offices. The principal objection to giving him the Milan See was that he was not a "preacher." He was elected Archbishop of Milan on June 13 and at the Consistory of June 16 was made a Cardinal. His first public address soon after was a logical expression of the hope for cooperation of the civil and religious powers leading to a solution of the Roman question. This was distasteful to several members of the Curia and they suggested to Benedict XV that the appointment to the Milan See had been a mistake. "Well," replied the Holy Father, "at least you are convinced that Ratti can speak when he makes up his mind to it." For scarcely seven months was he permitted to enjoy in Milan the pleasures of bibliophile and mountain climber, to witness the body politic in travail which was about to bring forth fascism. Then, on Jan. 23, 1922, he was summoned to the Conclave at Rome which almost spontaneously elected him Pope on the sixth day of the following month. He was crowned six days later, retaining the Prefecture of the Congregation of the Holy Office, of the Consistorial Congregation and of the Congregation for the Oriental Church; the Protectorate of the Church and Chapter of Saints Celsus and Julianus; of the Greek Abbey of Grottaferrata; of the whole Order of St. Benedict; of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans); of the Order of Regular Clerks called Teatini; of the Archconfraternity of the Via Crucis, called the Lovers of Christ and Mary; of the Archconfraternity of St. Rochus; of the Archconfraternity of Saints John and Petronius of the Bolognesi. During his pre-papal residence of seven months at Milan as Cardinal Archbishop one episode is notable: The city was in the throes of a semi-anarchist, semi-Communist strike organized by the anarchist Erricone Malatesta. The personnel of the Archiepiscopal Palace was disorganized and there was a movement to raise the red flag over it. Two factors, complements of each other, restored order. One was the moral suasion of Cardinal Ratti; the other was the firm hand of Mussolini.
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