Parallel Empires

The Vatican and the United States--Two Centuries of Alliance and Conflict
Chapter 1

CONCLAVE ON AIR FORCE ONE


They knelt side-by-side in Saint Peter's Basilica, a frieze of American presidents past and present, united in a last tribute to Pope John Paul II. The solemn funeral of a pontiff is a landmark in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, but the presence of the three American leaders--George W. Bush; his father, George Herbert Walker Bush; and William Jefferson Clinton--had a historical significance of its own. It was not just that the presidents of the world's most powerful democracy had traveled halfway round the world to honor the head of a global faith that has never specifically recognized democracy as the only acceptable form of government, and a pontiff who in temporal terms was Europe's only remaining absolute ruler. A seismic gap had opened in the surface of relations between the United States and the Vatican. On one side was the historic position of past American presidents whose successive attitudes toward the Roman hierarchy had ranged from keeping their distance to--occasionally--cautious co ... read full excerpt from: Parallel Empires ebook