From the archives: Kennedy patriarch's diary details 1939 meeting with Pope Pius XII

This story was originally published in Newsday on April 16, 2005

More than 100 cardinals from around the world are expected to enter the Sistine Chapel Monday to begin voting for a successor to Pope John Paul II. Secrecy is a major concern, with technicians reportedly being brought in to sweep for any hidden listening devices, but not every papal conclave has been so hush-hush.

In 1939, when Pope Pius XII was chosen, a listening device hidden in the Vatican captured some of the deliberations by the church's cardinals. At least, this is the version recounted in the private diary of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, who was sent by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the U.S. representative for the new pope's coronation. Thrilled by the assignment, Kennedy brought along most of his family, including wife, Rose, and young son, future President John F. Kennedy.

According to the diary notes, now kept at the JFK presidential library in Boston, the Kennedy patriarch was taken on a private tour of the Vatican by his good friend, Count Enrico Galeazzi, the new pope's top assistant, who showed him the room where the cardinals had met in private to elect the pontiff. Three years earlier, Galeazzi and Joe Kennedy had worked together behind the scenes to arrange a historic meeting at Hyde Park, N.Y., between FDR and then-Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII.

With great intrigue, Galeazzi, the ultimate Vatican insider, recounted how "he had been selected to make a thorough search" of the room for hidden microphones attached to Dictaphones, and actually found one connected to the overhead wires, Kennedy wrote in his diary on March 12, 1939. Only Galeazzi and the pope knew of this device, Kennedy added.

Galeazzi, the Vatican's suave, ever-discreet administrator, explained to Kennedy the secret balloting leading to Pacelli's selection as pope. On the first ballot, Pacelli had received votes from 10 Italian cardinals and all of the North American cardinals except one - Boston's own William O'Connell - but this was not enough. (O'Connell married Joe and Rose Kennedy many years earlier, but Kennedy apparently never shared this politically damaging information with him). On the third ballot, Pacelli finally received the 42 votes that ensured his elevation to the Holy See.

Documents show this remarkable conversation between the Kennedy patriarch and the Vatican's top administrator was one of many trades of confidential information and private dealings that would continue all the way up to JFK's election as president in 1960.

As the senior Kennedy's diary recounts, his family seemed overwhelmed by their reception in Rome. During a lengthy chat with the pope in his private quarters, the Kennedys recalled his earlier visit to their Bronxville, N.Y., home in 1936 after he met with FDR. The new pope blessed them and administered the first Holy Communion to Kennedy's youngest son, Edward, then 7 and now a U.S. senator. "I hope you will always be good and pious as you are today," the pope instructed.

Jack Kennedy, 21, also seemed moved. On arriving back in London where his father was the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, JFK recalled his "great time" in Rome to his friend Lem Billings, who'd been at the Kennedys' New York home when the future pope visited in 1936. "Pacelli is now riding high, so it's good you bowed and groveled like you did when you met him," JFK wrote his pal. "He gave Dad and I communion with Eunice at the same time at a private mass and all in all it was very impressive."