How does an actor with no troops, no markets, and no electorate manage to stay in the room when wars harden and trust collapses? This blog series looks at the Holy See as a diplomatic actor, and this first part starts with the basics: what the Holy See is in world politics, why it is not simply “the Vatican,” and where its influence comes from. The next two parts turn to the method and the moment, testing the Vatican’s diplomatic toolbox on Cuba and Ukraine (Part 2) and then asking what may, and may not, change under Leo XIV (Part 3).
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 question: “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Both instances reveal a similar uncertainty about the true nature of the Pope’s influence.
The Beast and the Ford Focus: A Power Paradox
I can attest to that uncertainty from personal experience. During my service in the Pontifical Swiss Guard (2017–2021), 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 “The Beast,” the heavily armoured presidential limousine — more warhorse than car.
In a corner of the courtyard, almost unnoticed, stood Pope Francis’ dark-blue Ford Focus: an ordinary car used to move him in and out of the Vatican. Next to Trump’s convoy of armoured vehicles, it looked fragile. The contrast captured two radically different grammars of power in the same frame — 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.
In that moment, Napoleon’s numbers and Stalin’s divisions stopped sounding merely cynical to me. If the Pope does not command armies, what is it, exactly, that makes the world’s most heavily armed leaders show up for a papal audience — and listen?
The Holy See’s International Legal Personality
To make sense of that paradox, you have to separate the Vatican from the Holy See. The Vatican City State is the tiny territory on the map; the Holy See 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 religious institution that maintains diplomatic relations as a subject of international law. Therefore, it is the Holy See, not “the Vatican”, that states formally accredit ambassadors to. That distinction is not just semantics: in the preparatory work 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. The Lateran Treaty of 1929 gave the Holy See a physical “seat” 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.
In practice, the Holy See behaves like an actor with a mature treaty tradition. It has concluded a broad network of bilateral agreements — concordats — with states across different regions. These are not ceremonial gestures but negotiated legal settlements that organise Church–state relations in concrete policy areas and can matter domestically because they operate through the binding logic of treaty commitment.
That unusual status translates into a diplomatic footprint that many underestimate. Today, the Holy See maintains diplomatic relations with 184 states and participates in over 30 international organizations, including observer status at the UN 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.
Two Currencies of Influence
That is why the Holy See matters as an actor. It plays a different game using an alternative currency of influence— 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 of this series.
