An American Nunzio for Communist Bucharest: Gerald Patrick O’Hara and the Design of a New Church State Relationship

• In Event: Remains of the Past: The Catholic Church in the Communist Regimes of East Central Europe II

Abstract

When Bishop O’Hara arrived in Romania in 1947 to replace the ousted Nuncio Andrea Cassulo, he witnessed the gradual erosion of the Catholic Church’s freedom under the new regime. Within just two years, the state dismantled the church hierarchy, suppressed the Greek Catholic Church, and severed diplomatic ties with the Vatican, leaving Catholic believers and clergy without an intermediary in their relationship with the state. However, during the regime's consolidation of power, various checks and balances were put in place that later allowed for a fragile but enduring status quo in religious life. This presentation examines the elements of state-church relations inherited from the previous regime and how the Catholic Church hierarchy, along with the Bucharest Nunciature, worked to preserve them within the new legal framework. It will also explore how national circumstances prevailed over the Soviet model of church state relations imposed from Moscow.

Author

• Anca Maria Sincan, U of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology (Romania)