List of ambassadors of the United States to the Holy See
Open-knowledge reference entry
The ambassador of the United States to the Holy See (Latin: Apostolicae Sedis Legatus Civitatum Foederatarum; Italian: Ambasciatore della Sede Apostolica negli Stati Uniti) is the official representative of the United States of America to the Holy See, the leadership of the Catholic Church. The official representation began with the formal opening of diplomatic relations with the Holy See by President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II in 1984.
Before the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Postmaster General James Farley was the first high-ranking government official to normalize relations with the Holy See in 1933. In addition, Myron Taylor would serve during World War II as an emissary for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1951, President Harry S. Truman's pick of World War II hero Mark W. Clark was defeated.
Between 1951 and 1968, the United States had no official representative accredited to the Holy See. President Richard Nixon changed this when he appointed Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his personal representative. President Jimmy Carter followed with the appointment of former New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. Every ambassador to date has been a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
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This entry incorporates text from “List of ambassadors of the United States to the Holy See” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.