Verso il disgelo: Stati Uniti e Santa Sede, 1914-1940

The study of the relationship between the United States and the Vatican is particularly complex as it has had quite a contradictory development. This PhD study tries to give an interpretation to better understand the relations between Washington and the Vatican during the two decades before the World War II. The period analyzed is mainly due to the fact that there was a convergence between the American Episcopate and Roosevelt’s administration on the social reforms and a synergic concrete action in terms of diplomacy between the Vatican Secretary of State and the White House when the war broke out. During the “Early Republic”, the Catholic Church had been considered by the majority of the protestants as the maximum expression of European obscurantism, opposing the liberal democratic principles stated by the Founding Fathers. Despite the consolidation of their presence due to the migration between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century, the Catholic communities had met several obstacles while they were trying to be part of the American society. .. [edited by Author]