Letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Monsignor Giovanni Montini (Holy See)
(Personal and Confidential)

My dear Monsignor Montini,
I promised, during our last chat, to send you a personal letter about the situation which might arise in relation to the Dublin Nunciature.

I have no instructions from my Minister, who is at present in Paris, and I have mentioned already that the Prime Minister had not yet returned from the United States and Canada. I am therefore perfectly free to give you, without reserve, my personal views, which do not, in any way, involve the responsibility of my Minister. Indeed, I feel that your constant personal kindness to me since I came to Rome obliges me to give you the benefit of my knowledge of relevant conditions in Ireland, and of the sentiments of that immensely larger world of the Catholic populations of Irish origin in all the English speaking countries.

As you know, from our very friendly contacts of these two years of my mission here, I do not believe in the ways and manners of Diplomacy. As such, it is an outworn craft, and, in the world of today, its usages do not seem adequately adapted to the task of solving the very grave crises which threaten to engulf our Christian civilisation. For that purpose only the most absolute sincerity and the frankest exchange of views can be of value or profit.

There is no gravity attached to the matter at present under discussion, at least in its purely technical aspects, but it does, I believe, contain the germ of future difficulties which are not without some element of gravity for the Holy See and for Ireland. I know that my conviction about the need for avoiding the niceties and the forms of the old diplomacy is completely shared by you.

Mistakes occur in all the Chancelleries of the world ... especially where there is a vast and ever increasing volume of work, as there is in your Department. In such cases, the sections formerly specializing in the affairs of one or two countries are overwhelmed with a burden of extraneous work, for longer or shorter periods, depending on the degree of difficulty attached to appropriate recruitment of staff. The consequences of the time lag involved may or may not be very serious. But the risk of being inadequately informed is enormously increased, so far as the Head of the Department is concerned. I have had bitter experiences of such a state of affairs during my own period of office as the permanent departmental head of the Department of External Affairs in Dublin. And, I have felt, since my arrival here, that the Irish section in the Secretariat of State is both seriously understaffed and seriously ill-informed about Ireland. I need hardly assure you that it would be a great pleasure and consolation for me to give all my time and energies, for a considerable period, to the task of helping any group of Officials you care to name in order to place the section on a proper foundation, especially with regard to suggestions for basic information. How many - if any - officials in the section as now organized, know anything about the Persico mission to Ireland in the Eighties,¹ the Errington mission to Rome in the same decade,² or the British Veto on the appointment of Irish Bishops in the days of O'Connell.³ Has the letter of Monsignor Persico to Cardinal Manning⁴ of the 9th May 1888 ... so illustrative of the pregnant errors which can arise in ever widening circles, and in the best intentioned department in the world, through lack of adequate information and inter-departmental liaison ... been read by a single official of the Section?

As a recent illustration of lack of understanding in the Section you have still in mind that in 1946 (AUGUST) the officials did not know that the former office of Governor General had been abolished, and a President of Ireland elected over eight years previously.⁵ A letter was about to be sent to King George of England, through Monsignor Godfrey, acknowledging my credentials, and in a form entirely detrimental to Ireland's status. When you become conscious of the error you were good enough to consult me and to modify the letter in the sense of my advice, although, as you will remember, my advice not to send the letter at all followed more closely my convictions and my knowledge of the consequences in the Dáil (later fully justified by the facts). The assumption that Mgr. Godfrey, for whom I have, of course, the very highest esteem, could have any function whatever, ecclesiastical or political, in relation to the whole or part of Ireland, filled me with foreboding, and I have often felt since then that I ought to have spoke to you quite frankly, at the time, of the absolute necessity of reorganizing the Irish section, if disasters were to be avoided.

Of course, the Holy See is not a foreign Government for Irish Catholics in Ireland, or for the forty odd million Catholics of Irish origin throughout the world, who constitute such a very considerable, if not predominant element, in the base and foundation of the spiritual pyramid of which the Holy Father is the Supreme Head. We are one with the Holy See. It is the head of an integral whole, and we are so much interwoven with it, in our beliefs, thoughts and actions that we consider ourselves entitled to be consulted prior to any serious decisions taken in regard to our country. The danger of neglect or oversight in this point lies in the risk of provoking a sense of foreignness with regard to the Holy See which is so unutterably remote from the natural tendency of our Catholic people, but which is, unfortunately, the dominating factor in the opposition of our Eight hundred thousand protestants both to the Roman Catholic religion and to the reunion of our country. Once the Secretariat of State adopted a line of policy tending to accentuate the idea of foreignness, the whole policy deliberately adopted and accepted in the appointment of our late revered Nuncio, would be reversed. The gradual lessening of the hatred for Roman Catholics as such, and the consequent increasing readiness to accept a central Government in Dublin; the remarkable movement ... gradual but growing in extent ... of Irish Protestants into the Church; these were the immediate consequences of the appointment of a Prelate of Irish origin to Dublin. I need hardly tell you what, in my view, would be the consequences, on the minds of all Catholics and Protestants in Ireland if a reversal of that supremely wise policy of the Holy See were to take place. And the repercussions would extend to the whole English speaking world. We have reached a moment of the history of Christianity where such disturbances of outlook and feeling would be regarded as an obstacle to the great aims of peace and collaboration in the Christian world, so constantly being pursued by the Holy Father. What would the English speaking world think, if, by making the Dublin appointment as a mere routine matter, and without any serious consideration of the special conditions, the Secretariat of State were to neglect the fact that amongst the people of Irish blood throughout the world, with incomparably the highest percentage of practicing Catholics as well as the largest absolute number, there are innumerable priests and prelates with a Roman training fully capable and most worthy of the task of representing the Holy See in Ireland.

We do not need a diplomat by profession. The Irish people do not like the priest diplomat. It seems an anomaly to them that the priest should exercise such a profession. In their mind, the role of the Priest is too sacred, and too exclusively intended for the direct service of Christ, not to become tainted, in some way, by the exercise of the functions peculiar to diplomats. Indeed, they are highly suspicious of the class as a whole, but decidedly more so of the diplomat who has taken holy orders. Speaking to you almost as if I were one of your own staff in the Secretariat, and exclusively as a Catholic, I should venture to make a fairly close prophecy of the things that would be said by our people all over the world, if the Secretariat were to appoint a foreigner. Here is the sort of comment we should have. 'Why does the Vatican select the present crucial period in Ireland for the appointment of a foreigner? What role do they wish him to fill? Do they want to use the struggle for the reunion of Ireland in order to get concessions from Britain by certain types of Episcopal appointments, or by interfering in the forms which the Campaign may ultimately take? Have they no consideration for the vast interests involved or knowledge of the consequences? Do they not know that the single act of appointing a foreigner, owing to the historical and actual attitude of Irish protestantism, even if the foreigner were to be exclusively passive, would constitute a barrier to reunion, and a positive obstacle to the work of religious reconciliation and conversion, so notably characterizing the period of office of Mgr. Paschal Robinson? Have we no real position in the mind of the Secretariat of State, either in regard to our Catholicism or to the fact that we are the centre and fountain head of the virile and very living Church in the entire English speaking world? Could it be possible that the very strength of our unparalleled loyalty to the Church is being used by the Secretariat as an excuse for neglecting all other considerations in the appointment of a representative of the Holy See to Dublin? Otherwise why have they nominated a candidate who has not only no normal qualifications for the post ... such as a knowledge of our conditions, or those of our fellow Catholics of Irish origin in the world, and a fair knowledge of the English language ... but also one who has not the slightest chance of ever acquiring such qualifications, on account of his advanced age, and the tremendous contrast between our conditions and those in which his whole life has been passed?'

My dear Monsignor, we must be reasonable, in this minor crisis in our relations, so that it may not become a really grave matter. It is of the utmost necessity that in dealing with my Government there should not be the shadow of suggestion ... not the very faintest shadow that, in seeking to demonstrate to the Secretariat of State, the unwisdom of any such step, we are, even remotely, acting in a manner disloyal to the Holy Father or to the Holy See, or that there is any trace whatever of disobedience or indiscipline in our attitude. Such a response would be regarded as extremely unjust and offensive ... and might even be regarded as a most unworthy manoeuvre.

The Minister would not wish to suggest any individual. Of that I am absolutely certain. But he would be astonished, beyond measure, if he were told that a request for a change of decision on the part of the Secretariat had any relation whatever to the principle that the Holy See must have the most complete liberty of choice, since such liberty of choice must, in all cases, be limited by essential rules of prudence based on the interests of the Holy See and determined by special knowledge of the conditions relevant to the choice itself.

I hope I have been absolutely frank. I have no other desire, and I could not bring myself to adopt the 'diplomatic' reserve characteristic of the representatives of purely civil states, in dealing with you. It would be contrary to what my conscience dictates to me as my absolute duty; and I should be most sincerely grieved if you did not accept it as such. My primary aim is to do what the Lord wants me to do, and, as a man who cannot have many years to live, I, naturally, put that consideration before all others. At the same time, I would be greatly pained if I thought my frankness were to diminish, in any way, the great kindness and friendship you have always displayed towards me in our two years association. You have helped me to understand that Roman and universality are one, in our Catholic faith, and I earnestly desire to acquire more and more the Roman spirit, so much so, that when my country has no further need of my services, I intend to continue and to end my days in this holy city.

Perhaps it would help if I told you that we have had several cases, in our short state life, where the names presented originally were subsequently withdrawn. If you did that, the matter need never get into the official sphere, and my minister would certainly not express any views about the unsuitability of the first candidate.

I beg to remain, my dear Monsignor Montini with great respect and esteem