THE SOCIETY OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL SCIENTISTS
Friday and Saturday, October 26-27, 2007
The St. John’s University School of Law
Dr. Andrew M. Essig
Assistant Professor of Political Science
DeSales University
2755 Station Avenue
Center Valley, PA 18034
Andrew M. Essig, Ph.D. has been an assistant professor of Political Science at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania since 2002. Dr. Essig received a BA in Economics from St. Joseph’s University in 1989, an MA in Political Science from Penn State University in 1993 and a Ph.D. also from Penn State University in 2001. He studied for two year at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany. His areas of scholarly interest are international relations theory, American foreign policy, and U.S. – Holy See diplomatic relations. He has published articles in the Catholic Social Science Review and Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly. He has written a whitepaper for C-Fam entitled The World Bank: How It Compromises Economic Development by Promoting a Population Control Agenda, and has contributed six articles to the Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought. He is a member of numerous academic organizations including: Society of Catholic Social Scientists, Faculty for Life, American Political Science Association, International Studies Association, and the Pennsylvania Political Science Association. Dr. Essig and his wife Anne live in Allentown, PA with their son David and are expecting their second child in the new year.
“United States-Holy See Diplomacy: The Establishment of Formal Relations”
On January 10, 1984 President Ronald Reagan made the announcement that he was nominating William A. Wilson to the rank of Ambassador to the Holy See. On first appearance this may not seem so remarkable since presidents possess the constitutional power to appoint ambassadors. What made this particular public statement so unusual was that it was the first time in its two-hundred year diplomatic history that the United States government extended full diplomatic recognition to the ecclesiastical state. Prior to this, relations between the United States and the Holy See could be characterized as irregular at best.
The main question of this paper is what permitted Ronald Reagan to achieve what other presidents had considered before, but failed to do. This will require an examination of the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. Their dynamic personalities, life experiences, and repudiation of Communism created a natural bond between them which resulted in a period of warm relations between the two states. Also several events were occurring on the international scene in the early 1980s where the United States and the Holy See shared common interests and collaborated extensively. Furthermore, within the domestic realm there was support, or more accurately little active opposition, from Congress, the Courts and Protestant groups. Finally, the Holy See was eager to see these relations established, as was Reagan. The combination of all of these factors, which had not previously existed, created the proper environment for the Reagan Administration to send the United States’ first ambassador to the Holy See.