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

I called to see Cardinal Sapieha yesterday, following your instructions. Having conveyed the good wishes of the Taoiseach and told the Cardinal how deeply the Govt and people of Ireland sympathize with his people and with the Church in Poland, I asked him several questions about the present state of Catholicism, its capacity to resist the Communist propaganda etc and I told him the precise purport of my visit. The following paragraph summarises the essential parts of the Cardinal's statement to me:

He was speaking with the greatest secrecy, and he wished what he said to be conveyed only to Mr. de Valera and to Monsignori Montini and Tardini. He was constantly under observation: my visit would immediately become known to the Polish Embassy and to the Russian Embassy in Rome, and they would try to deduce the purpose for which I came. That was inevitable and he could see nobody in Rome if he were to allow himself to be influenced by such considerations. Nevertheless, it was of supreme importance that his advice and the information he would give me should remain a secret etc. Poland was passing through an extremely difficult phase. The church alone was the remaining bulwark of Polish nationalism. Only she stood out against the inroads of bolshevism and Russification. The Russians knew that, and they were adopting the cleverest means for putting an end to her influence. At present there was no persecution. It could come at any moment. But just now the authorities were content with preventing the printing and diffusion of uncensored Catholic literature (in the widest sense and including papal statements and Episcopal pastorals). The authorities were also building up strong youth movements and they hoped to deprive the Church of all control over youth in the course of a few years. They keep on accusing the church of being political no matter what is done. They sift every sermon and invariably find in some purely innocent explanation of doctrine an attack against the régime. The church, in other words, is being slowly pushed back into the Sacristy. In such a background where the church has to remain in a state of perpetual vigilance, the recognition of the Bolshevik régime in Warsaw would be 'a paralyzing blow, a scandal and a source of shame and weakness to all Catholic Poles' who are looking to Mr. de Valera and Ireland to maintain a Christian stand against Bolshevism.

He expressed himself most movingly in his gratitude to the Taoiseach for having resisted the advances of the Communist Govt. and for having maintained his recognition of the status quo ante bellum. In the long run Mr. de Valera would prove to be right for, the Cardinal said, the day was coming fast, when the Americans, in their own interest, would have to take the step of pushing the Russian invasion back within its borders. He was also very grateful to the Taoiseach for having asked for his advice in this matter of extreme gravity to Poland. The Holy See would not recognize the régime. They might have to send a Visitatore to discuss exclusively ecclesiastical matters, but never a Nuncio or a regent. He asked me then to beg Mr. de Valera not to believe press and other reports which might seem to indicate that the Church in Poland has taken any step towards accepting the régime and its implications. The truth is not allowed in Poland and very little of it gets out.

I should like to be able to convey adequately the extreme anxiety of this wonderful old Cardinal of eighty to have the support of the Taoiseach in Poland's policy of holding fast. He recalled the lesson of Irish determination in holding on to the faith and to nationalism at all costs. Poland, he said, will do the same, and in doing so, in the future as in the past, Ireland and her heroes remain the supreme example for the Polish people to follow. I wish the Taoiseach could meet this Cardinal. There is just a small chance that he may go to England, and if he does, we might well be able to get him over to Ireland. He is not bound up with any of the political parties new or old. He is a democrat and realizes that the day of the old bourgeois and nobility classes has gone for ever. He is friendly even with the worst members of the Govt. and here he receives both the Ambassador to the H.S. and the Ambassador to the Republic of Italy.

The cardinal said that the Russians are making extensive use of the Jews in Poland. Their nationality is sufficiently indefinite to allow them to pass as Poles or as Russians according to the dictates of expediency. Hence several of the most important Ministries are held by them as well as a very large number of the Civil Service posts. Meanwhile there is beginning in Russia a definite anti-Semitic movement. He said the spirit of the old Tsarist Russia is constantly coming back to the surface and he would not give the Jews many months more of freedom from persecution in Russia. In Poland the people will have to support a considerable Jewish immigration from Russia, and their power there is likely to last so long as the Jews remain fundamentally anti-Catholic. For several months now the Russians have been pushing the Jews into Polish territory. Those who have merited well of the Soviet State are being provided with the means to reach Palestine, where they are acting as Russian agents against Britain. His explanation of the eternal ups and downs in the fortunes of the Jewish people, quite objectively given (he did a great deal to protect them against the Germans), is that the Jews always push their way to the top too vigorously and in combination, and that the Russians, who are somewhat phlegmatic, don't bother until the Jews have actually reached the top. Then the Russians who, in their bad moments are the 'cruellest people in the world', react with 'extreme ferocity'.

In using the word 'scandale', we should remember that the Cardinal was speaking in French, and that the sense implied is rather disedification leading to weakness than the English word 'scandal'.