Pax Orbis

This is another instalment in the series of Fr. Edward Black’s memoirs; this article recounts time he spent in Rome from 1977-78, meeting two memorable women, including a princess.

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Following my ordination on 29 June 1977, I spent some very eventful months in the UK, before going on to Switzerland where I replaced a priest in Geneva for all of that month. At the end of my stay in Geneva, I proceeded to Italy where I was to continue my post -ordination studies at our house in Albano near Rome.

There I joined two other newly ordained colleagues from my seminary class. These were John-Michel Faure and Philipe Guépin. The other members of our class had been given permanent appointments and had already begun their full-time ministry. The three of us did wonder why we had to continue our studies, whilst the others did not; but it was certainly a privilege to be able to spend a few months in the Eternal City.

However, we later realised that we would thereafter be given significant appointments in different parts of the world. I was assigned to Britain, and very shortly afterwards was appointed Superior in that country. Jean-Michel Faure was to become the Superior of the Society’s work in South America and Philipe Guépin was given charge of an important house of the Society in Nantes, France.

As there were so few priests in the Society at that time, during our stay at Albano, we were placed under the authority of a French priest, who had been ordained only a year before us, Father Emanuel Du Chalard. The four of us were, therefore, to spend the next few months (until Easter of the following year) together in this very large building which had been a religious house of some kind. It had been purchased by the Society with the intention of having a presence near Rome and to be a place where newly-ordained priests could acquire the Romanitas
(Roman Spirit), so dear to the Archbishop. He himself had been a seminarian in Rome, and he hoped to impart this love of Rome to all
his priests. However, the shortage of priests in our Society for its rapidly expanding work, made it impossible for this dream to fully
eventuate.

The chapel at Albano was open to the public and there was a reasonable assistance at Mass on Sundays. Otherwise, we spent our time studying and each week would go to Rome to visit various religious and historical sites. However, perhaps the most significant thing for me was that, during this time, I succeeded in celebrating Mass in all of the major Romans basilicas, even although the Traditional Mass was generally strictly forbidden, and not only was the Archbishop censured, but he was also personally very unpopular in Rome at that time. The reason for this was an event which had occurred in the Eternal City just a few months earlier, which I will recount later in this chapter. It was also at this time that I was able to deepen my acquaintance with a person whom, after Archbishop Lefebvre, must be the most remarkable person whom I ever met in my life….

Katherina Tangari

Katherina Tangari was a frequent visitor to Albano and, since the property was so large, was then largely empty, and could accommodate guests, she would often spend several days at a time as her home was in Naples.

I had already known her for a while, as she started to visit the seminary at Econe, around 1974. She was physically short, usually dressed in black, quiet and self- effaced, but with deeply penetrating eyes. She gave one the impression of living in the constant presence of God and radiated genuine holiness. In no other way, however, did she appear remarkable. She rarely spoke about herself but, little by little, her story became known amongst the seminarians.

Katharina Tangari (nee Hasslinger) was born in Austria in 1906 into a devout Catholic family. In 1936 she moved to Naples where she met her future husband, the surgeon Corrado Tangari, whom she married on August 16th 1943, a few days before the Armistice ending the War with Italy. Being particularly devout, she had an inspiration to offer herself to God on her wedding day as a victim soul for the sanctity of married life.

Her offer was certainly accepted by God, for shortly afterwards her husband left her for another woman. Nevertheless, she loved him always and remained faithful to her marriage vows to the full extent possible to her. She forever considered herself to be still tied to her husband and continued to write to him frequently, informing him about her days, her movements, and her activities. It was only a long time after I first made her acquaintance that I became aware of this aspect of her life. To all intents and purposes, as she had no children, she lived like a single woman, and I assumed that she was a widow.

Only three months after the wedding, on November 5th, 1943, she was
arrested by the Allies, on mistaken grounds, as a spy and brought before a military court, which sentenced her to death on March 9th 1944. However, she entrusted herself totally to God and being very intelligent and cultured, (she knew no less than seven languages!) she defended herself in English for nine hours before this military court, which was made up of thirteen officers. As a result, the death penalty was commuted to imprisonment: ten months in the Padua prison camp, eleven months in Terni and then Riccione, until 12th October 1946.

Three years later, in 1949, she first heard of Padre Pio. This was to be
a decisive moment in her life.. She recounts this event in her book
Stories of Padre Pio thus:

In Lent 1949 I heard for the first time about Padre Pio. It was on my return journey from Austria, on the Vienna-Rome train. In Venice, some Naval Officers took their places in my compartment. One of them asked me: “Madam, are you a foreigner?” And, without waiting for my answer, he continued: “There are many beautiful things abroad, but what we have, foreigners don’t have!”. Since I couldn’t guess what the officer was referring to, I asked him to tell me, and he almost solemnly stated: “We have Padre Pio!”

Padre Pio? I had never heard of this name before. The officer told me some such wonderful facts about Padre Pio’s life that, intrigued, I asked him who he was, “He is a Capuchin Father – he replied – who has been carrying the stigmata of Jesus for years!” In Bologna the officers got off the train. There was no longer time to ask for the address of Padre Pio and the one who had made the revelation had only the opportunity to say: “You will find Padre Pio! You will certainly find him!”

In the following year she did, indeed, meet Padre Pio and he became
her confessor and spiritual director until his death in 1968. In 1951 she went to Vienna to visit her family and took the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Mariazell, one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in honour of Our Lady in Central Europe, to
pray for the protection of Austria, her homeland, which at that time had been occupied by Soviet troops since the end of the War.

She was arrested at a Russian checkpoint, but miraculously escaped, and for this grace she promised to make a pilgrimage to Mariazell on the first Saturday of November each year, a vow that she fulfilled until 1988 and which she would always walk barefoot (in winter!), for seven kilometres: from the place of her miraculous liberation to the Sanctuary of Mariazell.

Madame Tangari and Padre Pio

She continued to go to San Giovanni Rotundo for many years to make
her Confession and, I believe, she saw Padre Pio about seventy times altogether. During Confession one day in the 1960’s he quite unexpectedly announced to her that she should undertake an apostolate, by which she understood that she should make a journey to Czechoslovakia, which then was under Communist rule, with supplies of sacred objects (i.e. rosaries, holy pictures etc.) for the persecuted Catholics there. Since she was lacking in the financial means to provide for this journey or purchase the things, she was to ask her relatives and friends who would provide everything necessary.

Such an undertaking, of course, would be extremely hazardous, as such activities were illegal and imprisonment or even death could be the result of engaging in them. She was only too aware of this, and her
friends underlined the fact in no uncertain terms, assuring her that on
no account would they give her any assistance in such a mad adventure.

It was astonishing, even disturbing, that Padre Pio should have directed her to undertake such a dangerous mission – all the more so, when one considers that she had already narrowly escaped death and had been a prisoner, in desperate conditions, for several months at the end of the War, as well as escaping a similar fate some years later near Mariazell in Austria.

After her next Confession Padre Pio asked her how the preparations for her apostolate were progressing and she told him she could not
undertake it for the reasons stated above. He replied that nevertheless
she must persevere as this was God’s will for her. Several Confessions
came and went in the same fashion and then quite unexpectedly her
friends had a sudden change of heart and provided the means sufficient for the journey. Accordingly, in 1964, she went to a travel agency and booked a package holiday to Prague (an extremely rare event in those days) and travelled there by train. At the Czech frontier all the passengers’ luggage was checked except hers and she arrived safely at her hotel.

Naturally, she did not know whom she should contact and so she went
to the Church of Our Lady of Victories and prayed for guidance before
the miraculous statue of the Divine Infant of Prague. During this time
a priest entered the church. She approached him and told him her story. He was horrified and vehemently affirmed that he would accept nothing from her. Czechoslovakia was a free country, he informed her, where everything was provided, and the interference of meddling foreigners was not welcome! For all he knew, of course, she could have been a government Secret Agent and a willingness to accept her offer of the sacred objects could have sent him to prison or worse…

Later, in desperation, she took her luggage to the church, left it there,
and returned to Italy. At her next Confession Padre Pio enquired about the trip. She was thunderstruck when he told her that she should now go and do the same thing again! Henceforth, over a period of several years she made several journeys. This apostolate, so risky and dangerous, in due course extended into Poland and for more than a hundred times, with seven or eight suitcases full of rosaries, sacred
images and everything that could help the priests harassed, imprisoned and deprived of everything, she crossed the border by train or bus and, when possible, prayed on her knees to obtain from the Lord that the police and customs officers would let her pass.

She entrusted this apostolate to the Child Jesus of Prague and all would proceed, even after the death of Padre Pio in 1968, without incident. Her luggage was either not checked; or the police pretended not to have noticed the contents. Eventually she made various contacts in these counties who by now realised that she was trustworthy.

However, on Thursday of Easter Week, April 15th 1971, she took a bus
from Vienna to Prague, and this time her luggage was opened at the
Czechoslovakian border, She was immediately arrested and taken to a
prison in Brno. After sixty-six interrogations, she was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for various activities against the State, as was
well as the publication of her book, Stories of Padre Pio, which had been translated into Czech and illegally and surreptitiously published and circulated in Czechoslovakia.

In due course she was transferred to the notorious Pankrac Prison in
Prague. There, she was confined in a small cell with six other women, some of them the most hardened criminals. The only furniture was a rough table in the middle of the cell and a bucket for Nature’s needs. The electric light was never extinguished and the women had to try to sleep by sitting on the table with their backs against each other. The food was appalling and she was regularly interrogated and threatened as being an enemy of the State.

After nearly two years of such treatment her health completely deteriorated and the authorities who had imprisoned her became concerned at the implications of treating a foreign national in this manner, particularly if, as appeared probable, it should result in her death. Accordingly, she was quickly given a “retrial”, sentenced for the amount of time she had already spent in prison, and forbidden to enter Eastern countries for ten years. She was really sent back to Italy to die, since her health was so broken that she could scarcely walk.

However, Madame Tangari survived this horrific experience. She said
to me on several occasions that her time in prison was the greatest grace that God had ever given to her. She even asserted that her apostolate would have been incomplete without her imprisonment!

Eventually, after her return to Italy, she discovered the Society of St. Pius X. Recognising Archbishop Lefebvre and his work as also being part of “the persecuted Church” albeit in a different form, she would help as much as she had previously done behind the Iron Curtain, and thus continue the work Padre Pio had entrusted to her. For fifteen years she collected money to buy chalices, vestments etc. which she provided to the newly ordained priests at Écône who might require them, as well as liturgical objects for the various churches of the Society which were being opened at that time. I myself am still using various liturgical objects which she gave to me at my ordination.

During my stay at Albano she offered we three newly-ordained priests
to visit her at her home in Naples for a few days in January 1978 and it
was during that time that I finally learned all the details of her amazing story.

I felt a special affinity with her after I realised that she was suffering these unspeakable horrors in the prison at Prague at the same time that I, as a young man, had made a journey to Prague at the same time that she was in prison to visit the home of a pen-friend just before entering the seminary in 1972. This was an unusual and daring thing for a young man to undertake in those days, travelling alone behind the Iron Curtain, but it was also one of the most interesting things that I have ever done, although it had no religious significance. I spent some unforgettable days visiting that beautiful city while experiencing life at first-hand in a normal family environment in a Communist country, and generally enjoying myself, knowing that I would soon be returning to freedom! With something of a shock, I learned that the feared prison was only a few streets away from the place where I had been staying!

Although Madame Tangari personally lived a life of great austerity, was
probably the most heroic and other-worldly person whom I have ever
met, and who had suffered the most terrible persecution, she was,
nevertheless at the same time, quite practical, realistic, and would even perhaps indulge in a little frivolity, despite all that she had been
through.

During our stay in Naples, she hired a car and driver, explaining that this was the most practical, comfortable and economical way for the four us to travel around various shrines, scattered over a wide area, which she had foreseen we should visit. It was an immense privilege to be taken by her to see the Monastery of Padre Pio at San Giovanni Rotondo. We also visited the shrine of Saint Michael at Monte Gargano, Saint Nicholas in Bari, and many other holy and historic place sin Naples and its environs.

One morning, after we priests had enjoyed an extensive visit to Pompeii while she waited for us at a local restaurant, we re-joined her there for lunch. While we three were examining the extensive menu which had been presented to us by the waiter who was standing by to take our orders, I was astonished and slightly embarrassed, to hear her – apparently quite seriously – explain to him that this was her special mission to the persecuted Church!…

Padre Pio had inscribed these words in Madame Katherina Tangari’s
missal:

“If you wish to assist at Holy Mass with devotion and fruitfully,
keep company with the sorrowful Virgin at the foot of the cross on
Calvary.” ¹

In other words, approach the altar as if you are approaching the very place Jesus was crucified…

She had a great devotion to Holy Mass never missed any occasion to
assist thereat. When present in a religious house such as Écône or
Albano, she would attend every Mass that she possibly could during
her stay; even several times each day.

Having always been devoted throughout her life to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus she died, following great sufferings and having become blind, on
the first Friday of December in 1989 at Albano which she had continued to visit regularly, shortly after having been given Extreme Unction by Archbishop Lefebvre, and her husband finally having reconciled himself to her. Coincidentally, this was the year in which the Berlin Wall fell and the Stalinist/Communist empire, which had inflicted so much suffering, began to crumble. She herself prepared and designed her own Memorial Card, written in four languages:

“All that I have been able to achieve during my life has been through the pure, unmerited grace of God. I offer it all to Thee, holy Mother of God, thou who has given me such a great love for Thee.”

Princess Elvina Pallavicini

It was also during this time in Rome that I met another very brave and indomitable lady. My encounter with her was brief, but the circumstances are worth describing.

Since our Society had attracted much attention in Catholic circles
throughout the world, due to our unshakeable attachment to the
Traditional Mass and all of the publicity and controversy which
surrounded the Archbishop following his suspension a divinis after the ordinations in 1976, many of the Faithful where questioning how this sorry state of affairs could have come about. Questions were being raised about the legitimacy of the censure and why the pope seemed to reserve such measures exclusively for those who wished to remain faithful to the traditions of the Church.

One of these persons was Princess Elvina Pallavicini. Consequently, she decided to invite Archbishop Lefebvre to give a conference on the theme The Church after the Council at her palace in Rome. The Princess was a leading member of one of the most prestigious noble families in Italy, particularly of the Black Aristocracy i.e. the nobles who supported the pope as ruler of the Papal States against the revolution which had taken place in unifying Italy in the 19th century.

Although Princess Pallavicini was a person of immense privilege and wealth, she was no stranger to hardship. She had remained a widow for thirty-seven years, since 1940, when her young husband, Prince
Guglielmo Pallavicini, was killed on his first War mission. Her only
child was born after his death. For many years she had been confined
to wheelchair, due to a progressive paralysis, but she was a woman with an indomitable temperament. Around her was a small group of
aristocratic friends and counsellors, including a former colonel of the
Pontifical Noble Guards as well as a former commander of the Italian
Navy.

The news of the conference, released in May 1977, did not initially raise concerns in the Vatican. Pope Paul VI believed that it would be
easy to convince the princess to desist from her idea and entrusted this assignment to Cardinal Pignedoli.

He telephoned the princess and asked, “I know you will receive Msgr. Lefebvre. But will it be a public or private conference?”

“In my house it can only be private”, replied the princess.

The cardinal then ventured: “Wouldn’t it be appropriate to postpone it? Msgr. Lefebvre made the Holy Father suffer so much, that he is very grieved for this initiative …. “

She tersely replied: “Your Eminence, in my house I believe I can receive those whom I wish to receive.”

Faced with this unexpected resistance, the Vatican turned to Prince
Colonna. When the head of this historic house asked to be received, the princess let him know that she was busy. Prince Colonna asked for an audience for the day following the same hour, but her response was the same. The Secretariat of State played his last card at this point, asking the King of Italy in exile, Umberto II, to intervene to convince the Princess to postpone the conference. She replied firmly, reiterating that the conference would be held on time on the set date.

A campaign of psychological pressure then began in the main Italian newspapers to portray the princess as a stubborn aristocrat, surrounded by a few nostalgics of a world destined to disappear. In private, the princess was informed that if the conference were to be held, she would be excommunicated.

On May 30th, in a Press Release the princess specified that

“… this initiative is not moved by any intention of challenging ecclesiastical authority, but rather by love and faithfulness to the Holy Church and her Magisterium.

The problems of the conciliar Church unfortunately exist, regardless of the person of Archbishop Lefebvre…

With the conference of June 6th, it is intended to offer Archbishop Lefebvre the opportunity to express his theses directly and in complete freedom…

To the extent that the Church allows me, I can disagree, I can speak, I can act: I must speak and I must act: it would be cowardice if I did not. And let me say that in our household, even in this generation, there is no place for the cowardly.”

The day of the Conference June 6th, 1977 finally arrived. Although it
had been initially reserved for four hundred guests, over a thousand
people crowded the stairs and the garden of the historic palace, which
is famous all over the world for its works of art. Princess Pallavicini introduced the Archbishop, who took his place under the red canopy with the coat of arms her ancestor Pope Clement IX.

The Archbishop, after saying a prayer, began with these words: “I am respectful of the Holy See, I am respectful of Rome. If I am here it is because I love this Catholic Rome.” The ‘Council of Renewal’ “, he explained, “actually seeks a new definition of the Church.”

“In order to be ‘open’ and to be in communion with all religions, all ideologies, all cultures, the Church should change her hierarchical institutions and break up into many national episcopal conferences. The sacraments should insist on initiation and collective life, rather than on renouncing Satan and sin. The leitmotif of Ecumenism will be change. The missionary spirit will disappear. The principle will be stated: every man is a Christian although he does not know it and is seeking salvation; whatever religion he practices.”

Liturgical and ecumenical changes”, continued Archbishop Lefebvre, “results in the disappearance of religious vocations and make seminaries deserted.”

“The principle of ‘religious freedom’ sounds an like an outrage to the Church and for Our Lord Jesus Christ, because it means nothing but the right to public profession of a false religion without being disturbed by any human authority.”

“It is a fact”, the Archbishop added in conclusion, “that numerous
Dominicans and many Jesuits who profess open heresies are not
condemned and bishops who practice intercommunion, who introduce false religions into their dioceses and churches, who bless
concubinage, are not even put under investigation. Only faithful
Catholics risk being driven out of churches, persecuted, condemned but I am suspended a divinis because I continue to form priests as they were once formed.”

Addressing an audience impressed by his words, Archbishop Lefebvre ended his conference by saying: “Today, the most serious commitment for a Catholic is to preserve the Faith. It is not lawful to obey those who work to decrease it or to make it disappear. At our Baptism we asked the Church for Faith because Faith leads us to eternal life. We will continue to ask the Church for this Faith until
our last breath.”

The conference turned out to be a great success and the publicity it
attracted made the Society much more widely known. Princess
Pallavicini was not excommunicated as had been threatened. Of course, I was not present at this conference, but merely transmit the
above description by one who attended the event. At the time the conference was being given, I was a seminarian preparing for my ordination which took place three weeks later, on 29th June.

The Pallavicini-Rospigliosi Palace is one of the most prestigious and
magnificent residences in Rome. It is situated literally across the road
from the Quirinal Palace (which is the residence of the President of
Italy and is the former Royal Palace).

The Pallavicini Palace is vast, with many state rooms, and contains numerous works of art by the great masters e.g. Botticelli, Rubens, Poussin etc, etc. At that time it was still a private residence and, I believe, remains so to this day.

A couple of months after my arrival in Albano, Father du Chalard informed us that the Princess had asked if we could provide a midnight Christmas Mass at her home. Accordingly, a few days before Christmas, we met her at the palace in order to discuss the practical
arrangements which were it be put in place.

On arrival we were greeted by the Princess and a manservant who
pushed her wheelchair. After briefly viewing a few of the state rooms,
including the Throne Room where the Archbishop had given his
conference, we were shown a grand and majestic room with a high
ceiling which was arranged as a salon with several sofas and occasional tables and various fine pieces of furniture. The walls were lined with fine tapestries and paintings. While we were discussing the most appropriate place to erect a temporary altar, the Princess indicated something with her hand to the servant. Thereupon, he walked to the opposite side of the room and pulled a cord. To our utter astonishment, a huge tapestry was drawn back, to reveal a complete church sanctuary with a baroque marble altar and tall silver crucifix and candlesticks!!

We returned to the palace on Christmas night. Father du Chalard
celebrated the Mass while we three priests provided the choir. Quite a
large number of members of Roman high society occupied various
chairs and sofas which had been arranged around the room. Since I was situated at the opposite end of the room from the altar, I was able to observe all the proceedings.

Unfortunately, however, I cannot recall that most of the congregation appeared to be particularly devout, but many of them seemed to have an air of somewhat bored detachment.

Very shortly after the Mass was concluded, the great double doors of
the room were opened up and several footmen suddenly appeared,
dressed in full livery! They were carrying trays of drinks and canapés
and offering them to the guests. The altar had disappeared behind the
tapestry and the social gathering was seemingly being enjoyed by all.

I was unable to speak to many of the guests as I did not know much more than a few words of Italian. However, Princess del Drago, a close friend and companion of Princess Pallavicini, took an interest in me when she discovered that I was British. She explained that she had a brother who was a priest in London, Father Charles-Roux, who was at that time a priest at St Ethelreda’s, Ely Place. He celebrated the Traditional Mass exclusively, which was, in those days, very rare indeed.

Since he was personally known to the Pope, he had managed to obtain specific permission to do this. Therefore, he was very well known amongst Traditional Catholics in London, so she thought that I might be acquainted with him. However, I only knew of him by repute, since I had spent all my life in Scotland before entering the seminary. It was only later, when I returned to the UK that I became involved with the Traditional Catholics in London.

Princess Pallavicini lived until 2004, but I never had any further news
of her, subsequent to that memorable Mass at her home.

1. Tangari, Stories of Padre Pio, TAN, p133. ↩︎