#ACHACollections: Dr. Leo Francis Stock

by Leah Kanik
ACHA Summer Intern

As a Catholic organization, the ACHA is not only interested in specifically American Catholic history, but how this history interacts with Catholicism globally. Indeed, ‘Catholic’ means ‘universal’ and history is an interactive field that requires study of its connections with other people and places. The ACHA’s goal is also to spread such knowledge so that scholars and anyone interested in Catholic history may understand the relationships. These efforts can be seen through two publications by the ACHA that highlight the US’s correspondence with the Holy See in Rome: United States Ministers to the Papal States: Instructions and Despatches 1848-1868 and Consular Relations between the United States and the Papal States: Instructions and Despatches, published in 1933 and 1945 respectively.

The volumes were edited by Dr. Leo Francis Stock, 10th President of the ACHA and chairman of the Committee on Publications. He lived from 1878 to 1954, and his life was marked by impressive scholarship in Catholicism and history. He studied at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in 1896 and earned his doctorate from CUA in 1920 where he also taught from 1919 to 1941.^[1] Other occupations included teaching at Duquesne University and McGill Institute, working at the Division of Historical Records at the Carnegie Institute, and serving on the editorial board for the Catholic Historical Review from 1921-1939.^[2] He wrote various other articles that focused on papal diplomatic relations such as “The United States at the Court of Pius IX” (1923), “American Consuls to the Papal States 1797-1870” (1929), and “Catholic Participation in the Diplomacy of the Southern Confederacy” (1930), all of which were published in the Catholic Historical Review.^[3]

The two volumes, decided upon at the tenth and eleventh Annual Meetings, would be part of a new Documents series by the ACHA that would be published as a supplement to the Papers series. The Publications Committee decided to first publish the latter half of the correspondence when diplomatic relations were more formalized before composing the initial consular interactions.^[4] Copies of letters for the books were provided by the Department of State, a collection that Stock felt had “lay neglected as sources of historical investigation” until he began utilizing it for articles.^[5] Use of the documents came to fruition in the two volumes which have been praised for their importance in recording the diplomatic history between the United States and Rome. Publication of Volume II was delayed due to financial uncertainty, the entire process being ten years compared to three for Volume I, but this was eventually solved by the patronage of the Bishop’s Committee on the Pope’s Peace Points.^[6] While a third volume was unlikely to be published, it was Dr. Stock’s wish “that the collecting, editing, and publishing of pertinent documentary materials [would] continue to be a permanent object of the Association’s activities.”^[7]