{"id":80448,"date":"2026-04-27T15:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/blog-post\/the-holy-see-as-a-moral-compass-in-global-diplomacy-part-1-the-actor-2\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T11:22:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:22:27","slug":"the-holy-see-as-a-moral-compass-in-global-diplomacy-part-1-the-actor-2","status":"publish","type":"blog-post","link":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/blog-post\/the-holy-see-as-a-moral-compass-in-global-diplomacy-part-1-the-actor-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy See as a Moral Compass in Global Diplomacy \u2013 Part 1: The Actor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Napoleon instructed his representative to the Pope to address him as if he commanded 200,000 men. The ambassador later remarked that the emperor might have better said 500,000. This anecdote echoes Stalin’s ironic <\/span>question<\/span><\/a>: \u201cHow many divisions does the Pope have?\u201d Both instances reveal a similar uncertainty about the true nature of the Pope’s influence<\/span>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beast and the Ford Focus: A Power Paradox<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can attest to that uncertainty from personal experience. During my service in the Pontifical Swiss Guard (2017\u20132021), I saw how the Vatican can appear almost weightless in material terms, yet strangely difficult to ignore. In May 2017, U.S. President Trump was received by Pope Francis. I was on duty in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace. I stood beside \u201cThe Beast,\u201d the heavily armoured presidential limousine \u2014 more warhorse than car.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a corner of the courtyard, almost unnoticed, stood Pope Francis\u2019 dark-blue Ford Focus: an ordinary car used to move him in and out of the Vatican. Next to Trump\u2019s convoy of armoured vehicles, it looked fragile. The contrast captured two radically different grammars of power in the same frame \u2014 hard power staged through protection, dominance, and deterrence, and a quieter authority grounded in moral teaching, humility, and the deliberate refusal to compete on the terrain of force.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that moment, Napoleon\u2019s numbers and Stalin\u2019s divisions stopped sounding merely cynical to me. If the Pope does not command armies, what is it, exactly, that makes the world\u2019s most heavily armed leaders show up for a papal audience \u2014 and listen?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Holy See\u2019s International Legal Personality<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make sense of that paradox, you <\/span>have to separate the Vatican from the Holy See<\/span><\/a>. The Vatican City State is the tiny territory on the map; the <\/span>Holy See<\/span><\/a> is the governing authority of the Catholic Church: the Pope and the Roman Curia, a global institution that acts in international affairs without looking like a conventional state. The Holy See is a <\/span>religious<\/span><\/i> institution that maintains diplomatic relations as a<\/span> subject of international law<\/span><\/a>. Therefore, it is the Holy See, not \u201cthe Vatican\u201d, that states formally accredit ambassadors to. That distinction is not just semantics: <\/span>in the preparatory work<\/span><\/a> for the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the International Law Commission stressed that treaties are concluded on behalf of the Holy See, not simply by virtue of territorial sovereignty over Vatican City. <\/span>The Lateran Treaty<\/span><\/a> of 1929 gave the Holy See a physical \u201cseat\u201d and safeguarded its independence, but the point was never the land itself. The point a sovereign actor that can credibly claim it is not playing for borders, domestic votes, or a national security doctrine.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, the Holy See behaves like <\/span>an actor with a mature treaty tradition<\/span><\/a>. It has concluded a broad network of bilateral agreements \u2014 concordats \u2014 with states across different regions. These are not ceremonial gestures but negotiated legal settlements that organise Church\u2013state relations in concrete policy areas and can matter domestically because they operate through the binding logic of treaty commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That unusual status translates into a diplomatic footprint that many underestimate. Today, the Holy See maintains <\/span>diplomatic relations with 184<\/span><\/a> states and <\/span>participates in over 30 international organizations<\/span><\/a>, including <\/span>observer status at the UN<\/span><\/a> and involvement in regional bodies like the OSCE and ECOWAS. Yet its real advantage is not size but reach: a professional diplomatic service paired with a worldwide network of dioceses, parishes, universities, charities, and local actors.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Currencies of Influence<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why the Holy See matters as an actor. It plays a different game using an alternative currency of influence\u2014 sovereignty without classic power instruments, neutrality as a condition for access, and a presence that runs from chanceries to local communities. That mix can open doors. It also has hard limits, especially once war aims turn absolute and trust collapses. So, what does Vatican diplomacy actually do when the room is hostile and the stakes are high? Read about it in Part 2<\/a> of this series.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":68907,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"archive-status":[],"region":[],"custom-themes":[1823],"class_list":["post-80448","blog-post","type-blog-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","custom-themes-volkerrecht-multilateralismus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-post\/80448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog-post"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"archive-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive-status?post=80448"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=80448"},{"taxonomy":"custom-themes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foraus.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom-themes?post=80448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}