In this collection of essays, scholars analyse the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in America. American Catholics had long been a crucial voting bloc in the United States, particularly in the Democratic Party. With the nation mired in economic depression and the threat of war looming across the Atlantic, in 1932 Catholics had to weigh, perhaps more seriously than ever before, political allegiance versus religious affiliation. Many chose party over religion, electing Frankiln D. Roosevelt, a Protestant. This volume, which grew out of an international conference in 1998 held at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, New York. From the multiplicity of Catholic responses to the New Deal, through Roosevelt's diplomatic relationship with the Vatican during World War II, and on to the response of the United States and the Vatican to the Holocaust, this book expands our understanding of a fascinating and largely unexplored aspect of Roosevelt's presidency.