President Washington held informal relations with Pope Pius VI, as did many of the presidents after him. For several decades diplomatic relations established the Pope not only as the head of the Catholic Church, but as leader of the Vatican, but an increasingly anti-Catholic sentiment, brought on by rumors as farfetched as the Pope’s involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Vatican’s ban on protestant religious practices in the homes of the American Ministers within the walls of the city forced a break in these relations. The U.S. and the Holy See were not enemies, but nor, for over a century, were they friendly.

On this day, October 4, in 1965, in one of the first efforts at normalizing relations between the two sides, Pope Paul VI visits New York.

The Holy See spent only one day in the United States, and that was just limited to New York, but there was a lot to do: he met the American Cardinal Francis Spellman at his residence and met President Lyndon Johnson at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He also attended a public Mass at Yankee Stadium and addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations where he spoke eloquently against war and urged the inclusion of Communist China to the national body.