In 1984 Pres. Reagan established full US diplomatic relations with the Vatican which had been forbidden since 1867 when congress passed a resolution prohibiting a US mission in Rome on hearing the pope was going to forbid American Protestants from holding services in Rome-UK Guardian, Jan 1984

1/11/1984, "From the archive, 11 January 1984: Vatican and US to establish full diplomatic relations," UK Guardian, George Armstrong, 1/22/2013
..................

"Since 1867, there has been no American ambassador to the Holy See because of a US Congress resolution."
...............

"The Vatican announced yesterday that the United States will have full diplomatic relations with the Holy See for the first time since 1867.
................

At the formal level, this means that President Reagan's "personal envoy" to the Vatican, Mr William Wilson, will have the rank of ambassador, and the Vatican's apostolic delegate in Washington, Archbishop Pio Laghi, will have the title of Apostolic Nuncio. In 1982, Britain made a somewhat similar adjustment, when the British legation to the Holy See was elevated to an embassy.

Mr Wilson, a Californian property developer, named by President Reagan as his envoy in 1981, will have to appear before a congressional committee to have his nomination as ambassador ratified. It seems improbable, therefore, that he will be able to attend, in his new role, the reception being given on Saturday for ambassadors accredited to the Papal Court.

On hearing a rumour that the Pope was going to forbid American Protestants to hold services within Rome's city walls - services which were already being clandestinely held in private homes - the US Congress passed a resolution in 1867 saying that no federal funds could be used to maintain a diplomatic mission in Rome. Three years later the Pope had lost temporal control over Rome and it became part of the kingdom of Italy.

There are nearly 120 countries with full diplomatic relations with the Vatican, from Algeria to Zimbabwe, many of them with very few native Roman Catholics. Many of these ambassadors wear two hats. They are accredited as their country's ambassador to other capitals as well as to the Vatican. Often they will spend less than a fortnight a year in Rome.

President Franklin Roosevelt was the first to name a personal envoy to the Vatican in 1939. He was a wealthy man, with homes in Rome and Florence, and no federal funds were used. Since the Nixon Administration, the office of the personal envoy had gradually become "illegal" in that the 1867 resolution was violated.

Mr Wilson's Rome residence belongs to the US Embassy, and the State Department pays the salaries of Mr Wilson's political counsellor, a career diplomat, as well as secretarial and security staff. The envoy's office is rented from the Vatican.

This change in status will mean that all such payments, including the ambassador's salary, will be paid from federal funds. "There will also be a difference in seating arrangements," Mr Wilson's deputy says. At receptions and services where the Pope presides, the presidential envoy was often given a back seat - and his deputy had to "sit with the wives.""





.....................