FDR, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in America, 1933-1945

A distinguished array of scholars dissect the complex relationship between the White House, the Catholic Church in America, and the Vatican during the Roosevelt presidency.

American Catholics had long been a crucial voting bloc in the United States, particularly in the Democratic Party. With the nation mired in economic depression and the threat of war looming across the Atlantic, in 1932 Catholics had to weigh, perhaps more seriously than ever before, political allegiance versus religious affiliation. Many chose party over religion, electing Frankiln D. Roosevelt, a Protestant. No stone goes unturned in this volume, which grew out of an international conference in 1998 held at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, New York. From the multiplicity of Catholic responses to the New Deal, through Roosevelt's diplomatic relationship with the Vatican during the Second World War, and on to the response of the United States and the Vatican to the Holocaust, this book expands our understanding of a fascinating and largely unexplored aspect of Roosevelt's presidency. A complex blend of religion and politics, with the added ingredients of economics and war, this diverse, insightful collection promises an intellectual feast for those with an interest in virtually any aspect of American history during the Roosevelt era.

"Taken as a set, these stimulating essays shed new light upon the complex relationships between Franklin Roosevelt and the American Catholic community during the New Deal and between the United States and the Vatican during World War II. The book covers a remarkable range of personalities, issues and controversies and is especially insightful in exploring the multifaceted wartime diplomacy between Pius XII and the Roosevelt administration. These essays avoid polemics and deepen genuine historical understanding of an important subject." - Rev. Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C. Associate Professor of History, University of Notre Dame

"David Woolner and Richard Kurial have put together by far the most

stimulating and readable account of the remarkable relationship between

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Catholic hierarchy. A patrician Protestant

president, FDR, as this book shows in rich and lively detail, appealed to

Catholic Americans to sustain him and defied critical Protestant opinion by

naming the first U.S. ambassador to the Vatican." - William E. Leuchtenburg, Author of The FDR Years and of In the Shadow of FDR: from Harry Truman to George W. Bush

"This collection of papers is a useful volume, providing information, insight, and references and questions for further research for the scholar as well as for the interested reader." - James F. Garneau, The Catholic Historical Review

Auteur
DAVID B. WOOLNER is Executive Director of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Assistant Professor of History at Marist College, Poughkeepsie, USA. He is the editor of The Second Quebec Conference Revisited: Waging War, Formulating Peace - Canada, Great Britain and the United States in 1944-1945 (Palgrave, 1998).

RICHARD KURIAL is Dean of Arts and Associate Professor of History at the University of Prince Island in Charlottetown, Canada. He is completing Visions of an Arctic Empire: The Diplomatic Wrangle over Wrangel Island.

Résumé
From the multiplicity of Catholic responses to the New Deal, through Roosevelt's diplomatic relationship with the Vatican during the Second World War, and on to the response of the United States and the Vatican to the Holocaust, this book expands our understanding of a fascinating and largely unexplored aspect of Roosevelt's presidency.

Contenu
PART I: FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AND AMERICAN CATHOLICS Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Protestant Patrician in a Catholic Party; M.Barone Roosevelt and the American Catholic Hierarchy; G.P.Fogarty PART II: CATHOLIC FRIENDS/CATHOLIC FOES: THE NEW DEAL AND AMERICAN CATHOLICISM John A. Ryan, the New Deal, and the Catholic Understandings of a Culture of Abundance; A.Burke Smith Al and Frank: The Great Smith-Roosevelt Debate; R.A.Slayton California Catholics and the Gubernatorial Election of 1934; S.M.Avella The Practical Personalism of the Catholic Worker and the Pragmatic Policies of the New Deal; F.Sicius Father Francis E. Lucey and President Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Neo-Scholastic Scholar's Ambivalent Reaction to the New Deal; A.K.Mehrotra Religious Liberty in American Foreign Policy, 1933-1941: Aspects of Public Argument between FDR and American Roman Catholics; P.Chen PART III: SEARCHING FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER: FDR, THE VATICAN, AND WORLD WAR II Pope Pius XII and the Myron Taylor Mission: The Vatican and American War-Time Diplomacy; J.Conway Catholics, Jews, and the Bombardment of Rome: The Priorities of Pius XII During the Second World War; M.Phayer Toward the Reconstitution of Christian Europe: The War Aims of the Papacy, 1939-1945; P.C.Kent Diplomacy's Detractors: American Protestant Reaction to FDR's 'Personal Representative at the Vatican; M.H.Carter The Department of State and the Apostolic Delegation in Washington During World War II; R.Trisco A Few Bits of Information: American Intelligence and the Vatican, 1939-1945; D.Alvarez A Peculiar Brand of Patriotism: The Holy See, FDR, and the Case of Reverend Charles E. Coughlin; C.R.Gallagher PART IV: REFLECTIONS ON THE SHOAH Remarks on the Purpose of the Document 'We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah'; Rev. Dr. R.Hoeckman, O.P. - Secretary of the Holy See's Commission For Religious Relations with the Jews