Remembering Monaco's Lady of Grace

As the daughter of a millionaire, Princess Grace had the grace (pun intended) to fit into royalty, even if her father was Lace Curtain Irish.

From Aleteia

By Joanne McPortland

Yesterday, as Pope Leo XIV visited the Principality of Monaco, many around the world thought of Grace Kelly, Hollywood icon and later "storybook" princess of this Catholic realm.

Yesterday, the eyes of the world turned to a tiny European Principality, as Pope Leo XIV visited Monaco. Of all nations in the world, Monaco is the second smallest (behind the Vatican), with a population of only around 39,000. As Crux notes, most people today know Monaco, if they know it at all, as a legendary retreat of the rich and famous, including tennis star Jannik Sinner. Why would Leo choose this place for his first papal visit within Europe?

For one thing, Monaco -- though in actuality a country of many diverse cultures and of poverty as well as wealth -- is a Catholic country. Catholicism is the state religion, and Catholic values still guide state policy on issues such as abortion. As Crux explains:

[T]he visit of a pope who spent his life serving the most impoverished communities in Peru is a reminder that there is more to life than money, but acknowledging the resurgence of Catholicism in the country will highlight the foundational Christian values of Europe as it grapples with its identity following decades of rampant secularism.

The spirit of Princess Grace

For many older Catholics (and movie buffs), Monaco will always be synonymous with Her Serene Highness Princess Grace, wife of the late ruler Prince Rainier and mother of Monaco's current monarch, Prince Albert II. The woman who began her life as Grace Kelly, the Pennsylvania daughter of Irish Catholics, was an Academy-Award winning actress who starred in such notable films as A Country Girl, Rear Window, and High Society, all before the age of 26.

Grace Kelly was not just a movie star. She was a fashion trendsetter, with film designers vying to costume her. Though she usually chose simple, classic outfits over couture, later in life she ended up lending her name to one of the world's priciest and most collectable designer handbags. As the Hermès website tells it:

When Robert Dumas, son-in-law of Émile Hermès, creates the ladies' bag with straps in the 1930s, Hermès enters the era of boldness and modernism. Yet, its destiny does not end there. To make it a legend, a photograph is all it takes – one of Grace Kelly holding the bag over her stomach to conceal the signs of her pregnancy. The Kelly is born.

Convent educated, Grace Kelly always clung to her Catholicism, even though she became involved in love affairs with several of her Hollywood co-stars. She maintained a public reputation of propriety, and increasingly longed for a life of marriage and motherhood. Her wish was granted when she was introduced to Prince Rainier of Monaco at a press function. The two chatted about their mutual love of the arts, and formed a friendship, exchanging long letters. When the marriage between the prince and the actress was announced, it was proclaimed a fairytale ending -- except, perhaps, by the bride and groom, who had chosen to enter matrimony with clear thinking and a commitment to the faith they shared.

All eyes on Monaco

In his 2010 biography of Grace Kelly, writer Robert Lacey described the church wedding -- which, according to Monegasque law, followed the secular ceremony by a day.

The church ceremony took place the following day at Monaco's Saint Nicholas Cathedral, presided over by Bishop Gilles Barthe. The wedding was estimated to have been watched by over 30 million viewers on television, and was described by biographer Robert Lacey in 2010 as "the first modern event to generate media overkill."

Although "hers turned out to be not a fairy-tale marriage but the kind of marriage anyone has, with ups and downs, joys and disappointments, and patches of marital discord," Laura Jacobs noted in Vanity Fair in 2010, Princess Grace told biographer Donald Spoto:

My real life began with my marriage. Sometimes, looking back after so many years, I think I really hated Hollywood without knowing it. I had lots of acquaintances there, and people I enjoyed working with and learned a lot from. But I found a great deal of fear among people in Hollywood — fear of not succeeding, and fear of succeeding but then losing the success. I’ve often said it was a pitiable place, full of insecure people who had crippling problems. The unhappiness out there was like a smog — it covered everything.

The grace of faith

In describing the relationship between Grace and Rainier, Donald Spoto observed something that Catholics might recognize as the grace of the sacraments.

They were both serious Catholics with more than a mere Sunday sense of obligation: they made no public displays, but faith was more than an inherited tradition — it was at the core of their lives. Their friends knew that religious practices were not burdensome obligations for these two; they were free and purposeful expressions of a deep if mysterious commitment.

It is that core of Catholic life, that "free and purposeful expression of a deep if mysterious commitment," that Pope Leo XIV hopes Monaco can inspire Europe and the world to take from the legacy of its Catholic royalty.

After her marriage, Grace Kelly never went back to acting, though she sometimes wanted to try. Instead she poured her luminous energy into being a wife and mother of three and into support for the arts, starting several foundations that continue to this day. She founded AMADE, a charity that works with the United Nations to care for the physical, moral, and spiritual well-being of children around the world. And she still found a way to bring Hollywood and her faith together, by filming segments in support of Father Peyton's Family Theater -- where a space in the studio parking lot is still reserved for P. GRACE.

Princess Grace of Monaco died from injuries sustained in a car accident after having a small stroke in 1982. (Her younger daughter, Princess Stephanie, was in the car but survived.) But in Monaco, today and always, the light of Grace Kelly still shines.