Moscou, Washington et le Saint-Siége au début du pontificat de Jean-Paul II. Entre quête de légitimation et recherche d’une « équivalence morale »

The election of Karol Wojtyla in October 1978, as the Cold War was heating up, left neither Moscow nor Washington indifferent. The Soviet Union feared lest criticisms of its treatment of the religiously observant negatively affect how it was using international religious forums to legitimate its foreign policy. Furthermore, it dreaded a flare-up of nationalism in the republics where Catholics were numerous. The United States welcomed a pope who initially seemed in phase with its priorities, while Moscow let no occasion slip for drawing attention to the pope?s subservience to the US. As the archives show however, the latter, despite the pope?s wariness of Soviet authorities, could not always count on a man whom it deemed to be an ?ally? to take part in its anticommunist crusade. Jean-Paul II had to seek for an arrangement between Washington?s claim to ?moral superiority? and his own keen desire for disarmament.