Letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin)
(JPW.TYP) (Most Secret)

I hope the Panico affair, first phase, is more or less liquidated. Monsignor Montini sent a cipher telegram to London and Dublin telling the Nuncio and the Apostolic Delegate to inform Mgr. Panico that he was not to make official contacts in Ireland. I shall ask for further elucidation on the exact meaning of the instruction, but, I take it to mean, now that he is going direct to London on the Orion, that he is not to go to Dublin at all. If he were flying through Ireland, his mere presence in the Park would have been a difficulty.

It is, certainly, passing strange that the Secretariat of State has to go to such round about methods to do its job, and, I suppose, stranger still that Montini should let me see that abnormal situation in the relations between the departments. It takes a long time to get to know the involutions and convolutions of the Vatican, and I hope I shall make better progress in my second year. I am still very much at sea about lots of things. In truth, every month I spend at this post, the more convinced I am that you must nearly live with Monsignori and with the lay followers in order to do the job properly. So much of one's time goes in keeping contact with our own communities ... and, as I remarked to you more than once before, I often wonder whether the return to the State is not purely negative. I have a kind of feeling that Montini has been beaten on the question of Panico returning to Australia. He told me he had to go to the Holy Father in order to get his special sanction for the instruction to Dublin and London. The instruction, by the way, was sent on Thursday 24th April, and the details of the itinerary were not available to him until Saturday morning when I handed them to Mgr. Clarizio. That, I believe, explains the instruction to Dublin which is, of course now superfluous.

It is too bad that this most unsuitable Envoy should be sent back. And I fear that the Holy Father himself has deceived himself into believing that the maintenance of Panico in his post is a necessary assertion of Papal authority, whereas it is really part of the last ditch fight to maintain Italian supremacy. In no State service in the world would such a thing happen. It is only in a system where the human and divine get so inextricably mixed up .... and often without a serious effort to diagnose which is which ... that such ghastly errors can be perpetrated.

And, as always, we are brought back to our own most serious issue of the Nuncio. What would the Taoiseach think of Bishop O'Connor the new Rector of the American College? He is a man of great dignity and charm and is very Irish. He would be a bond between us and the American clergy and Hierarchy ... a very necessary adjunct to our work in Rome. Having sent American-Irish to Belgrade and Bucharest they may be loth to send Bishop O'Connor to Dublin. But we must be definite, and if we suggest Fr. Garde, and O'Connor as an alternative, our views will be made clear to the Holy Father. Remember that Montini, notwithstanding all I have said to him, has never positively said, in so many words, 'you won't get an Italian'.

The more I know the Irish here the more I realize that Garde is the only one who has the necessary prudence, intelligence and sanctity for the Dublin post. He is sixty and O'Connor is about forty eight, and I fear Fr. Garde is very tired. The essential thing is to be definite as soon as possible. The major impression I get here, in all my dealings, is that for the greater number of the Vatican officials, Italians have an almost divine prerogative to run the Church. Outside intelligent Italian opinion is growing stronger against this attitude, because, as one Italian Jesuit said to me, the world wont stand for it much longer, as it is bad in itself, bad for the Church and particularly bad for Italy. Our case will be taken as a test case. The mere appointment of an Italian even if he were a saint, would be resented by the Hierarchy and would be a defeat for the Government on a most important issue external and internal.

They know we shall make the most vigorous protests but we have to go farther than that and, if necessary, leave them with a Chargé d'Affaires for a while. I don't want to go home until this matter is fixed. I am a little bit afraid that they might make the change while I am on holidays in Ireland. Not that the Counsellor¹ would not be just as effective, but it is natural that the head of the Mission as the direct representative of the Government having dealt with the matter from the beginning, should be regarded as having more weight and authority in such a very grave matter. I feel also that my personal relations with Mgr. Montini would be of considerable help and he knows that I have the fullest confidence of the Taoiseach and completely represent his attitude. He would also know that I was quite serious when and if I am to tell him that I should advise my temporary withdrawal.

So I shall be very grateful for sanction to put forward a name whether it be O'Connor or another. O'Hara regent of Bucharest is also a first class man, but he might be harder to get owing to difficulty of replacing him in Bucharest. You will of course have observed that these two posts occupied by American Irish are posts to which it would have been quite impossible to send an Italian.