 After that, the international status of the Papacy was controversial until 1929, when the Italian government agreed to the establishment of Vatican City as a sovereign city-state.The United States was slow to establish full diplomatic relations with the re-established Holy See, partly due to the prevalence of anti-Catholicism in the United States.President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Postmaster General James Farley was the first high-ranking government official to normalize relations with the Holy See in 1933 when the Postmaster General set sail for Europe, along with Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinoff on the Italian Liner SS "Conte di Savoia".