Visit to the Vatican

A grey, military sedan drew into San Damaso courtyard in Vatican City. Out stepped dapper, grey-haired Edward J. Flynn of The Bronx, fresh from Cairo, Moscow and Yalta. Eight minutes ahead of time, he and dark-clad Myron C. Taylor, Presidential representative at the Vatican, hurried to the private study of Pope Pius XII.

The Pontiff postponed a scheduled audience with Pietro Cardinal Fumasoni-Biondi, the Prefect of Propaganda Fide, and received the two Americans at once. They were with him 56 minutes. From the Pope's study on the second floor, Flynn moved to the third-floor office of Monsignor Domenico Tardini, the Vatican's Secretary for Extraordinary Affairs and president of the special Vatican Committee for Russia.

Later that day Flynn received 50 Allied newspapermen at the Barberini Palace, in U.S. Ambassador Alexander C. Kirk's huge apartment.

What was he doing in Rome? Mostly, said Ed Flynn, he was making the personal pilgrimage of any good Catholic.

Had he discussed Vatican-Kremlin relations with the Pope? "Just casually, very casually," said Mr. Flynn. "I've come here on a mission from the President and whatever is to be said about it must be said by the President, if he wants to say anything after I get home and report to him." The same remarks presumably applied to his recent meetings with Joseph Stalin at Yalta and in Moscow.

Newspapermen found the usual "Vatican sources" more informative. Said one: Flynn described to the Pope religious conditions in Russian-occupied Lithuania, Poland, Rumania and Hungary, and explained Stalin's views on Catholics in these countries. Some sort of working agreement between the Vatican and Russia was discussed. Perhaps the details would be left to another intermediary--for instance, Archbishop Francis J. Spellman of New York.

Said another source: "The Holy See is accustomed to move slowly and cautiously. . . . The Church has no political motives, and time is no object, so long as true freedom of religion for all creeds in Russia and Russian-dominated areas is secured. The Vatican remains in a position of 'confident expectation.' "

At week's end the Pope granted Ed Flynn a second interview.

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