I promise not to take your remarks as infallible if you promise the same regarding mine! I think this is a fascinating post, and I'm also very interested in the thoughts of others. I of course agree with both you and Rick that this perception of the pope as an exotic, foreign remnant of a monarchical past always made the office most powerful in the U.S. as a tool of anti-Catholicism. (I'm even thinking of the 1928 rumors of a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean to allow Pius XI's minions to more directly advise Al Smith). I'm just not sure what to make of Rick's measurement of the papacy's influence, and the felt need of American presidents to deal with the Vatican. Clearly this is a new era we're in today.

Oops - James B. Richardson, not Davidson.

Not necessarily, and I was basically thinking out loud, looking for possible reasons. Still, unless I looked in the wrong place Rick (the James B. Davidson 1917 compilation), the index to the Messages and Papers of the Presidents also has no references to the following: Louis Napoleon, Cavour, and Kaiser Wilhelm, and only one reference to Bismarck. Thus, perhaps the index, the papers, or official presidential missives on events in Europe are severely limited.

Rum Romanism and Rebellion.

Remember?

Catholics probably shifted the outcome of at least opne presidcential election and maybe others.

So as a political force they were powerful. That the Democrats could count on their support doesn't mean Republicans would ignore them, does it? Republicans hardly ignore blacks even though blacks are mainly Democrats.

That is the fascinating aspect of the culture wars in the U.S., that conservatives (and liberals) of many faith traditions seem to feel closer kinship with one another than they do with liberals (and again, conversely, conservatives) within their own denominations.

Two corrections.

1. I meant to type John XXIII, not John XXII

2. More significantly, I reconsidered my comment about the 1920s. It was only after Kennedy's presidency that a president might find have found associating himself with a Pope to be a positive.

And I think a Catholic president would still have to be more careful as opposed to a protestant such as Bush.

Oscar - I'm not so sure I'd agree with your statement "From the 1870s into the 1920s, the power of the Popes was limited by the differences between the Vatican and the new Italian States," but I'm unclear on the context in which you mean "power of the Popes." The doctrine of papal infallibility was adopted at the First Vatican Council in 1870, and the primacy of the papacy was made clear there as well. In the United States reverence for the Pope in church hierarchy was never higher than in the late 19th century and early 20th century, which historian Steven Avella has called the era of the "confident church" in the U.S. Of course all this refers to the papacy's role within the Church, but it seems that the social teaching, Rerum Novarum (1891), including Leo XIII 's powerful critique of both socialism and capitalism was also a sign of papal influence abroad. Clearly this was not the political papacy of the Middle Ages, but I'm not sure it was weaker in its influence in the U.S. than in earlier periods.

Thanks Oscar for that elaboration. I'd add that Rutherford B. Hayes was bashing Catholics but he did so sneakily. He came out four square for PUBLIC schools. This was a swipe at parochial schools. This shows up in the official papers.