Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-10
||PAPAL RELATIONS
| MAY FACE HOOVER
Problem of Sending U. S. En-
voy to Vatican Seen as
Early Issue.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Resumption of American diplomatic
relations with the Holy See of Rome
relations which were maintained for 19
years between 1848 and. 1867-is al
together likely to be one of the early
issues faced by the Hoover administra-
ton. The restoration of temporal pow
er to the Pope, in consequence Of the
epoch-making concordat with the Ital-
ian government, entities Plus XII to seek
formal official recognition at the hands
Of every country in the world.
With its Roman Catholic population
of roundly 20,000,000, washington dip
lomats consider 1t q foregone conclu-
sion that sooner or later the United
States will be asked by the newly Ca
parisoned Vatican State" to exchange
representatives between the two gov
ernments. President Polk In 1847 sent
the first American envoy to st. Peters,
and successors to him we're regularly
appointed until the middle of the john
son administration in 1867.
Although both American Ministers
and consular officers were sent to the
Papal States throughout the 19 years
in question, the Vatican, for some rea-
son which no one now in Washington
quite understands, never tried to ac-
credit ENJOYS to the United States. The
PopeS have been content to maintain
purely ecclesiastical representatives in
this country, known as apostolic dele
gates. The present delegate to the
United States is Archbishop Pietro Fu-
masOni- -Biondi. He is probably the least
known foreigner in the Capital He lives
quietly in house far less pretentious
than the residences of small foreign
countries represented in Washington by
Ministers. Archbishop Biondis activi-
ties, like those of all his predecessors,
appear to be confined strictly to church
affairs. He is described as a "liason
ofacer" between the Vatican at Rome
and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in
the United States.
Holy Sees Network World Wide.
Already the Holy Sees network of
diplomatic relations is world wide. The
Vatican legations include those of Aus
tria, Bavaria, Belgium, CzechoSlovakia,
France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania,
Hungary, Japan, Jugo-Slavia. Great
Britain. Monaco, the Netherlands, Po-
land. Portugal, Roumania, Spain. Switz-
erland and of practically all the repub-
lies of the Western Hemisphere, except
the United States. Cuba. Mexico and
Uruguay. AS in the former times of
relations with the United States, the
Vatican has not sent ENJOYS of its own
to all the countries which maintain le-
cations at the Holy See. But full dip
lomatic status exists with them all.
The nearest Uncle Sam has ever come
in modern times to direct diplomatic
dealings with the Roman Catholic
Church was when President Roosevelt
sent William Howard Taft to Rome in
19O2-in the midst of Taft's governor
generalship of the Philippines-to con-
fer with Pope Leo XIII. The object of
the mission was to arrange for purchase
by the United States of the church's
extensive holdings of agricultural lands
in the Philippines. These lands were
the properties of Catholic religious or
ders In the islands and had been in
CONTINUED on Page 4. Column IL