Extracts from a handwritten letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Archbishop John Charles McQuaid (Dublin)

My dear Archbishop,
I was with Mgr. Montini yesterday for a long chat. I should like Your Grace to know that his gratitude, and above all that of the H.F. himself is very real indeed and Mgr. M[ontini] told me he himself was writing to you at once. There is a note in the 'OSSERVATORE' of the 20th May enclosed. Furthermore in Gedda's report, there will be very adequate expression of gratitude - i.e. as adequate as they can make it - since, indeed, in reality you were the only Bishops or Archbishops in the whole world who gave real help. The Vatican attitude towards money is most bewildering for us outsiders - and Your Grace will hardly believe me, when I assure you in all confidence, that I had a great struggle to make sure that the money subscribed would ever get to Gedda in identifiable form. When monies are subscribed to any fund in particular, they seem to think that they can apply them as they like. Without my more than daily intervention and very frank talks and letters they might never have told Gedda that any part of the money had been subscribed by Ireland or still less by Your Grace or any particular member of the Hierarchy. In other words, Your Grace can imagine my very great anxiety less Ireland's contribution - preeminently Your Grace's contribution - might never have become known to the Comitato Curio or the Italian Catholics in anything but the vaguest way.

I had to tell Montini that the Irish people would not be satisfied unless in each particular case of a group subscription, there was an acknowledgement of the amt, in sterling and in Italian Lire. You would imagine that the Cippico¹ case would have warned them, and made them more sensitive to public opinion. Not a bit of it! They couldn't resist the temptation - even where their own most vital interests were concerned - to try and give the lowest exchange rate to Gedda. This is simply lack of normal experience, on the part of the officials concerned, because in any case, the money given from general Vatican funds could have included the difference and millions more.

Most fortunately, for the case I was putting to them, about £4000 came through the Banca di Roma and the Embassy, within 48 hours of the Deposit in Dublin - and the Bank gave me at once, and without hesitation, the highest exchange i.e. about 1830 lire to the £1 instead of the 1500 which the V. was trying to impose. It would have meant millions less credited to us in the Comitato Curio - although, as I have said, in actual fact, as the Vatican had to finance almost the entire operations of the C.C., the disbursements from Vatican funds to Gedda would have been identical. The supreme difficulty with the V. in relation to funds and foreign help is that of making them reveal to outsiders that their donations have any other source than the Holy Father himself. My difficulty in securing a separate acknowledgement for all the goods sent by the Govt. and Your Grace in these last two years arise from the same kink. In fact, I had to bring the matter before the H.F. to get any acknowledgement in the 'OSSERVATORE' - and to make sure that the recipients would know the source. I told the H.F. what I had frequently heard the people say - namely that the H.F. was very decent but he must be a capitalist and very very rich. He agreed with me that it would be much better for the Pontifica Commissione and other Vatican distributing centres to clearly indicate that all this charity came from the Pope's loyal subjects in the country's [sic] concerned. That would have given the people some idea of the world wide power and importance of the H.F.s position as the Representative of Christ. Now, he is regarded as a kind of rich terrestrial prince owing to the continued obstinacy of Baldelli, the Mgr. in charge of the Pont. Come. whose only desire - according to his best friends - is to flatter the person of the H.F. in order to secure his own ends.

[matter omitted]