U. S.-CUBA DEAL OFFERS REMINDER OF VATICAN'S DIPLOMATIC INFLUENCE

US-Cuba deal offers reminder of Vatican’s diplomatic influence

No other religious body enjoys diplomatic status or the opportunities it affords to influence international treaties

Pope Francis in St Peter's Square. Photograph: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

John Hooper in Rome

Saturday 20 December 2014 03.00 EST

Tourists strolling past a square next to the Pantheon in Rome often stop to puzzle at an odd sculpture, designed by Bernini, of an elephant supporting an obelisk. Few waste a glance on the 19th-century palazzo to the left of the monument. Those who do see nothing to betray its purpose.

Palazzo Severoli houses the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, where the Vatican trains its diplomats. The academy’s less-then-informative title and blank façade are all of a piece with the discretion of one of the world’s smallest yet most effective diplomatic services. The disclosure this week that Pope Francis and his envoys helped broker a historic deal between the US and Cuba was a reminder of the Vatican’s largely unseen influence on secular, international affairs – and its dual identity.

As the Holy See, it is the administrative headquarters of the Roman Catholic church. As the Vatican City state, it is the world’s tiniest country – about the size of an 18-hole golf course, as Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, once remarked.

It is as the Holy See that it maintains diplomatic relations with 179 states (more than any country except the United States) and joins in the deliberations of the UN and many other international organisations. No other religious body enjoys diplomatic status or the opportunities it affords to influence the wording of international treaties and other documents.

The Holy See may not have national interests to safeguard. But it does have an agenda, and top of that agenda is its “theology of life”, which means opposition to abortion and anything that could promote or fund it.

“The Vatican has been a really strong opponent,” says Kelly Castagnaro, of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in New York. “[Its representatives] don’t really want to see sex mentioned, or any term like ‘emergency contraception’ or ‘comprehensive sexuality education’ that conflates with abortion. They have often succeeded in mobilising governments on the UN stage, and not necessarily Catholic ones. They may just be conservative ones that want to avoid all mention of sexual and reproductive rights.”

But, says Nigel Baker, Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See, the pope’s envoys also make important contributions to the world of diplomacy. “One is a long-term perspective: they are masters at keeping their eyes on the strategic goal, which is often peace. Another is a truly global perspective. A third comes from their lack of hard power – since they have no military or economic leverage, they have to exploit to the maximum their soft power attributes, in the form of dialogue and persuasion.”

Sometimes, personal, pontifical interventions can make a difference, as with Francis’s confidential appeal for concessions to the Cuban and US authorities last summer. But day-to-day diplomacy is the preserve of the Ecclesiastical Academy’s alumni.

The Holy See’s ambassadors, known as nuncios, differ from most of their fellow envoys in at least two ways: they have no protection, and never leave their posts. When he was a nuncio in Iraq, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who now heads the Vatican department responsible for missionaries, was the only ambassador to stay in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion. Eleven years ago Michael Courtney, an Irish archbishop, was assassinated in Burundi.

Nuncios represent the pope to the local government. But they also act as his link to the local church. According to one who has done the job, a nuncio’s time is mostly devoted to the latter role, and particularly to the selection of bishops.

On most issues, the Holy See’s envoys report to the Secretariat of State, the oldest and most powerful Vatican “ministry”, which has two main departments. Anything ecclesiastical is dealt with by the section for general affairs; the worldly diplomacy falls to the section for relations with states.

Last month an Englishman, Paul Gallagher, was appointed head of the secular “second section”, as it is known in the Vatican. In 2003, the Liverpudlian had the unenviable task of taking over from Courtney in Burundi.

An example of the second section’s influence on international affairs – and of the years of behind-the-scenes pressure that led to this week’s announcement – can be read in a cable published by WikiLeaks in 2010. It was a suggestion by a French prelate that Washington should “lean on telecommunications companies to make sure that rates for Cubans to call the US would be very low”.

Speaking to diplomats after this week’s announcement, the pope said he was “happy to see two peoples take a step to move closer after being distant for so many years”. Not that that was his only reason for satisfaction. In July the Cuban authorities gave the go-ahead for the building of a church in the eastern city of Santiago. It will be the first new Catholic place of worship on the island since 1959.

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