A Bridge Across the Ocean: The United States and the Holy See between the Two World Wars

Chapter 1. Divergent Powers

1 DIVERGENT POWERS PolitiCal and diPlomatiC baCkground Congress will probably never send a minister to his Holiness, who can do them no service, upon condition of receiving a Catholic legate or nuncio in return; or, in other words, an ecclesiastical tyrant, which, it is to be hoped, the United States will be too wise ever to admit in their territories.1 These were the words of John Adams writing on August 4, 1779, to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Free of all protocol formality , they did not derive from diplomatic clashes or impoliteness between the Union and the Papal States; rather they reflected and in some ways consecrated a culture impregnated with antipapism that was already deeply rooted in North America before the birth of the United States. In the opinion of the “Founding Fathers,” the great democracy that was about to see the light on the other side of the Atlantic should not for any reason at all have a connection with the Apostolic See, which “stank of outdated authoritarianism and obscurantism.”2 Hence the assertions of Adams, which were destined to become a pillar of United States antipapism, reflecting as they did the spirit of freedom and Puritan aversion to Catholicism. In essence, they laid 1 1. Charles F. Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States (Charleston, S.C.: Bibliolife, 2008), 7.109–10. 2. Massimo Franco, Imperi Paralleli: Vaticano e Stati Uniti: Due secoli di alleanza e conflitto 1788–2005 (Milan: Mondadori, 2005), 20. 2 DIVERGENT POWERS the foundations of what would become the later relations between Washington and the Vatican: relations that for almost two centuries had been marked by incomprehension and at times by outright hostility , during which the attitude expressed by Adams at the end of the eighteenth century continued to make itself felt. When in 1788 Pius VI sent emissaries to Paris to negotiate with the ambassador of the newborn republic of North America, Benjamin Franklin, on the possibility of nominating a bishop of the new state, President Washington’s response was that the American Revolution , among other things, had brought with it freedom of religious expression and that for this very reason the pope would not find any veto on the part of the government. And so John Carroll was nominated to be the first Catholic bishop of America.3 The see chosen was Baltimore, the only city where there existed a numerous, compact Catholic community that promised to become an ideal place from which Catholicism would expand into other areas of the Union. The “lay” nulla osta which led to the institution of the first diocese was, in any case—at least in intention—a simple and innocuous gesture of goodwill toward the Vatican; it was not a sign that the U.S. establishment intended to give formal recognition to the Holy See, nor was it a demonstration of any particular interest in attributing some kind of diplomatic status to papal representatives. And yet, toward the end of the eighteenth century, significant progress was made in that direction. The tendency of the first federal governments to safeguard the commercial interests of the United States, in fact, encouraged compliance with the requests for moreor -less institutionalized contact put forward by the Holy See. This was, paradoxically, why John Adams, who a few years before had been a hardened opponent of setting up relations with the Roman “tyrant,” in 1797 sent to the Vatican the first consular representative, Giovanni Sartori, one of the eleven consuls called to represent the interests of the United States to the Holy See until 1867, three years 3. See Milton Lomask, John Carroll, Bishop and Patriot, 4th ed. (New York: Vision Books, 1962). DIVERGENT POWERS 3 before the fall of the Papal States.4 Although they were not ambassadors , the papal government granted them unusual privileges and favors, including that of being admitted to all formal ceremonies on the same terms as the diplomats representing other countries.5 In this way, the papal court attempted to take further steps toward full recognition and it was for this reason that in 1826 a consul, Count Ferdinando Lucchesi Palli di Campofranco, was sent to New York together with as many as twenty-one vice-consuls. The responsibilities of the consular office in Rome were not confined to overseeing trade and the safety of United States citizens abroad; its real objective was to monitor...