Hmmmm. Really? I doubt the case could be made.
I wonder if the Pope really knew what was going on. Popes have usually considered the U.S. a kind of backwater. I wonder if Pope Pius IX really had any clue what was going on here.
Didn’t the North recognize him as the President of the Confederacy too? What history book did I miss?
“Popes have usually considered the U.S. a kind of backwater.”
And this perception is not entirely gone even today. Perhaps not by a truly brilliant and insightful man like Benedict, but many in the old guard Curia.