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tly papal armies fought in battles for land and power. Popes intervened on the side of their own families and were perceived as partisan political leaders. The papal states were long thought to be necessary to preserve the independence of the pope from domination by a temporal ruler.
In 1870 the worst nightmare of the popes came to pass. Pope Pius IX lost all the temporal possessions except for the Vatican itself. Pius refused any negotiations with the new Italian natgion. Finally, in 1929 Pope Pius XI would sign a Concordat with Benito Mussolini, officially establishing the relationship between the Holy See and the nation of Italy.
Paradoxically, however, the loss of the Papal States was one of the greatest possible blessings for the papacy. Once freed from the responsibilities of ruling the central portion of Italy, popes were eventually able to become respected moral and spiritual leaders on an unprecedented global level. This came to fruition in the middle and late 20th c. Pope John XXIII, who served as pope from 1958 to 1963, was beloved by many, many people beyond the borders of the Catholic Church. He was, in a sense, the grandfather to the world, a kindly, spiritual man who spoke vigorously for peace and the welfare of the poor. During the Cuban missile crisis in the fall of 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union came the closest they ever did to nuclear war, Pope John XXIII served as an intermediary, passing messages between them. Pope John also called the Second Vatican Council, an ecumenical council of all the Catholic bishops from around the world, which met in Rome between 1962 and 1965.
It was at the Second Vatican Council that the Catholic Church rethought its relation to the modern world, to religious freedom, to governments, and to other religions, including Islam. Conservative bishops and Cardinals argued that the Catholic Church could not change the teachings of centuries. But on a number of important issues, the overwhelming majority of the bishops, supported first by Pope John XXIII and then, after his death, by his successor Pope Paul VI, disagreed. The Church issued the Declaration of Religious Freedom in 1965. It affirmed the right of every human being to follow his or her conscience in deciding which religious path to follow. It abandoned the earlier desire of the Catholic Church to be recognized as the one Church in a nation and sought only freedom to proclaim the gospel.
One of the most influential contributors to this declaration was an American priest, a member of the religious order known as the Society of Jesus, John Courtney Murray. He had earlier argued that Catholic moral theology, based on natural law, was in harmony with the ideals of the American Revolution. At the time of his writing, this was considered to be a dangerous opinion by authorities in the Vatican, and he was ordered not to write further on the topic. However, at the Second Vatican Council, Murray emerged as one of the most influential advisors to the bishops and an architect of the declaration.
Pope Paul VI, together with the Second Vatican Council, issued the Declaration of Religious Freedom in the fall of 1965. He emerged as a major world leader. He traveled to New York City in 1965, where he spoke eloquently at the United Nations. Pope Paul VI’s speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations has been hailed as the climax of his career. Pope Paul was also active in seeking peace