International relations of the Holy See

The diplomacy of the Holy See is the activity of international negotiation of the Catholic church.

Before the Reform and the Age of Enlightenment, papacy exerted on several occasions functions of referee between the European Christian sovereigns. The Diplomatie of the the Holy See found its first expression formal true towards the end of the 11th century when the pope started to send legates towards the various kingdoms of Christendom. It was a question of making it possible the clergy resident to have a greater room for maneuver with regard to the local civil authorities.

As from the 16th century papacy adapts to the emergence of the State-nation: the first Nonciature S appear, with at their head a Archevêque coming from Rome. Weakened by the Reform and the development of the philosophy of the Lights, the authority of the the Holy See is disputed, but this one remains always present on the international scene. The legitimacy of the pontifical diplomacy in the international sphere is then ratified on several occasions by treaties of reference (the Congrès of Vienna in 1815 and the conference of Vienna of 1961 codifying the diplomatic right).

Its role of international actor is fully recognized today since the Accords of Lateran: one allots to the the Holy See a statute equal to that of the other States, even if it is in the effect only one government. It is, at the present time, the only religious authority laying out of such a statute in public International law.

Powerful and effective means of international influence

A State symbolic system constituting a guarantee and a symbol of independence

There exists an essential distinction between the State of the Vatican and the Holy See:
  • the the Holy See is this abstract sovereignty of the pope on the catholics, estimated at 700 million people. An organization which, although not having any territory, is recognized by all the international authorities.
  • the Vatican City with its forty-four Hectare S is the smallest State of the world. It fulfills the functions of material of the activities of the Holy See and of conservation of its religious heritage, artistic and cultural support. The Pape is the sovereign of absolute and divine, concentrating between its hands the three legislative powers, executive and legal right.

According to the same words of Jean-Paul II, the State exists like guarantee of the exercise of the spiritual freedom of the apostolic Seat (another name of the Holy See), and thus like means of ensuring of it real and visible independence in its activity of government in favor of the universal Church. More prosaically, Pie XI defined it as “a small small holding quite useful for the Holy See”.

This is why it is almost impossible to delimit the sovereignty of the State of the Vatican and that of the Holy See. Because if the State, under the terms of the international rules, holds certain franknesses, the Holy See, under the terms of other rules so recognized, profits from related facilities which recover the first partly. The ambition of the Holy See at the beginning of the 20th century was to obtain an international recognition of its whole sovereignty, which becomes possible with the Accords of Lateran in 1929 between the Italian State and the Holy See. The treaty defines still at the present time the international statute of papacy.

Two articles are in this respect essential:

  • Article 2 - “Italy recognizes the sovereignty of the Holy See in the international field like an attribute inherent in its nature, in conformity with its tradition and the requirements of its mission in the world. ”
  • Article 3 - “Italy recognizes in the Holy See, the freehold, the exclusive and absolute capacity and the sovereign jurisdiction on the Vatican as it is currently made up with all its dependences and equipments, creating kind the Vatican City. ”

This State thus created is very particular. It is a State-symbol so much is modest its territory. It is a State-support placed at the service of a supranational organization where the population does not have nationality but a citizenship related to the performance of a duty (the citizens of the State of the Vatican do not lose their nationality of origin). It is a “multinational of the hearts” whose leader has the rank and the prerogatives of a Head of State.

The situation created by the treaty is ambiguous. A kind of union specific exists in the person of the pope, who has on the international plan at the same time of a spiritual sovereignty and a territorial sovereignty. These two sovereignties are exerted by the same bodies, those of the Holy See.

Also, when the Holy See carries on an activity within the framework of the international law, it is advisable to distinguish the cases where it acts as a body of the Catholic church, and those where it is the body of the Vatican City. For example, when it signs a legal settlement with a State, it is obviously about the relations between a State and the Catholic church. On the other hand, if it signs conventions of a purely technical nature (Universal postal union, International union of telecommunications, etc), it acts as a supreme body of the Vatican City. But when the Holy See exerts its right of legation active and passive (to accredit diplomatic representatives of other States and to send to them his - the apostolic nuncios), it acts under its double sovereignty: it is a question of ensuring the relations between the States on the one hand and the supreme leader of the Catholic church and the Vatican City on the other hand.

The territorial sovereignty of order is very marginal. It thus acts in the majority of the cases of a spiritual sovereignty, i.e. concerning the Holy See. The diplomats of the Holy See are before all the representatives of the Catholic church. The territorial aspect is only one symbol and the guarantee of a free operation of the Church.

Thus the agreements of Lateran give in a single way an official dimension to a religious confession enabling him to act directly in the international company. The legitimacy of the presence of the Holy See on the international scene is indeed before any history. In the debates of lawyer, it is arisen that it is as a spiritual power and not because of its temporal power that the Holy See is integrated in the international relations. Catholicism is the only religion to thus exert a role in the international relations.

Papacy is a true international institution which plays an at the same time spiritual and temporal part. By the independence which its territorial base ensures to him vaticane, the Holy See could develop a particularly active diplomacy, which it is by its efforts of mediation in various conflicts, which by its relations with other States or international organizations.

A diplomacy very organized and integrated into the international relations

The apostolic Seat is the supreme authority in the Church. Its holder is the Pape. He is surrounded by a true government, the curie. From its particular status, it is thus the Holy See which assumes the diplomatic relations and not the State of the Vatican. This diplomacy passes by an important institutional organization. At the top of the Roman curia the chancery of State is, directed by the Cardinal Secretary of State (currently the Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone). This one, under the authority of the Holy Father, fact appears of head of government and directs also the diplomatic building. The Secretary of State is so influential that certain popes, like Pie XII during “difficult times” of Fascism, preferred to occupy themselves of them the load.

The agents of the pontifical diplomacy are prelates of any nationality trained with the ecclesiastical pontifical Académie, the school of the diplomacy vaticane, as well as nuncios and laymen who intervene in the name of the Holy Father.

The diplomatic network of the Holy See covers almost the whole of planet. The Holy See is shown indeed eager to establish relationships to all the States, whatever their political regime or the religious conviction of their citizens.

Without same approaching the influence of the Holy See by the means of the Churches throughout the world, one can distinguish several driving belts from the power of this one. The Holy See is member of the “family of the United Nations” (i.e. UNO and the specialized institutions which are attached to him: FAO, UNESCO, IAEA, ILO, UNHCR, WHO, etc)

It is necessary to point out that it is well the Holy See, i.e. a spiritual authority, and not the Vatican City which is represented. Is this quality of spiritual authority compatible with a very broad presence in the international organizations? In fact with the statute of member of an international organization, the Holy See generally prefers that of permanent observer. It does not have the right to vote, but can attend all the meetings, consult documentation referring to it, make circulate memories and even be invited to speak, all possibilities which are adapted to the objectives by the Catholic church to bring to the debates a spiritual and moral dimension. It is thus a position of insertion in the international relations, while being disengaged and with the retreat necessary. This single privilege granted to a religion to be able to sit as well as a State nevertheless is disputed by many governmental organizations.

The Holy See has a true capacity of influence thanks to Radio Vatican, which covers the whole world in forty different languages (of the Arab to the Esperanto), with religious, but such cultural and musical programs. Little listened in the countries of tradition catholic, it establishes and maintenance of the invaluable contacts with the small isolated Christian communities.

There exist also the catholic International organizations (OIC), associations made up clerks and the laic ones, who cover the most various spheres of activity, in particular of the organizations in humane and caritative matter or many social and professional groupings. Thanks to this network, the Holy See has an invaluable instrument to act as well in the plan of the intergovernmental organizations as in the plan of the various international activities which do not concern a given institution inevitably. The OIC are used at the same time of witnesses and vectors of catholic influence near mediums like that of the communication or of poles of reflection on the problems of peace or the development. They will be able to take sometimes “political” positions more (against the Guerre of Vietnam, against the torture of the political prisoners to the Brésil…) whereas the Holy See east compels with more prudence.

`' the pope, how much divisions? '' Stalin would have answered the May 13rd 1935 the president of the French council Pierre Laval which required of him to make a gesture in direction of the Vatican.

This quotation shows all the difficulty of seizing the nature of the diplomatic power of the Holy See. If the Soviet Union collapsed without using its military capacities, the Vatican is to him always there… There the power of the Catholic church lies in the international relations: the Holy See has a moral and spiritual, and nongeopolitical power. Admittedly there exists a geographical aspect, which is the localization of the catholics throughout the world, with the policy of the Holy See, but more and more the international action of the Church wants to be of universal range.

A moral power and spiritual setting with the service of the catholics and values of the Church throughout the world

Paradoxically, the agreements of Lateran, while leaving him that a territorial fastener symbolic system, opened the Catholic church with the world problems, which are its fundamental vocation. It will be able to release itself from its temporal concerns, because it was diverted a long time of its truths problems which are them his, to defend a State (the Papal States) which is only one means. It can finally operate a resourcing necessary to the challenges which await it (modernity, etc) and fully exert an unbounded indirect power of geographical borders. It is around this indirect capacity, this “temporalism renovated”, likely to be exerted in all places and all fields, which contours of a Christian policy will specify.

The diplomacy of the Holy See has been present on the international scene for thousand six hundred years. Jean-Paul II fell under this continuity by amplifying this presence. Initially by its voyages, which are very numerous and gather huge crowd but also by the number of audiences granted to the Vatican with many Heads of State and political personalities. In addition, the increase in diplomatic representations results at the same time by the number of countries maintaining the relations with the Vatican and in that the Nonciature S (172 of the 189 Member States of UNO today against 85 out of 148 in 1978). If the establishment of relations with Israel in 1994 is the result of long negotiations, those with the China and the Vietnam remain to be standardized.

One could distinguish the action from the Church moved by the protection of the Christians, in particular catholic, and that intended to promote his values: justice, peace and human rights. Three faces of the same combat for the Holy See, which has only of one territory symbolic system and the smallest army of the world: the Swiss guards. The Verb is thus the privileged vector of its influence in the international relations.

Protection of the interests of the catholics and the Christians in general

One of the best examples of the defense of the catholic interests, which in fact merged with the fight against a power adhering to an atheistic ideology, is the Ostpolitik.

Deployed under the impulse of Jean XXIII then of Paul VI, this diplomacy realistic of the Holy See implied to tie contacts with a communist system which was apparently made to last. Become pope, Jean-Paul II did not upset this choice, but continued carried out spiritual resistance when he was archbishop of Cracow. The face-to-face discussion which opposes it during ten years to the communist capacity is rate/rhythm by its successive voyages in Poland, like as many catalysts of the crisis and of its evolution. In 1981, it receives cordially Lech Wałęsa in the Vatican. The resistance of the country, framed by the Church and supported by the Pope ruins for the first time a communist company of standardization. In 1989, that which is still with the head of the Soviet Union, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, is received in the Vatican, two years before the Soviet Union does not disappear. It is considered today that the policy followed by the Vatican undoubtedly accelerated the deliquescence (a attempted murder undoubtedly organized by the KGB wounded the Pope besides on May 13rd, 1981) of the Soviet mode in a substantial way.

Later, with the dislocation of the Yugoslavia, the historical line of fracture between orthodoxe and catholics who crosses the Balkans place the diplomacy vaticane in a difficult situation. In 1992, the Holy See recognizes the independence of the Croatia and Slovenia, the two States of catholic tradition of ex-Yugoslavia, illustrating once more the defense of the catholics organized by the Vatican.

The nuncios have a planetary vision thus, they do not protect a territory, a nation, military or strategic interests, but the freedom of the Church to exert its religious mission. But since more than one century, the action of the Church also wants to be in favor of peace, the development and the respect of the Human rights.

In the facts, two logics are often recovered. The agreement between the Holy See and Israel illustrates it: it was at the same time about the protection of the Christians, in particular of the pilgrims, as well as the free access to the places of pilgrimage, but also of the peace and the safety of the people torn by the war in general.

This promotion of the values of the Church took a dominating value in the diplomacy vaticane and must be evoked at greater length.

Promotion of the values of the Church: justice, peace and human rights

The diplomatic activity of the Holy See especially since the pontificate of Jean-Paul II, wants to defend of the right causes, independent of any nationality or religion. The Holy See less proposes to solve itself of the problems outstanding to help the community of the men to build a world righter and more fraternal. However the Church wants to propagate its message with the whole world. Admittedly initially with the faithful ones, but the Holy See maintains now the relations with all the governments which wish it, without reference to belief nor of ideology. The Church is also addressed over the governments and of the States. And it is impossible to control the speeches of the once this one invited pope (Cuba, etc).

The diplomacy of the Holy See was marked by the voyages of Jean-Paul II. Did these visits directly influence the course of the history in these States? It is difficult to generalize of the various situations. With the Filipino , where Jean-Paul II went in 1981, the passive resistance campaign carried out by the cardinal Jaime Sin against Marcos pushed with the exile the dictator in 1986. With Cuba, in 1998, the pope has clearly reaffirmed his opposition to the embargo imposed for thirty-five years by the the United States. That it is for Cuba, but also for the Iraq or the Serbia, the Vatican always criticized the retaliatory measures whose populations are the first victims and who do not have fast political effects.

One can in addition read the policy followed by Jean-Paul II compared to the human rights and vis-a-vis the conflicts, the pope denouncing the arms race or preaching the right of humane intervention. The dramas of the Africa (Rwanda, Sudan) were denounced with strength. As for the the Middle East, the pope tried to help with the research solution: he received on several occasions the Israeli and Palestinian political officials (Arafat, Peres), while the Holy See pled in connection with Jerusalem and of its holy places for a “internationally guaranteed special statute”.

The messages addressed by Jean-Paul II at the time of visits - platform of UNO, UNESCO or of the the European Parliament - had a real repercussion. As for the delegations of the Holy See to the International Conferences, they did not remain without effect, one noted it in particular at the time of the conferences on the population and the development with the Cairo in 1994 and with Beijing in 1995 on the women where its positions were exposed, in particular on the abortion. Concerned that the Man, including in his spiritual dimension, is always taken into account, the Church estimates that its voice must be heard where major options model forms of life social and of economic cooperation and cultural.

The Vatican also often plays the good officess to find Pacific regulations with the conflict situations, from a very Christian point of view of defense of peace in the world. There was thus intervention with the more high level of Jean XXIII in the Crise of the missiles of Cuba in 1962. In the same way, the Vatican managed to defuse the conflict between the Chile and the Argentine in connection with the Canal of Beagle in 1985.

Nearer to us, during the international crisis precedent the invasion of Iraq, the Vatican played a part which points out that played during the Crise of the missiles of Cuba, when it was made the mediator between the the Kremlin and the White House. The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tarek Aziz, met the pope Jean-Paul II in Rome and, a little later the special correspondent of the pope had a long interview with Saddam Hussein with Baghdad. The diplomacy of the Saint Seat was coordinated with the initiative of the France, of the Germany, the Russia and the China in the United Nations. The pope indeed was the first to be put at the current of the Franco-German proposal, at the time of his meeting with the German Minister for the Foreign affairs. On the unfavourable face, the American ambassador with the Vatican, Jim Nicholson, invited to Rome Michael Novak, a Théologien American néo-conservative, so that it shows that the doctrines of “preventive war” are coherent with the traditional doctrines of war right of the Church. And Novak was accepted in audience by the Secretary of State.

In a general way, the Holy See is in favor of a stable and permanent organization of the international reports/ratios, thanks to a network of institutions entitled to prevent and treat the conflicts. It uses for that this magistrature of influence which makes all its power. One of the objectives of the Holy See always was that there exists a community of the nations, from where its eagerness to defend the international law and the charter of UNO.

Of course, the face-to-face discussion with the States necessitates precarious and delicate balances. Where does the moral pressure stop and starts the interference in the interior matters of the State, when the local religious authorities, without being repudiated by the Holy See, claim a regime change by the democratic way in Korea, Haiti or with the Filipino ? Prudence obviously is of setting…

But it is well a total vision of the world that the Church proposes, that it gets busy to promote thanks to its exceptional spiritual and moral authority.

Some recent dates of the diplomacy

See too

Sources

  • File “the foreign politics of the Vatican”, Diplomacy , number July 4th, th and th - August 2003.

  • Paul Poupard, the Vatican , PUF, Collection “Which do I know? ”, Paris, 1994.

External bonds

  • Site of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on the Vatican

  • a blog on the pontifical diplomacy
  • a 25 years presentation of pontifical diplomacy by the Academy Stanislas
  • files on line of the chancery of State
  • Radio Vatican

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