Irene Dunne talks about the Pope

By GRACE CONWAY, Catholic Herald Film Critic
POR two hours and a half Irene Dunne sat on a settee in Claridge's Hotel and talked to scores of Pressmen and women —and the recurring theme of her conversation was the Holy Father.
With her husband, Dr. Francis Griffin, and her schoolgirl daughter Frances, she had had a private audience of His Holiness during her recent Holy Year pilgrimage.
She repeated to me what she had said in Rome: " I felt I had been talking to a saint."
And she added: "I am sure he
will be canonised. I won't live to see it but my daughter may.
" What I fodnd so wonderful about His Holiness was his humanness and naturalness. He spoke of his great interest in the cinema industry and he sent it his blessing." Over the long black frock she wore at the Vatican, Irene Dunne had the Laetare Medal conferred on her last year by the University of Notre Dame " for her exemplary qualities as wife, mother and actress. The commemorative title that went with the award referred to her irreproachable family life during her 15 years as a star. and said that she had won "the admiration and respect of all in the film industry and in the world at large."
Miss Dunne attended the canonisation of St. Anthony Mary Claret, the Spanish founder of the Claretian Fathers.
" It was a most wonderful experience," she told me. "The four and a half hours went all too quickly."
Also included in her visit was the privilege, so far extended to very few, of inspecting the excavations in the crypt of St. Peter's which have been made to discover St. Peter's tomb.