Talk about your bad timing.
Somehow I had missed the plans to pull the U.S. embassy out of the Vatican, relegating its functions to our Italian embassy.
I mean, hey, we just got there — opening our embassy to the Holy See in 1984, just in time for the pope and the U.S. president to work together on taking down the Soviet Union, peacefully.
Our ambassadors from the Clinton and Bush administrations wrote a piece in the WSJ today saying what a bonehead, Know-Nothingist move this is, particularly at this time. I agree.
Some excerpts:
Since news reports of the plan emerged in recent weeks, many have seen the move as a deliberate slap at the Catholic Church and the pope; some may even detect veiled anti-Catholicism. But whatever the administration’s motivation, any such move to degrade the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See is not in America’s best interests.
Since purchasing an office building next to the U.S. Embassy to Italy 10 years ago, the State Department has made several attempts to shut down the offices of the Mission to the Holy See and move them there, often attempting to justify the effort in budgetary terms. To this penny-wise/pound-foolish approach, the Obama administration has now added alleged post-Benghazi security concerns…
The attempt to use such concerns as an excuse for downgrading the Embassy to the Holy See is shameful….
The Holy See also plays a distinctive role as a diplomatic hub where more than 175 countries are accredited, and where virtually the entire world is in constant conversation at a level of confidentiality and seriousness that is impossible anywhere else—most certainly including the United Nations….
It is ironic that just as Pope Francis‘s influence was reflected by his selection as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” the U.S. seems intent on diminishing its relationship with a person to whom the world is now listening so closely….
Amen to all that.
Related Posts
According to the WaPo fact checker, they are moving to another building, not relegating functions to the Italian Embassy or otherwise downgrading the diplomatic mission to the Vatican.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/12/04/the-bogus-claim-that-obama-is-closing-the-vatican-embassy/
Yes, that’s consistent with what I said.
The plan is to move the functions of the mission to the Holy See to a building adjacent to the embassy to Italy.
I think these two former ambassadors have a pretty good idea what they’re talking about. That “fact-check” was in response to something a far less well-informed person, Jeb Bush, said on Twitter.
The only thing missing from what they said was the part about our embassy to Italy being slightly closer to Vatican City than the present embassy to the Holy See. I’d like to have seen them acknowledge that.
But beyond that, the fact that these diplomats from both the Clinton and Bush administrations are bothered by the move is worth heeding. Diplomacy is so often about gesture and symbolism, and apparently in these guys’ estimation, the move would send the wrong signals. Maybe they don’t know everything, but I’m certain they know more about it than I do.
As the Post’s fact-check piece itself says:
Sorry, but I don’t agree that your comments are consistent with the WaPo version. “Relegating its functions to our Italian embassy” would normally be read as having our permanent diplomatic mission to Italy absorb the functions of the diplomatic mission to the Vatican, not just moving the Vatican mission into the same building complex. In any case, this is much ado about very little. It’s nice that the Vatican is regarded by some as a useful hub for diplomatic conversation (although one suspects that there would be some debate on this) , but I’m sure people can converse in the new building.
In any case, thanks for the link. It persuaded me to change my headline from “U.S. to abandon Vatican” to “U.S. to lower Vatican profile.”
After reading the WSJ piece, I kind of see the point that Flynn and Nicholson have. They don’t like the idea of the Embassy to the Holy See to look like an appendage of the Embassy to Italy. In their opinion, housing the Embassy to the Holy See inside the Embassy to Italy would send that signal.
So yeah, they’ve got a point. It’s a symbolic thing. It certainly sends the message that the Embassy to the Holy See isn’t important enough to have it’s own building. Is that a big deal? I don’t know. I don’t think the Holy See views itself as part of Italy, so that might be something to consider.
Also, do we have any other combined Embassies? There’s not much like the Holy See for comparison What about the Hague? Do we have a combined Hague/Amsterdam embassy complex? I can’t think of anything else that would be similar. Maybe Berlin when it was divided into different occupied zones? Did we have separate embassies in the four sectors? Probably not, but that’s not a great comparison.
Finally, let’s assume, arguendo, that it is an insult to the Holy See. Who gets hurt and who benefits? Are we worried that the Pope will be upset with us?
Technically, it would be a separate building, right next to the embassy to Italy.
I don’t think the pope himself is going to be too worried about it. He’s too cool. But everybody, including the pope, operates in a political environment in which other people’s opinions count. Other people may get ticked about it, including people who are simply looking for a reason to be offended — I imagine the Vatican bureaucracy has its own versions of Jeb Bush…
Why does one religion get an embassy anyway? Conduct diplomacy with them of course. But why treat the Vatican as a state?
Just throwing that out there.
Because it is a separate state?
Like Monaco or Liechtenstein or Andorra….
One of the definitions of a state is having a resident population. The Vatican does not. What it has is political sovereignty – from a time when it had outlasted empires.
But is that enough? Or is this just really a case of historical defference to a regime? If we are going to acknowledge the Vatican, how can we not acknowledge Palestine, for but one instance? Maybe I’m just more of a nation-state believer…
I think there’s a difference between Vatican City and the Holy See. I’m not really sure what it is, but they appear to be separate entities. From what I can gather, Vatican City is a place. It has defined territorial space. The Holy See seem like the “idea” of the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, which happens to be in the Vatican.
The Vatican actually has a population (according to Wikipedia) of “around 840” people. I think the Holy See is located within the Vatican, but it wasn’t always that way. The Pope (and the Holy See, I guess…) used to be in France.
But I’m really not sure.
Church building vs. congregation
Not being a Catholic, I’ve been doing a little reading (internet only) on the Holy See, Vatican City, and related stuff today. (Hey, I’ve also conducted two real estate closings, so back off. Really interesting stuff. For instance, I didn’t really know the difference between the Holy See and Vatican City State.
Anyone have any good book recommendations on this topic?
Residential or commercial?
One of each
Okay, one easy docs, but potential land mine humans, the other possibly more complex docs, but rational beings….