Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II

OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN CHAPTER 38 C38 CATHOLI C I SM A ND INTERNATIONA L A FFA I RS SINCE VAT I C A N I I MATTHEW A. SHADLE 1. Introduction C38S1 C38P1 C38P2 Today, the Holy See1 has diplomatic relations with almost every United Nations member state and has representatives with numerous international organizations, most importantly the United Nations. The Vatican’s diplomats also communicate with local churches on behalf of the Holy See, listen to the concerns of local bishops, religious, and lay faithful, and convey those concerns to the Holy See. Vatican diplomacy therefore represents one important way the Church engages with the modern world. This chapter offers an overview of how the Vatican’s diplomacy in the years after the Second Vatican Council has reflected the council’s vision of the Church and its engagement with the world. The chapter begins with a brief history of papal diplomacy to provide historical context for the diplomacy of the Holy See in the period after the Second Vatican Council. It then examines key themes of the council and how they have influenced the Church’s diplomacy. The chapter then looks in detail at some of the diplomatic efforts of the Holy See in the years after the council on a range of issues. 1 The term ‘Holy See’ refers both to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction over which the pope exercises authority as the bishop of Rome and as the head of the universal church, and to the sovereign entity headed by the pope recognized by international law as a member of the community of nations. The term ‘Vatican City State’ refers to the territory established by the Lateran Treaty of 1929 and governed by the Holy See. Nevertheless, the Holy See is sometimes referred to as ‘the Vatican’, although this would be inappropriate for historical references prior to 1929. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 621 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:55 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 622 MATTHEW A. SHADLE 2. Historical Background C38S2 C38P3 C38P4 C38P5 From very early in the Catholic Church’s history, the bishops of Rome have sent representatives, or legates, to represent them at church councils and other important events. In those early years, papal legates represented the popes in matters that were primarily ecclesiastical and theological, but after the Edict of Milan in 313 and the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, it became increasingly impossible to disentangle the affairs of Church and State. Once the Roman emperors had appointed themselves the defenders of Christian orthodoxy, papal interventions into theological disputes often meant wading into political battles. In the centuries that followed the fall of the Western Empire, the Holy See increasingly sent legates to meet with political rulers to defend the interests of the Church.2 The pope himself sometimes served as an arbitrator of conflicts between rulers, for example making interventions in the Hundred Years War between France and England and negotiating the Treaty of Tordesillas, setting the boundary between Spanish and Portuguese zones of colonization, in 1494. The diplomatic corps of the Holy See became increasingly formalized during the Renaissance period. In the fifteenth century, independent Italian city-states such as Florence, Milan, and Venice began exchanging permanent diplomats with one another, in part to reduce the constant warfare among the city-states.3 Despite their unique ecclesiastical status, the Papal States (those territories under the direct temporal authority of the popes, beginning in the eighth century) engaged in foreign affairs much like the other city-states of Italy and participated in this emerging network of diplomacy. By the sixteenth century, the Papal States had established nunciatures staffed by papal nuncios in a number of Italian city-states; these soon extended to countries outside Italy.4 Into the seventeenth century, these papal nuncios kept the popes abreast of developments abroad and defended the interests of the Church, including making arrangements for the appointment of bishops. The Peace of Westphalia—the peace treaties marking the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648—marked the beginning of a period of decline in papal diplomacy. The signatories agreed to the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, first proposed at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. According to this principle, the ruler of a state determines the religion to be recognized by the state and practised by the people. The Peace of Westphalia also enshrined the principle of sovereignty, meaning that one state could not interfere with the lands or people of another. Because the Peace of Westphalia gave Protestant rulers de jure authority over the Church in their realms, they had little reason to accept diplomatic representatives from the Holy See. Even in Catholic lands, the role of papal 2 Hyginus Eugene Cardinale, The Holy See and the International Order (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1976), 63–66. 3 Isabella Lazzarini, Communication & Conflict: Italian Diplomacy in the Early Renaissance, 1350–1520 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 4 Cardinale, The Holy See and the International Order, 68–70. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 622 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:55 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II C38P6 C38P7 C38S3 C38P8 623 diplomats was restricted; by insisting on their sovereignty over affairs within their states, Catholic rulers exercised increasing control over church matters. The Holy See was seen not simply as a spiritual authority, but also as a political entity that could not be permitted to intervene in the sovereign affairs of other states, even Catholic ones. Papal diplomacy experienced a revival after the fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the decades that followed, the number of nations with diplomatic relations with the Holy See rapidly increased. The Holy See also agreed to a number of concordats, or agreements concerning the rights and privileges of the Church, during this period, not only with the Catholic nations of Europe, but also with many of the newly independent nations of Latin America. Why this change in fortunes? As the Holy See’s power as a sovereign state diminished, the spiritual authority of the pope was on the rise. The Catholic faithful rallied behind the pope after both Pius VI and Pius VII were imprisoned by Napoleon (in 1796 and 1809 respectively). Ecclesiastical power was increasingly centralized in the office of the papacy, a process symbolized by the definition of papal infallibility by the (First) Vatican Council in 1870. Catholic states no longer saw diplomatic relations with the Holy See as a threat to sovereignty, but rather as a source of legitimacy. Even Protestant nations saw benefit in engaging in diplomatic relations with the Holy See; Prussia opened such relations in 1805, and Great Britain in 1914. Because of the spiritual cachet it had developed, the Holy See was able to continue its diplomatic activities even after the loss of the Papal States to unified Italy in 1870. The creation of the Vatican City State through the 1929 Lateran Treaty, signed with the Fascist regime in Italy, was a significant, although morally ambiguous, diplomatic achievement. During this period, the Holy See’s diplomatic corps carried a great deal of prestige in the Church, and membership in the diplomatic corps was an important path to ecclesiastical advancement; several popes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, until the time of John XXIII, who was elected in 1958, had previously been papal diplomats. Also, during this period, the notion of the pope as an arbitrator of conflicts was revived through the popes’ advocacy for peace during the world wars. Pope Benedict XV ceaselessly called for peace during the First World War, while Pope Pius XII promoted peace efforts during the Second World War. 3. Vatican II: The Church in the Modern World Nearly four years after the closing of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI issued the motu proprio Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum (SOE) clarifying the role of papal representatives throughout the world in light of the teachings of the council. In the document, he identified four tasks central to the mission of papal representatives: nurturing the bond between the Holy See and the local churches; promoting the material, moral, and spiritual development of both particular countries 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 623 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:55 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 624 C38P9 AQ: English title as in the Abbreviations for consistency throughout the Handbook. C38P10 MATTHEW A. SHADLE and the human family; protecting the mission of the Church by ensuring respect for the Church’s rights; and promoting positive relations with other Christian communities and non-Christian religions (SOE IV). These representatives have various titles. If a country does not have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, then the papal representative is called an apostolic delegate and represents the Holy See to the local Church; if a country does have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, then the papal representative is referred to as an apostolic nuncio and is responsible for representing the Holy See in diplomatic relations with the state, in addition to representing the Holy See to the local Church (SOE I). Paul’s vision for the diplomacy of the Holy See has much in common with the way papal diplomacy was carried out in centuries past, but also draws on key themes from Vatican II: the collegial nature of the episcopate, the reconfiguring of the Church’s understanding of its relationship to the world, the recognition of the right to religious freedom, and the call to Christian ecumenism and dialogue with nonChristian religions. The Second Vatican Council brought to the fore the theological truth that the Church, although one, is a communion of particular churches.5 The council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (LG), explains that each particular church—that is, the church in a specific geographical and cultural region—possesses its own traditions and customs, but each exists in communion with the others as parts of a single whole (LG 13). This communion is reflected in the structure of the Church’s hierarchy. The episcopacy is collegiate in character, meaning that the bishops of the Church exercise authority together as a communal body. Lumen Gentium makes clear, however, that the bishops exercise this authority only when they act in union with the pope, who has ‘full, supreme and universal power over the Church’ (LG 22). The council’s Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church, Christus Dominus (CD), further spells out some of the implications of episcopal collegiality. One of the recommendations made in Christus Dominus for strengthening the collegial relationship between the bishops and the papacy is the reformulation of the role of papal representatives in the appointing of new bishops to particular churches and in fostering communication between the papacy and the local churches (CD 9). Pope Paul VI appeals specifically to this recommendation of the council in Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum. He lists the reform of the Vatican diplomatic corps as one of three initiatives he has undertaken to strengthen the collegial nature of the episcopacy, the other two being the creation in September 1965 of the Synod of Bishops, a regular gathering of representatives of the world’s bishops to advise the pope on matters of concern to the Church, and the diversification of the Roman Curia to include officials from throughout the world. He envisions the papal representatives as facilitating not only ‘movement toward the center and heart of the church’, but another 5 For a brief overview of the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, including episcopal collegiality, see Richard R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the Magisterium in the Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997), 3–30. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 624 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:55 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II 625 movement as well, that of the ‘treasure of truth and grace’ from the ‘center’ to the ‘periphery’, to ‘each and every local church’ (SOE, Introduction). In other words, in the post-conciliar period, the Vatican diplomatic corps continues to carry out the traditional tasks of assisting in the appointment of bishops and serving as a conduit between the pope and local bishops, but now does so guided by the ecclesiology of the council. C38P11 A second conciliar theme that had a significant impact on Vatican diplomacy in the years after the council is the latter’s treatment of the Church’s role in promoting human rights, democracy, and social development. The Second Vatican Council, and in particular its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (GS), had a profound influence on the Church’s social teaching. For one, Gaudium et Spes introduces a new emphasis on the dignity of the person as central to the Church’s social teaching: ‘Insofar as humanity by its very nature stands completely in need of life in society, [the human person] is and ought to be the beginning, the subject and the goal of every social organization’ (GS 25). The Church has increasingly defined the well-being of the person in terms of human rights—what Drew Christiansen, SJ, calls a ‘Copernican revolution’ in the Church’s social teaching.6 Gaudium et Spes also emphasizes the importance of the participation of persons in social, economic, and political life as befitting human dignity (GS 31). This leads the council to a tentative endorsement of democracy (GS 75) that would be strengthened in later church teaching. Finally, Gaudium et Spes introduces development, both of the individual person and of society as a whole, as a key theme of the Church’s social teaching, a theme that would only grow in importance in subsequent documents. Inspired by these teachings of the council, Vatican diplomacy in the years that followed would focus on the promotion of human rights, democracy, and social development throughout the world in a way that had not been true in previous centuries. C38P12 If Catholic social teaching increasingly defined the common good in terms of the promotion of human rights, then the council’s defence of the right to religious freedom in Dignitatis Humanae (DH) proved especially significant and especially controversial.7 Dignitatis Humanae had an immediate and radical effect on Vatican diplomacy. Prior to the council, the diplomatic aim of ensuring the rights of the Church entailed making sure that the Church could carry out functions such as performing the sacraments, proclaiming the Gospel, and appointing bishops. In Catholic societies, however, it also entailed advocating for a privileged place for the Church in the laws of society, financial support for the clergy and Catholic schools, and, in some cases, restrictions on the public presence of non-Catholic religious groups. Although Dignitatis Humanae insists 6 Drew Christiansen, SJ, ‘Commentary on Pacem in terris (Peace on Earth)’, in Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries & Interpretations, ed. Kenneth R. Himes, OFM, et al. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), 225. 7 See David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy, Jr., Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), for a thorough commentary on Dignitatis Humanae. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 625 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:55 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 626 C38P13 C38P14 MATTHEW A. SHADLE that governments recognize the freedom of the Church to carry out its mission (DH 13), it also teaches that ‘civil authority must therefore undertake effectively to safeguard the religious freedom of all citizens by just legislation and other appropriate means’ (DH 6). Indeed, religious freedom, the freedom to pursue the truth without external coercion, ‘is based on the very dignity of the human person as known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself ’ (DH 2). Therefore, in its diplomacy, the Church no longer seeks a privileged legal status by which to influence society ‘from above’; rather, the Church seeks to foster a society in which all people are permitted to seek the truth in freedom, and the Church can serve as a leaven in society ‘from below’. As Pope John Paul II explained in his address to the Vatican diplomatic corps in 1979, the Church renounces the ‘rich means’ of contributing to the common good available to political and economic powers in favour of the ‘poor means’ of the Gospel, which are appropriate to the Church’s spiritual mission.8 A final theme from the council’s teaching that was to have an impact on Vatican diplomacy is dialogue with fellow Christians and members of non-Christian religions. In the Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (UR), the council embraced ecumenical dialogue and cooperation as a means towards restoring the unity of the Church. Although affirming, as Lumen Gentium puts it, that the Church of Christ ‘subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him’ (LG 8), nevertheless ‘some, even very many, of the most significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church’ (UR 3), a reality that can serve as a foundation for the quest for unity. This quest must be carried out through dialogue and cooperation. Likewise, in its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate (NA), the council affirms that the world’s religions ‘often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all people’ (NA 2). The document again calls for dialogue between Christians and practitioners of these other religions to promote mutual understanding and social cooperation. Although neither Unitatis Redintegratio nor Nostra Aetate refers specifically to foreign affairs, their emphasis on dialogue and collaboration has obvious implications for the Holy See’s diplomacy. The Church must cooperate with practitioners of other religions in pursuit of its diplomatic goals such as peace and social development. The promotion of peace must often involve distinct forms of ecumenical or interreligious dialogue, such as confessing past wrongdoing and seeking to overcome misunderstandings. As Pope Paul VI foresaw in Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum, the council’s teachings on ecumenism and interreligious dialogue would enrich the Vatican’s diplomacy in the years to come. 8 Pope John Paul II, ‘Address to the Diplomatic Corps (1979)’, in Papal Diplomacy: John Paul II and the Culture of Peace, ed. Bernard J. O’Connor (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s, 2005), 9. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 626 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II C38S4 627 4. Vatican Diplomacy in the Cold War and Beyond As the world’s bishops gathered for the Second Vatican Council, they did so in the midst of the Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps the closest the world came to the brink of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, unfolded days after the opening of the council in October 1962. The bishops themselves were mindful of the tense political conditions of the day. Several bishops from the Eastern Bloc nations had to gain special permission from their governments to attend the council. In Dignitatis Humanae, the bishops lamented that there were still nations where the Church could not carry out its mission in freedom (DH 15), a clear reference to the conditions faced by the Church in the Eastern Bloc nations and China. After contemplating new forms of weapons whose use would lead to ‘an almost total and altogether reciprocal slaughter of each side by the other’, along with ‘widespread devastation’ and ‘deadly after-effects’, Gaudium et Spes calls for ‘a completely fresh appraisal of war’ (GS 80). These considerations would continue to shape the Vatican’s diplomacy throughout the Cold War. C38P16 Soon after he opened the council, Pope John XXIII played an important role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis. In doing so, he took on the traditional papal role of arbitrator of conflicts and promoter of peace, as Benedict XV and Pius XII had done before him during the two world wars. On 14 October 1962, American reconnaissance planes discovered that Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles had been installed on Cuba, which was governed by the Soviet ally Fidel Castro. The administration of US President John F. Kennedy began planning for a military invasion of Cuba but feared that such action would lead to a Soviet attack on Berlin, Germany. On 22 October, Kennedy addressed the people of the US and announced that he was imposing a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent the further shipment of materials by the Soviets to Cuba. C38P17 The following day, Kennedy secretly sent the journalist Norman Cousins as an intermediary to Pope John XXIII, seeking an opening for dialogue. Kennedy took a political risk in doing so, not only because he could potentially look weak when the US was attempting to project strength in the face of the Soviet provocation, but also because during the presidential campaign of 1960 he had tried to assure the American people that, despite being the first Catholic president of the US, he would not be influenced by the pope in his decision-making.9 On 24 October, Pope John sent a message urging peace to the Soviet embassy in Rome, which was sent to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev; then, on 25 October, Pope John gave a speech over the Vatican radio urging peace. The US still stood ready to invade Cuba, while Castro urged Khrushchev to carry out a C38P15 9 For an exhaustive look at the role of John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism in the 1960 presidential campaign, see Thomas J. Carty, A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Campaign (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 627 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 628 C38P18 C38P19 C38P20 MATTHEW A. SHADLE nuclear first strike against the US. Nevertheless, the two sides began engaging in secret negotiations that ended in a deal in which the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba in exchange for the US removing its own missiles from Turkey, bordering the Soviet Union. Although Pope John played no role in arbitrating the dispute, his interventions helped create the space for the dialogue that resolved it. As Norman Cousins recounts in his narrative of the episode, Pope John’s diplomatic initiative also created new lines of communication between the Vatican and the two superpowers.10 Despite the pacific outcome to the Cuban Missile Crisis, its potentially catastrophic consequences pushed Pope John to write his encyclical Pacem in Terris (PT), which was published on 11 April 1963, just two months before his death. In the encyclical, Pope John rejected the notion that peace between the superpowers could be maintained through a balance of armaments (PT 109–11). He called for an end to the arms race and the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, and he urged the two superpowers to agree to mutual disarmament (PT 112–13). Later that year, after Pope John’s death, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited above-ground testing of nuclear weapons and was the first significant international restriction on the arms race. Subsequent popes have shared Pope John’s support for disarmament. For example, in a message sent to the United Nations General Assembly in 1982, Pope John Paul II wrote: ‘The teaching of the Catholic Church in this area has been clear and consistent. It has deplored the arms race, [and] called nonetheless for mutual progressive and verifiable reduction of armaments as well as greater safeguards against possible misuse of these weapons’ (“Message to the General Assembly of the United Nations”, 5). The Holy See therefore supported the efforts of the US and Soviet Union to limit the arms race, such as the two Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I and II), signed in 1972 and 1979 respectively, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), signed in 1991. The Holy See has also supported the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which prohibits the spread of nuclear weapons technology to those countries that do not already possess it. The popes have also criticized the harm done by the trade in conventional weapons. For example, in his 1982 message to the UN General Assembly, Pope John Paul II noted that ‘[t]he production and sale of conventional weapons throughout the world is a truly alarming and evidently growing phenomenon’, and he warned of the injustices posed by weapons produced in the developed world being sold to the nations of the developing world, fostering conflict (“Message to the General Assembly of the United Nations”, 9). He returned to this theme in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (SRS), noting the irony that it is the arms trade, rather than efforts at development and peace, that ‘overcome[s] the division between East and West, and above all the one between North and South’ (SRS 24). More recently, Pope Francis has put a particular emphasis 10 Norman Cousins, The Improbable Triumvirate: John F. Kennedy, Pope John, Nikita Khrushchev (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972). 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 628 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II 629 on excoriating the global arms trade. In his 2015 address to the US Congress, he asked, ‘Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood.’ The Holy See has also contributed to efforts to prohibit the use of conventional weapons that are particularly harmful to civilians. For example, during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations made several interventions in support of the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.11 C38P21 When Pope John XXIII engaged in back-channel diplomacy with both Kennedy and Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he did so in part because the Holy See lacked full diplomatic relations with both the US and the Soviet Union. The Holy See sent its first apostolic delegate to the US in 1893. The US government sent a series of envoys to Rome from 1848 to 1867, but there was no diplomatic representative of the US to the Holy See until President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Myron C. Taylor as his ‘personal representative’ to the Vatican in 1939. Taylor served as a diplomatic liaison between the US and the Vatican during the Second World War and continued in his post until he retired in 1950. President Harry S. Truman sought to appoint a full ambassador to replace him, but he withdrew the idea when faced with Protestant opposition. Despite their shared interests during the Cold War, the US lacked diplomatic representation in the Vatican until the appointment of Henry Cabot Lodge as a personal representative by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969.12 C38P22 The Holy See also lacked formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, the nations of the Eastern Bloc, and other communist nations such as China during the Cold War. Diplomatic relations were often carried out through back channels, through personal meetings between the popes and representatives of the communist governments, and through the local bishops. The lack of formal diplomatic relations, together with the hostility of the communist governments towards religion, hindered the Holy See in one of its most important diplomatic aims: the appointment of bishops and the assurance of the Church’s freedom to carry out its ministry. C38P23 During the early years of the Cold War, communist governments throughout Eastern Europe sought to suffocate the Catholic Church. In the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was dissolved into the Russian Orthodox Church, with many of its priests and bishops imprisoned or sent into exile, including Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, who was sent into exile in Siberia. In Lithuania and Latvia, many of the clergy were arrested.13 Throughout Eastern Europe, communist governments confiscated church property, 11 Silvano M. Tomasi, The Vatican in the Family of Nations: Diplomatic Actions of the Holy See at the UN and Other International Organizations in Geneva (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 511–30. 12 Cardinale, The Holy See and the International Order, 198–203. 13 Peter C. Kent, The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of Europe, 1943–1950 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 98–100. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 629 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 630 C38P24 AQ: NB roman now in OED C38P25 MATTHEW A. SHADLE dissolved religious orders of men and women, and persecuted the clergy. Communist officials also demanded oversight over the appointment of bishops, or in some cases prohibited the appointment of new bishops altogether. In Hungary, Cardinal József Mindszenty was arrested for treason and conspiracy against the government and given a life sentence. In Czechoslovakia, the government created a State Office of Church Affairs to manage church properties and required an oath of loyalty from the clergy. Clergy in Hungary were required to swear a similar oath. In 1949, the Vatican’s Holy Office, supported by Pope Pius XII, issued a decree prohibiting Catholics from collaborating with communists, which complicated the local churches of Eastern Europe’s efforts to negotiate breathing space in the midst of this persecution.14 Under Pope John XXIII and especially Paul VI, the Vatican took a more conciliatory approach towards the communist governments of Eastern Europe. This so-called Vatican Ostpolitik was in part motivated by Pope John’s diplomatic experience—and of the Cuban Missile Crisis in particular, which convinced him that direct confrontation with communism could lead to worldwide disaster. The Vatican’s Ostpolitik was also facilitated by the Church’s new openness to dialogue with the Orthodox Church, including the Russian Orthodox Church, beginning under Pope John. Under Pope Paul VI, the Vatican signed a concordat in 1964. Pope Paul and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras lifted the mutual excommunications on 7 December 1965, the last day of Vatican II, after meeting in person in Jerusalem in 1964. Pope Paul also sent and received letters and delegations from the Moscow Patriarchate. Although lacking formal diplomatic relations, Vatican diplomats also met with government officials from the Eastern Bloc nations, and Pope Paul VI held meetings with several heads of state and other highranking ministers to discuss the situation of the Church. Local bishops also carried out negotiations with their governments. As a result, Cardinal Slipyj was allowed to go into exile in Rome in 1963, and Cardinal Mindszenty (who had been freed from prison in 1956 and allowed to live confined in the US Embassy in Budapest) was exiled to Vienna in 1971. Through negotiation, the Vatican was able to gain greater freedom over the appointment of bishops and limited autonomy for church associations and schools. The Vatican and local bishops were more muted in their criticisms of the communist governments and their human rights abuses, however.15 Pope John Paul II took a more activist approach in his engagement with the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. As a native of Poland with experience dealing with a communist government as archbishop of Krakow, Pope John Paul had a perspective that was quite different from that of his Italian predecessors. Although continuing their careful diplomatic efforts to ensure the Church’s institutional autonomy, Pope John Paul also encouraged dissidents and resistance movements throughout the Eastern Bloc. Most significantly, he was a key inspiration for the Solidarity movement in Poland. Despite the reservations of the Polish government and its Soviet allies, Pope John Paul 14 Ibid., 256. George Weigel, The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 74–76, 85–88. 15 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 630 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II 631 was allowed to visit Poland in 1979, where he encouraged millions of Poles to stand firm in their faith and to live lives of integrity. In 1980, a strike at the shipyards in the city of Gdańsk led to the creation of the Solidarity trade union, which became a rallying point for resistance against the government in the years that followed, and which gained the pope’s support. Pope John Paul made further visits to Poland in 1983 and 1987 but was unable to visit any other countries of Eastern Europe before the fall of communism in 1989; nevertheless, the Vatican provided support to resistance movements there, offering encouragement and speaking on the global stage on behalf of human rights in the communist nations. C38P26 The Vatican’s advocacy for human rights and democracy during the Cold War, particularly under Pope John Paul, was not limited to the Eastern Bloc. On a 1983 journey to Central America, for example, he challenged the communist Sandinista government and urged peace in the ongoing civil war with the US-backed Contras; he famously scolded the priest Ernesto Cardenal, the minister of culture in the Sandinista government, for betraying his priesthood through his political involvement.16 Pope John Paul was not an uncritical partner in a ‘Holy Alliance’ with the United States during the last years of the Cold War, however.17 On that same trip to Central America, he spoke on behalf of peace and human rights in El Salvador, where the US-backed military and shadowy death squads battled Marxist rebels; he also prayed at the tomb of Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador. He likewise was critical of authoritarian governments in Guatemala and Haiti. On a 1987 trip to Chile, he urged a transition to democracy and the end of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.18 Pope John Paul also offered his encouragement to the bishops of the Philippines in their support of the People Power movement which led to the overthrow of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, an American ally, in 1984.19 C38P27 Vatican relations with China, even after the end of the Cold War, have had more in common with the Ostpolitik of Pope Paul VI than with the Church’s advocacy for human rights and democracy elsewhere in the world. After taking power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party headed by Mao Zedong violently persecuted all religious groups, including the Catholic Church, a small minority religion in China. In 1957, the government established the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), a governmental organization meant to ensure the loyalty of the clergy and to diminish the influence of the Vatican in Chinese affairs, akin to similar church associations established in Eastern Europe. Pope Pius XII declared in 1958 that any bishop who participated in the consecration of new bishops appointed by the CPA would be excommunicated. This led to the emergence of an illegal ‘underground church’ with its own bishops loyal to the Vatican, 16 George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999), 451–57. 17 Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness: Pope John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time. (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 11. 18 Ibid., 461–65. 19 Weigel, Witness to Hope, 507–11. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 631 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 632 MATTHEW A. SHADLE smaller in size than the CPA. The first steps towards resolving this irregular situation were taken during the 1990s, when it was agreed that newly ordained bishops in the CPA would require Vatican approval.20 During the papacy of Benedict XVI, however, Chinese authorities appointed a handful of bishops without Vatican approval. Benedict, however, encouraged members of the underground Church to accept communion with bishops of the CPA who were in communion with the pope.21 In 2018, Pope Francis and his secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, negotiated a deal that restored a process in which both the Vatican and Chinese authorities approve the appointment of new bishops while also lifting the excommunication of eight bishops appointed without Vatican approval.22 Because of the relatively small size of the Catholic population in China and the divisions within the Chinese Catholic community, the Vatican has been less vocal in promoting human rights and democracy in China than elsewhere. 5. Vatican Diplomacy in a Globalizing World C38S5 C38P28 C38P29 A few years after the Second Vatican Council, the German theologian Karl Rahner, SJ claimed that at the council, the Catholic Church had truly become a world Church.23 For the first time, bishops from all continents came together and addressed issues of a global scope. This global perspective is reflected in the Vatican’s diplomacy in the years after the council. Not only has the Vatican engaged in diplomatic relations with nations around the world, but it has also addressed issues of global impact such as war and peace, social development, and environmental sustainability. The Vatican has also engaged in diplomatic efforts on that most global of stages, the United Nations. Pope Paul VI sent the first permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York in 1964, and to offices in Geneva in 1967. The Holy See also has diplomatic representation at UN agencies such as the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, and the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The establishment of official relations between the Holy See and the UN built on earlier support for the international organization on the part of the papacy. In the years after the Second World 20 Laura M. Luehrmann, ‘The Red Flag and the Ring: The Dances Surrounding Sino-Vatican Ties’, Asian Politics and Policy (2009): 489–97. 21 Lan T. Chu, ‘Vatican Diplomacy in China and Vietnam’, in Religion and Public Diplomacy, ed. Philip Seib (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 60–65. 22 Jason Horowitz and Ian Johnson, ‘Vatican Makes Historic Deal with Chinese’, New York Times (22 September 2018): A1. 23 Karl Rahner, SJ, ‘Basic Theological Interpretation of the Second Vatican Council’, in Theological Investigations, vol. 20, Concern for the Church, trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 77–89. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 632 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II 633 War, Pope Pius XII lent his encouragement to the nascent organization, although by the 1950s he was concerned at how the UN’s objectives were being undermined by the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. Pope John XXIII gave his wholehearted support to the UN and other international institutions in his encyclical Pacem in Terris (PT 142–45). The year after establishing a diplomatic relationship with the UN, Pope Paul addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, a practice repeated by all of his successors, excepting Pope John Paul I, whose pontificate lasted a mere thirty-three days.24 C38P30 The Preamble to the United Nations Charter lists as the first purpose of the UN ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’; the Holy See has supported the UN in this mission over the decades.25 For example, in Pacem in Terris, Pope John writes, ‘The United Nations Organization has the special aim of maintaining and strengthening peace between nations, and of encouraging and assisting friendly relations between them’ (PT 142). In his 2008 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Pope Benedict endorsed the principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’, the notion that the international community has the responsibility to ensure peace and protect people’s basic human rights in situations when a sovereign state is unable or unwilling to do so. In situations of violence, this can include the use of soldiers as peacekeepers under the authority of the United Nations Security Council. Beginning in the 1990s, the United Nations increasingly engaged in peacekeeping missions in conflict zones such as Somalia, Bosnia, and Lebanon, and here Benedict gives his support to this development. As Pope Benedict notes in his address, however, it is better to seek peace through diplomacy before conflict breaks out. C38P31 The Holy See has itself sought to be a voice for peace, and this is particularly evident in its diplomatic efforts concerning conflict in the Middle East. For example, in early 1991, when an international coalition led by the United States was preparing military action against Iraq after the latter had invaded Kuwait the previous August, Pope John Paul II called for peace and a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.26 In this instance, he rejected the resort to war even when it was authorized by the UN Security Council and supported by a large part of the international community. Throughout the 1990s, the Holy See objected to the sanctions imposed on Iraq in the aftermath of war, claiming they unduly limited the Iraqi people’s access to food and medical supplies and sowed the seeds of further conflict. Pope John Paul likewise opposed the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, in which the United States and a handful of allies invaded Iraq and overthrew its authoritarian leader, Saddam Hussein, after the breakdown of UN weapons inspections. In this case, John Paul believed that the inspections and UN efforts to find a diplomatic solution had not been given adequate time, and he correctly predicted that the invasion would lead to further violence. More recently, both Benedict XVI and Francis have called for peace in the civil war between the Syrian 24 25 26 Cardinale, The Holy See and the International Order, 229–34. ‘United Nations Charter (1945)’, United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations. Weigel, Witness to Hope, 619–24. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 633 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 634 C38P32 C38P33 MATTHEW A. SHADLE government of Bashar al-Assad and various rebel groups. Near the end of his papacy, on a visit to Lebanon, Pope Benedict called for the parties to the conflict to come to the negotiating table. Pope Francis has repeatedly called for peace in Syria: for example, in his 2018 Urbi et Orbi Easter message, which calls for a swift end to the ‘carnage’ in ‘the beloved and long-suffering land of Syria, whose people are worn down by an apparently endless war’. The conflict in the Holy Land has been a particular preoccupation of the Holy See over the decades. The Vatican’s interventions into the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians have focused on a number of intertwined issues: the status of the Holy Places, that is, the religious sites in and around Jerusalem and Bethlehem connected to the life of Jesus; the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; and diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Prior to the independence of Israel, the Holy See was opposed to the Zionist project of establishing a Jewish homeland; primarily concerned with custody of the Holy Places, it unsuccessfully pushed for a Catholic power such as France or Italy to govern the Palestine Mandate after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.27 After Israel declared its independence in 1948, Pope Pius XII initially sought the internationalization of Jerusalem; more recently, the Vatican has called for Jerusalem to have an internationally recognized special status, given its religious significance for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Since the independence of Israel, and particularly since the Six-Day War of 1967, the Holy See has advocated for the rights of Palestinian refugees while also seeking a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Pope Pius XII established the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, a charitable organization to provide aid to refugees in the Holy Land, and he called attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees in his 1952 Apostolic Exhortation Exsul Familia. After the Six-Day War, Pope Paul VI increasingly called attention to the plight of the Palestinians, a significant number of whom were Christian, living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and those continuing to live as refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The role of the Holy See was limited, however, because it lacked diplomatic relations with Israel.28 Pope John Paul II therefore sought diplomatic relations with Israel and the Palestinians both to promote peace and to pursue the Church’s interests in the Holy Land. In 1993, the Holy See and Israel signed a Fundamental Agreement establishing full diplomatic relations between the two states.29 The agreement also enabled the Holy See to play a greater role in the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian 27 Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 28 See George Emil Irani, The Papacy and the Middle East: The Role of the Holy See in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1962–1984 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986); and Andrej Kreutz, Vatican Policy on the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict: The Struggle for the Holy Land (New York: Greenwood, 1990). 29 David-Maria A. Jaeger, OFM, ‘The Fundamental Agreement Between the Holy See and the State of Israel: A New Legal Regime of Church–State Relations’, in The Vatican–Israel Accords: Political, Legal, and Theological Contexts, ed. Marshall J. Breger (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), 51–66. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 634 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II 635 Liberation Organization (and later the Palestinian Authority), which had begun in 1991. The Holy See likewise signed an agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 2000 and, in 2013, during Benedict XVI’s papacy, recognized the Palestinian state. C38P34 The Holy See’s diplomacy in the Middle East has attempted to balance the interests of the Church and Christians in the region and the Church’s universal message of peace and human rights. In addition to its interest in maintaining access to the Holy Places, the Holy See has demonstrated solicitude for the Christian minorities in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Egypt and under both Palestinian and Israeli state authorities. At times, this has meant maintaining relatively friendly relations with authoritarian regimes that offered a benign tolerance of Christians. The Church’s advocacy for democracy has been muted in the Middle East, much as it is in China. Vatican diplomacy in the Middle East has also drawn on the interreligious dialogue made possible by the Second Vatican Council. For example, the negotiations leading to the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and Israel likely would not have been possible without the revolution in Catholic–Jewish relations begun with Nostra Aetate. Likewise, Nostra Aetate urges Christians and Muslims to ‘work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom’ (NA 3). Through its diplomacy in the Middle East and in other international venues, the Church has attempted to live out this mandate. C38P35 Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has given particular attention to the needs of people in the global South in its social teaching and in the Holy See’s diplomacy. The diplomatic aims of the Holy See have often been aligned with those of the nations of the global South. For example, Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (109) and Pope Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (51–53) both lament how the resources that could be used to promote development in the poorer regions of the world are instead being poured into the armed race, a concern raised by the Non-Aligned Movement, made up of nations of the global South, at the height of the Cold War.30 C38P36 Perhaps most importantly, the Catholic Church has promoted development in the nations of the global South and the reform of the global economy to better serve the poor. Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio (PP) was a revolutionary document, putting forward the Church’s vision of the ‘truly human conditions’ (PP 21) that ought to be the aim of development programs, integrating the human person’s material, social, and spiritual needs. Populorum Progressio also calls for reforms of the global economy in terms of trade and international aid.31 More recently, Pope Benedict 30 Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007), 41–44. 31 See Matthew A. Shadle, Interrupting Capitalism: Catholic Social Thought and the Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 99–106, for further discussion of the relationship between Pope Paul VI’s teachings and development economics. 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 635 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN 636 C38P37 MATTHEW A. SHADLE XVI called for international institutions with ‘real teeth’ to manage the global economy and promote development.32 Also during Benedict’s papacy, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace proposed reforms of the international financial and monetary systems. The Holy See has made interventions supporting these principles at the UN and other international organizations.33 In more recent years, the Holy See has supported sustainability as an important element of integral human development. The concept of sustainability is meant to capture how efforts to meet human needs cannot be separated from the responsibility to preserve the natural environment. The Holy See has wholeheartedly supported the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015, which focus on eliminating poverty, protecting the natural environment, and mitigating the effects of global climate change.34 This focus on sustainable development builds on the Church’s teaching on responsibility for the environment, the most thorough exposition of which is found in Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ (LS). There he introduces the idea of ‘integral ecology’ (LS 137–62), which, like the concept of ‘sustainability’, links human development with care for God’s creation. Pope Francis’s encyclical builds on earlier teachings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI and is clearly rooted in the theology of creation and human activity found in Gaudium et Spes. 6. Conclusion C38S6 C38P38 The Holy See’s diplomacy since the Second Vatican Council has been wide ranging, addressing the arms race, the promotion of human rights, peace in the Middle East, and sustainable development, among a host of other issues. What unifies these diplomatic efforts is their foundation in the Church’s identity and mission, which found renewed expression at the Second Vatican Council. In particular, the council brought to the fore the Church’s nature as a communion of local churches, revived the Church’s understanding of its relationship to the world, recognized the right to religious freedom as reflection of the dignity of the human person, and began a new age of Christian ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions. Each of these themes has shaped the pastoral activity of the popes from John XXIII to Francis, and each is reflected in the diplomatic efforts made by these popes and the diplomatic corps of the Holy See. 32 Ibid., 247–56. Silvano M. Tomasi, The Vatican in the Family of Nations, 244–459. 34 Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, ‘Intervention by the Holy See at the United Nations Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2015)’, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/secret ariat_st ate/2015/docume nts/rc-seg-st-2015092 6_ ga llag her-new york _ en.html. 33 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 636 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Wed Sep 28 2022, NEWGEN Catholicism and International Affairs Since Vatican II C38P39 637 Suggested Reading C38P40 Hanson, Eric O. The Catholic Church in World Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. O’Connor, Bernard J., ed. Papal Diplomacy: John Paul II and the Culture of Peace. South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press, 2005. C38P42 Seib, Philip, ed. Religion and Public Diplomacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. C38P43 Stummvoll, A. Alexander. A Living Tradition: Catholic Social Doctrine and Holy See Diplomacy. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018. C38P44 Tomasi, Silvano M. The Vatican in the Family of Nations: Diplomatic Actions of the Holy See at the UN and Other International Organizations in Geneva. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. C38P41 02-Clifford040522_OHB_ATUK.indd 637 /12_first_proofs/first_proofs/xml_for_typesetting 28-Sep-22 22:19:56