For "technical" reasons, said the Vatican's Osservatore Romano last week, the Holy See has withdrawn diplomatic privileges from the envoys of the Polish and Lithuanian pre-war governments. Henceforth, the dean of the Vatican diplomatic corps, Casimir Papee, Ambassador from the Polish government in exile, and Stanislaus Girdvainis. minister from Lithuania before Russia annexed that country in 1940, will probably serve as chargés d'affaires. But no matter how technical the reasons, insiders in Rome buzzed with speculation that the move signaled a new phase of diplomatic relations between Vatican and Kremlin.
When the envoys...