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The term Vatican, like the word Washington, has multiple meanings. Geographically, it is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, located west of the Tiber River. Politically, it is an independent state within the city of Rome. Ecclesiologically, it is the bureaucracy that serves the pope in governing the Catholic Church.
With the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, the people of Italy turned to the Church for leadership when Constantinople was unable to defend them against the barbarian invasions. Even before the Papal States formally existed, popes were raising armies, maintaining public order, and providing government services. By 590, Gregory the Great was the de facto ruler of Italy. With Lombards attacking from the north and a weak and unsympathetic imperial government in the south, Pope Zacharias backed Pepin as king of the Franks. In exchange, Pepin defended Rome and presented the pope with the Papal States in 773. His son, Charlemagne, was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo III in 800, establishing the Church as a major source of political legitimacy in Europe.
For the next 1,100 years, through diplomacy and war, the popes fought to preserve or expand the Papal States, which they saw as the only way to maintain the political and financial independence of the Church in a precapitalistic agrarian society. The power and wealth of the Papal States, however, corrupted the papacy as much as it protected it. The loss of the Papal States in 1870 proved to be an unanticipated blessing for the Church because it freed the papacy to pursue its spiritual goals without having to worry about governing 16,000 square miles of Italy. The normalization of relations between the Vatican and Italy in 1929 left the pope with 108.7 acres.
Under international law, the Vatican is a sovereign state headed by the pope, who has supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority. It has its own army (Swiss Guard), flag, passports, stamps, post office, Internet domain extension (.va, as in vatican.va.), and the right to mint a limited number of coins. Criminals are normally turned over to Italy for prosecution and punishment. Citizenship is given on a temporary basis to about 500 people working for the Vatican, about half of whom are members of the Vatican diplomatic service. Another 100 are members of the Swiss Guard. The governance of Vatican City is delegated to the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican State (five cardinals), which is headed by a cardinal president appointed by the pope. Under the president, a lay delegate acts as a city manager and runs the day-to-day affairs of Vatican City, which employs about 1,300 people for administration, maintenance, police, stores, and its world-class museums. The Vatican City budget is normally in the black even though it has no taxes because of income from the museums, post office, supermarket, gasoline station, and other stores.
Located in the Vatican is the Instituto per le Opere di Religione, commonly known as the IOR or Vatican Bank, founded in 1887 after the fall of the Papal States as a way of keeping Vatican finances independent of Italian control. Its depositors are now limited to the Vatican agencies, Vatican employees, dioceses, religious orders, and other Church entities. Although in the past some depositors used it to launder money, since 1993 the bank has cooperated with police investigations. Like any bank, it invests its deposits; the profits are used at the discretion of the pope. Its involvement in one investment scandal caused it to pay $244 million to Banco Ambrosiano creditors. This scandal led to the reform of the bank, which is now governed by a committee of cardinals whose principal function is to select a supervisory council of financial experts from around the world to supervise the bank and hire its lay director-general. No financial report is made public.
The Vatican Curia is the bureaucracy that helps the pope in his ministry as head of the Catholic Church (he has a separate bureaucracy for the diocese of Rome). The oldest bureaucracy in the world, it is shaped more by history than organizational theory and still has many of the trappings of a medieval court. It has about 2,500 employees. The professional staff (mostly priests) is recruited from all over the world, but the support staff is mostly Italian. It is financed by donations and income from investments. The official language is Latin, but the working language is Italian. Most offices have people who can communicate in the other major European languages.
The top official under the pope is the secretary of state, who is more like a prime minister than a U.S. secretary of state. The secretary of state has two offices: the First Section for General Affairs, headed by the sostituto (substitute), and the Second Section for Relations with States, headed by the secretary for relations with states. Although there are numerous exceptions, the principal work of the First Section is internal Church affairs, while the Second Section deals with international issues. Both sections are relatively small; for example, the Second Section has only about forty people.
The First Section is divided into language desks, with the sostituto acting as the pope’s chief of staff. Practically all paper going to and from the pope goes through this office, making the sostituto one of the most powerful men in the Vatican, although he is not a cardinal.
The Second Section, divided into country desks, is the Vatican’s foreign ministry, with the secretary acting as the foreign minister. Practically every nation in the world sends an ambassador to the Holy See (the major exception is China). The Vatican stresses (and legal scholars agree) that diplomatic relations are with the Holy See and that the pope would have the right to them under international law even if the State of Vatican City (Stato della Citth del Vaticano) ceased to exist. Vatican foreign policy has supported international cooperation through the United Nations, the peaceful resolution of international disputes, human rights, disarmament, and aid to refugees and poor countries, while opposing international financing of abortion. But its principal concern is the promotion of religious freedom and the good of the Church. Historically it has attempted to protect the rights of local churches through international treaties (concordats) with countries.
Other dicasteries (offices) of the curia are organized as congregations or councils. They are committees of prelates (some working in Rome, others heading dioceses around the world), which meet under the leadership of a prefect (for congregations) or president (for councils). The prefects and presidents also head the staffs of their congregations and councils, which do the day-to-day work of the curia. The older congregations tend to deal with internal Church affairs: doctrine, liturgy, Eastern (non-Latin) Catholic churches, canonization of saints, appointment of bishops, evangelization, clergy, members of religious orders, and Catholic education. The newer councils are a mixed bag of offices dealing with issues that have concerned the Church since Vatican II: laity, ecumenism, family, justice and peace, health-care workers, canon law, communications, culture, and interreligious dialogue. Most staffs are quite small. They relate to Catholic dioceses around the world either directly or through the Vatican diplomatic representatives (nuncios) in each country.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Inquisition) is the most powerful office. It must review and approve the doctrinal content of documents from other offices before publication. It also attempts to control the teaching and writing done by Catholic theologians around the world. The congregations for bishops and evangelization of peoples propose names to the pope for episcopal appointments around the world, in a process that screens for orthodoxy and loyalty to the pope.
From at least the time of Constantine, the papacy has been an instrument of political legitimacy in Europe. This has given the Church political power, which it often used for good—to mediate disputes, insist on the observance of law, and protect the powerless—but sometimes used for evil—to suppress heresy and enrich itself. This power and wealth, however, made it a target of political intervention, whether imperial, feudal, or totalitarian. Beginning with Leo XIII in the nineteenth century, the Church began developing a social teaching that was more appropriate for a pluralistic democratic world. The contemporary political role of the papacy was epitomized in John Paul II (1920-2005), who through his support of Solidarity and the Polish freedom movement began the landslide that wiped out communism in Eastern Europe and ultimately the Soviet Union. He was also an outspoken defender of religious freedom, human rights, refugees, migrants, the environment, and the unborn. He spoke of the responsibility of the rich to help the poor and advocated forgiveness of Third World debt. He opposed both Persian Gulf wars. He was critical of unbridled capitalism and a culture of individualism, greed, and consumerism. Although lacking the political skills of John Paul, Benedict XVI (b. 1927) has not strayed far from his foreign policy positions.
Papal opposition to birth control and abortion have been controversial. While most Catholic moral theologians oppose abortion, a number consider making it illegal a debatable issue. John Paul did not shrink from giving Communion to pro-choice Italian politicians, although this became an issue for a few U.S. bishops in 2004. Most theologians, priests, laypeople, and even some bishops do not accept the pope’s teaching on birth control, with the result that many Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain now have falling birthrates. Also controversial both inside and outside the Church has been the questioning of condoms as a means of fighting AIDS. This dissent on Church teaching led the Vatican to investigate, reprimand, and silence many priest theologians. It also led to the appointment of bishops known for their loyalty and support for Church teaching. But with the exception of abortion, birth control, and condoms, the Vatican’s position of international issues has been far to the left of most American politicians.
Bibliography:
- Beal, John P., James A. Coriden, and Thomas J. Green, eds. 2000. New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law. NewYork: Paulist Press.
- Graham, Robert. 1959. Vatican Diplomacy: A Study of Church and State on the International Plane. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- John Paul II. June 28, 1988. Pastor Bonus. Vatican City: Apostolic Constitution.
- http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_19880628_pastor-bonusindex_en.html.
- Reese, Thomas J. 1996. Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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