Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Catholic Church

At the center of American political and diplomatic life for four decades, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. although an Episcopalian by faith, was a constant ally of powerful Catholic clergy in both America and the Vatican during the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Cold War. His service as President Richard Nixon's special envoy to the Vatican during the papacy of Paul VI from 1970 to 1977 was the culmination of a long and fruitful collaboration with the Catholic Church, which was partially the product of political expediency and partly due to ideological and spiritual similarities. While there were failures as well as successes, Lodge's determination to cultivate leaders of the Catholic Church as allies revealed the growing importance of the Church in both the American political environment and in the tumultuous field of international diplomacy in the twentieth century marked by wars hot and cold.