In my personal files there is a postcard that I count as a precious possession. It was sent from Rome by my father in March 1939 to my mother at home in Watertown. The message did not go beyond the conventional: a few words about the weather and looking forward to the trip back to Boston. Nonetheless, for me it holds historical meaning.

My father had traveled to Rome in order to cover the election of a new pope. The election qualified as big news, especially in Catholic Boston. But getting there had also been a matter of widespread interest to readers of the Boston Post, the large newspaper which employed my father as a reporter.

The story of getting there centered on the archbishop of Boston, William Cardinal O’Connell (often referred to as “Gangplank Bill,” for his frequent vacations by ship). Twice before, in 1914 and 1922, he had failed to reach Rome on time for the elections of popes Benedict XV and Pius XI, so he was especially anxious not to miss this one.

He wanted to arrive at the Vatican before the group of 62 cardinal electors was sealed behind closed doors. The only passage then available, in those days before commercial air travel had become common, was on a ship of the Italian line, the Saturnia, sailing out of New York.

Two weeks after leaving North America, the Saturnia reached Algiers where the cardinal and his party transferred to another Italian ship, the Vulcania. This liner arrived at Naples, two days later, enabling O’Connell to reach Rome on March 1 just in time. Each day from shipboard my father would dispatch a cable back to his paper in Boston detailing the cardinal’s passage and informing readers about the suspenseful chances of beating the Vatican deadline.

Later, O’Connell narrated these events in a privately printed book entitled “A Memorable Voyage.” There he simply refers to Mr.Griffin and his colleagues from two other Boston newspapers as “genial correspondents.” About the papal election itself, he supplies only some ceremonial details, leaving out anything about the actual deliberations.

The choice of the successor to Pius XI would come as no surprise to readers of the Boston Post. By virtue of an extensive tour of the United States in 1936, this Vatican insider was well known to the American cardinals, other clergy, and the American public as papabilis (pope-able.)

This election of Pacelli would prove fateful. The outbreak of World War II a few months later ensured the importance to the world of this new pope. In particular, his stance toward the Jews in their hour of mortal peril would become highly controversial and remains so to this day. Pius XII, as he became known, still has his determined critics for his alleged failure to speak out and act forcefully to save the European Jews from destruction, but he also has his defenders.

Though I appreciate having the postcard in my files, seeing it also causes me some pain. It serves, after all, as a reminder of an important personal fact: I never once asked my father about his experiences traveling with Cardinal O’Connell and covering the election of Pius XII.

True, I was only eleven years old when my father went on that historic trip. My not having then talked with him about his adventures does not surprise me. But that I never did any time afterward now seems to me astonishing. My father was witness to other dramatic historical events but I never got to hear from his lips anything of them either.

As time went on, and I entered into my teenage years, World War II fascinated me. I followed the battles and other military news every day and was rabidly interested in the progress of Allied forces. News about the Catholic Church also became important to me as I grew older. Still, I did not ever ask my father about his impressions of Pacelli or his appraisal of the church’s stance toward the two warring sides.

Perhaps there is something providential about young people not being able to talk to their parents or even to listen with interest to their parents’ experiences. Maybe they would not mature as distinct personalities if events in their elders’ lives impinged too strongly on them. In any event, I could not rise above my own narcissistic self enough to take in what my father could have told me of his life.

At age 21 I was to leave home and the world in search of God. That leaving would deprived me of the opportunity to talk with my father, adult to adult. And when I was only 25, my father died.

I often fantasize about talking with him at my present age. Now I could ask him about that fateful papal election and about many of the other significant events he wrote about as a journalist. Maybe I could listen now with the understanding and sympathy that age has brought.

Richard Griffin