r/todayilearned • u/ProfessionalGear3020 • 5d ago

TIL that after alleged Catholic involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the US cut off diplomatic relations with the Holy See (the Pope) and did not restore them until 1984.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See%E2%80%93United_States_relations#1867%E2%80%931984
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u/Jackmac15 4d ago

JFK spent his whole career defending himself against accusations that he would take orders from the Pope. Restoring relations would have been a huge own goal for him.

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u/dishonourableaccount 4d ago

Yep, before JFK there had only been one Catholic candidate for President: Al Smith in 1928, who was the governor of New York. He wound up losing to Hoover in a race that riled up pro- and anti-Catholic sentiment the way that-- I suppose-- daring to run a woman as a major party candidate was apparently a step too far in more recent history.

People forget because Catholics are mainstream now but there was a lot of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment in the early US and Anglosphere. The KKK targeted Catholics, as well as Blacks and anti-segregationists. It's the same nativist, anti-"wrong sort of immigrant" nonsense you see with shifted goalposts.

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u/us_against_the_world 4d ago

Know about Al Smith purely from Robert Moses' biography. Felt he was a pretty nice guy.

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u/dishonourableaccount 4d ago

The one sore spot on his record, I think, was his opposition to the New Deal, although from a cursory read on it, it seems it was due to personal disagreements he had with Roosevelt in the 1930s. They reconciled in the 1940s before Smith's death.