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VATICAN LETTER
Jun-17-2011 (1,000 words) Backgrounder. With photos.
xxxi
On world stage and behind closed doors, Vatican
works diplomatic levers
By John Thavis
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Vatican City is the world's
smallest state, but it's still considered a diplomatic nerve center, a place where
the universal church meets global politics.
Most
diplomacy is conducted privately and quietly at the Vatican, but in early June
several events underscored the Vatican's range of interests and the way it goes
about influencing policy.
Pope
Benedict XVI met June 9 with six new ambassadors from five continents, giving
them a group talk and handing each a more personalized speech. These are not
"one size fits all" discourses; what the pope said, for example,
about the exploitation of natural resources in Ghana touched a nerve in a
country where the recent discovery of oil and gas has led to a national debate
over resource management.
Addressing
the Syrian ambassador, the pope said civil unrest in his country underscored
the urgent need for "real reforms" in politics, economics and social
life. Those reforms, he added, should be achieved without intolerance and
violence. His words could be seen as an indirect reproach to the Syrian
government, which has cracked down on opposition demonstrators, leaving thousands
dead.
Pope Benedict spoke to the ambassadors
about what he calls "human ecology," an environmental theme that has
become one of the defining issues of his pontificate. One of his points was
that technological advances alone cannot solve ecological problems, and indeed
sometimes bring their own "social and ecological disasters." He
didn't need to specifically mention Japan's nuclear catastrophe -- it was
already in the minds of his listeners.
Papal
speeches are important to Vatican diplomacy, but the Vatican works through
other channels as well, both public and private.
Almost
any day of the year, a Vatican representative is enunciating the church's views
in an international forum. On June 8, for example, a Vatican official addressed
the U.N. International Labor Conference in Geneva and offered an analysis on
how structural flaws in the global economy are preventing the creation of new
jobs worldwide.
The
Vatican has diplomatic relations with 178 countries, a number that has nearly doubled
over the past 30 years. About 80 of those countries have their embassies in
Rome, which makes the city an ideal listening post. That's one reason why the
U.S. Embassy to the Holy See has historically been one of the largest and most
active diplomatic missions.
This summer, U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican
Miguel Diaz is losing some key people as they rotate out to new assignments.
One of them is Julieta Valls
Noyes, who served as deputy chief of mission for three years and who, during a
hiatus between ambassadors in 2009, prepared the visit of President Barack
Obama to Pope Benedict. She's going to Washington to assume a major position,
deputy executive secretary at the State Department.
Julieta Valls Noyes, outgoing deputy chief of mission for the U.S.
Embassy to the Holy See. (CNS/Paul Haring)
Last year, Valls
Noyes saw her behind-the-scene role suddenly go public with the release of WikiLeaks cables from the embassy. The confidential reports
covered topics ranging from sex abuse to Catholic-Anglican relations, and many
had her name on them. One memo described the Vatican secretary of state,
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,
as a "yes man" unlikely to bring the pope bad news. (Cardinal Bertone said later he was proud to be the pope's "yes
man.")
This was not pleasant reading in the
Vatican Secretariat of State. In the end, however, publication of the cables
did not do serious damage to U.S.-Vatican relations, mainly because they
reflected a real desire to learn the Vatican's positions and consider the
impact on U.S. policy.
At a
farewell reception in June, Valls Noyes explained why
the Vatican is so important for international diplomacy. For one thing, she
said, it has one of the largest diplomatic corps in the world.
The
Vatican is also a place of confluence for social, political and religious
issues like human trafficking, human rights, interfaith cooperation, peace
initiatives and health care, she said. In addition to its official diplomatic
arm, the Vatican includes innumerable agencies that deal with the ethical and
practical aspects of these and other questions.
Rome
is also a crossroads of church movements, lay groups and religious orders, many
of which are actively engaged in international affairs.
For Valls Noyes and other U.S. embassy officials, one of the
most rewarding areas of U.S.-Vatican cooperation has been on the human
trafficking issue. The embassy has sponsored major conferences on trafficking
and, more generally, on the role of faith communities in development.
"It's
been an amazing three years. If there's one lesson I've learned, it's that
people of faith and good will can move mountains," she said.
Diplomats tend to accentuate common ground,
but naturally there have been differences between the Vatican and the United
States over the past few years, too. For example, the Vatican is unhappy at the
direction taken by the Obama administration on issues like stem-cell research,
so-called "reproductive rights" and gay marriage. Those positions, in
the Vatican's view, derive from a failure to understand the transcendent value
of human dignity as the fundamental basis of all human rights.
On issues such as immigration, the Vatican
officials say the Obama administration has good intentions but has not achieved
many results. In international affairs, the Vatican credits Obama with taking a
more multilateral approach, but would like to see it broadened to include
international mechanisms or institutions that give voice to smaller countries.
The Vatican's views on such matters are
generally communicated quietly in private meetings, but surface from time to
time in public speeches.
The Vatican trains its own diplomats at a pontifical
academy in Rome. On June 10, Pope Benedict met with students -- all of whom are
priests -- and outlined their job description. Rather than learning diplomatic
tricks of the trade, the pope said, they should need to be trained above all as
witnesses of the Gospel.
If the outside world imagines Vatican
diplomacy as Machiavellian realpolitik, the pope sees
it differently. The qualities of a good diplomat, he said, are not cunning and
craftiness, but honesty, consistency and respect for others.
END
Pasted from <http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1102426.htm>