Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine (McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion)

The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism.Through the centuries, popes and theologians marginalized the Jewish people, assigning them collective guilt for the death of Jesus Christ and claiming that the sacred territory of Palestine was the true patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church.With the advent of political Zionism in the nineteenth century, Catholic fears of a Jewish-dominated Palestine were renewed. Contesting Zion examines the relationship between the Vatican and the Zionist movement from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to the first decade of Israeli statehood.Adrian Ciani considers the transnational nature of Catholic responses to Zionism and the creation of Israel, with a focus on the Catholic Church in the United States.From the 1920s through the 1950s, American Catholic leaders became crucial intermediaries between Washington and the Vatican.Speaking as both loyal Americ