By Rev. A. F. MacKay, M.A., Inverness.
THE announcement made by President Truman on 16th January that Myron C. Taylor, the President’s personal representative to the Vatican at Rome, had resigned because of ill health, has terminated, for the time being, an appointment which has stirred keen resentment among Protestants in America. It will be recalled that President Roosevelt appointed Myron C. Taylor as Ambassador to Pope Pius XII in 1940, and also that President Truman on taking office after Roosevelt’s death promised, in answer to representations made by various Protestant Associations, that it was to be of a temporary nature. That a Protestant nation should send an Ambassador to a Church which makes the arrogant claims which the Roman Church has made, was considered a perilous proceeding. Many Protestants in America objected strongly to the presence of a representative at Rome, because it involved the U.S. in an act which gave official recognition to the head of a religious organisation. What is worse, however, is that any such appointment is a direct violation of the American Constitution.
As far back as 1867, the U.S. Congress enacted a law which forbids the appropriation of any money for the support of an American Legation at Rome. This law to-day stands as the great barrier preventing all diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the Vatican of Rome. The facts which lie behind this remarkable Protestant measure show how the age-old religious intolerance of Rome over-reached itself and brought about the suppression of the American Legation. These facts are given by Dr. Lehmann in a recent issue of The Converted Catholic Magazine.
“American history,” says Dr. Lehmann, “offers no parallel of which we know to the abrupt severing of diplomatic relations with the Pope of Rome in 1867.” Previous to this date, American Consuls had served in Rome, but the scope of their authority was strictly defined in the terms of their appointment to office. The Vatican was then a temporal power holding lands which extended over large tracts of central Italy. To attend to the trading interests of the U.S., it was thought expedient to send a Chargé d’Affaires in 1848 to the Pope, especially as trade between the two countries was growing. The American Secretary of State gave specific instructions that particular care must be taken by the American official to preserve the commercial character only of the intercourse between the two countries; other nations maintained diplomatic representatives to the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church, but the U.S. representative was to attend only to his country’s commercial interests.
Diplomatic privileges recognised by international law allow any resident Minister the right to worship according to his own religion, even though that religion may not be the religion of the country to which he is sent. American Ministers in Rome availed themselves of this right and usually made their own arrangements to hold Protestant services in the city. Even the free exercise of this privilege was hampered by the Papal authorities, till at last in 1867, these services had to be held outside the walls of the city. This suppression of freedom of worship was made the subject of vigorous debate in both Houses of Congress at home. Many demanded that no representative should be maintained at Rome, where freedom of worship was so openly flouted; that it was not in keeping with the traditions of a freedom loving, Protestant nation to continue relations with the Papal States. The Roman Catholics had their own representatives who maintained that the Papal religion, which makes Roman Catholicism exclusive, must be recognised under the tolerant laws of America.
It was at this stage that a communication from Rome, received by a member, was read out to the House of Representatives, which overwhelmingly moved the House to sever all diplomatic relations with the Pope. The curious fact about this communication is that it had nothing whatever to do with the American Chargé d’Affaires, nor even the denial of Protestant services to his staff by the R.C. authorities at Rome.
It seems that for six years previous to 1867, the Free Church and Church of Scotland maintained mission stations at Rome, which were always a source of irritation to the R.C. authorities. As in Spain to-day, they were compelled to hold their services in their own apartments with a few of their countrymen, in an obscure part of the city. There was no sign to show that it was a place of worship. Some 30 or 40 worshippers met here each Lord’s Day “as secretly as the early Christians in the catacombs of Rome or in the dens and caves of the earth.” These services were conducted with the utmost quietness and attracted no attention. But on Saturday, 29th December, 1866, the chaplains of these two missions were served with the following warning:—
TO REV. JAMES LEWIS.
British Consulate at Rome,
29th December, 1866.
Sir,
It is my official duty to inform you that Monsignore Randi, Governor of Rome, has just communicated to me that you are holding illegal religious meetings in your house, which you must know are prohibited by the Roman law, and that you have thus placed yourself in the power of the Inquisition both for arrest and imprisonment. But as the Monsignore permits me to give you this notice, I would seriously advise that you at once put an end to these innovations, and that you visit Monsignore Rande at Monte Citorio and assure him that you will never again repeat these illegal acts. I hope in this way you may possibly suspend your exile which is now hanging over you.
I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
JOSEPH SEVER,
British Consul.
A visiting Presbyterian minister, Rev. Dr. Prime, who was in Rome at the time, shocked at this display of Papal intolerance, forwarded the warning with explanatory letter to Representative W. E. Dodge. The House of Representatives listened to the letter and immediately voted the following:—
“No money hereby or otherwise appropriated shall be paid for the support of the American Legation at Rome from and after the thirtieth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven.”
The vote was 82 for, 18 against. The Senate approved without a vote, and “on February 28, 1867, less than two months after the Governor of Rome had commissioned the British Consul to notify the Scotch Presbyterian missionary that he was ‘in the power of the Inquisition both for arrest and imprisonment,’ a law had been enacted by the Congress of the United States that closed the American Legation at Rome.” To quote further from Dr. Lehmann, “the American Legation at Rome went out of the window.”
This is the Act of Congress in violation of which President Roosevelt appointed Myron C. Taylor as Ambassador to Pope Pius XII in 1940. Now that this appointment is ended with Mr. Taylor’s resignation, Vatican circles seek to mollify their disappointment with the hope that the U.S. will soon be represented at the Vatican by a fully accredited Ambassador. While the 1867 law remains in force, however, any such appointment will be illegal.