[6] For the next four years, he attended the Pontifical Urban College of Propaganda, receiving prizes in physics, church history and sacramental theology.

[10] Upon his return to Australia, Beovich briefly served as an assistant priest of a parish in North Fitzroy, in what would be his only experience of suburban parochial life.

[17] On 13 December 1939 Beovich received a phone-call from the Australian apostolic delegate informing him that he had been appointed by Pope Pius XII to be installed as the new archbishop of Adelaide, replacing Andrew Killian, who had died in June of that year.

[20] He kept numerous engagements, including the opening of a maternity wing at Calvary Hospital with Premier Thomas Playford,[22] a meeting of the Holy Name Society that drew two thousand members,[23] and an Anzac Day requiem Mass for soldiers who had returned from the Second World War.

[24] Privately, he began negotiations with the Australian apostolic delegate and bishop of Port Augusta Thomas McCabe regarding the founding of a seminary for Adelaide.

Paying tribute to the quiet, calm way he usually faced difficulties, his secretary recalled that the only time he saw him excited was during World War II, at a meeting in the town hall to protest against the bombing of Rome.

Although gentle and shy, he could appear remote and austere, but was affectionately remembered for his sense of humour and his `jet-propelled’ arrivals and departures from Catholic functions.