Vatican City, Jan 10, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- At a traditional new year’s meeting between Pope Francis and diplomats to the Vatican, the pope painted a picture of pontifical diplomacy around the globe: An international mission working to secure the common good, an always increasing network of relations, and the certainty of an impartial voice working for peace.
The Pope’s speech sets the basis and the guidelines for the Holy See’s diplomatic activities during the year. If the guidelines are based on concrete issues, then pontifical diplomacy has three main threads —three themes that include all the others.
The first is a commitment to peace; the second is a commitment to human dignity; and the third is a commitment to fight poverty.
In the mind of the Pope, all three seem linked to one another.
The Vatican’s commitment to peace is practiced via the art of mediation, and the Holy See has been a critical participant in the mediation of global conflict for decades. The Vatican’s commitment to human dignity is based on the principle that all people are equal and dignified in the sight of God. And the Church’s commitment to fight poverty is expressed in its diplomatic work for peace, international development, and support for marginalized. On that front, Pope Francis has asked who, in the end, is poorer than an unborn child, or than the forgotten or marginalized elderly.
These three commitments will shape the Holy See’s diplomatic activity for the upcoming year. Within that framework, there are two clear priorities for the diplomatic work of the Holy See in the upcoming year.
The first is advocating for migrants and refugees. The United Nations are finalizing a Global Compact on Migration, that follows the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants issued in September 2016. The Holy See participated in all of the meetings, and presented 20 points of actions on the issue gathered under the four keyworks “welcome, protect, promote and integrate.”
The Pope has made migration a core issue of his pontificate: he established a special section for Migrants and Refugee within the ranks of the Vatican dicastery for the Promotion of the Integral Human Development, and the Pope is personally chairing it. The theme for the World Day of Peace 2018 was “Migrants and Refugees: Seekers of Peace,” underscoring the importance the issue has for the Holy See.
The second diplomatic focus is on peacekeeping. The Holy See is aims to helping and assisting countries in achieving peace.
Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, a former papal nuncio now counsellor at the Vatican Dicastery for the Integral Human Development, stressed to CNA that for at least the past 50 years, “peacekeeping and the search for peace have dominated the Holy See’s public interventions.”
The Holy See is working to create a path to peace, Tomasi said, by working on “the formation of a new mentality, thanks to the World Day of Peace; the Holy See’s involvement in discussions on disarmament; and the Holy See’s encouragement to develop effective international institutions.”
How does the Holy See carry on its commitment?
First of all, with its work into the multilateral institutions, namely the United Nations and other global institutions.
The Holy See Mission at the United Nations in New York provided data on the Holy See’s work at the UN during the last year.
The Holy See at the UN in New York delivered 82 interventions, and 10 of them were delivered by Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican “foreign ministry,” who led the Holy See’s delegation at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in September.
Archbishop Gallagher also signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for the Holy See and in the name of and behalf of the Holy See. The Holy See’s mission noted that “the Holy See was an active participant in negotiations, and was one of the 122 States that voted in favor of the treaty, adopted on July 7, 2017. The signing took place during the High Level Ceremony for the opening of the signing of the Treaty, in which the Holy See joined more than 40 states in signing the treaty, and was joined by only Thailand in simultaneously ratifying the treaty.”
The Holy See Mission at the UN Office in Geneva, led by Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, delivered 48 interventions, participating in many panels on the Global Compact on Migrations. The Holy See Mission in Geneva also represents the Holy See at the International Organization for Migration: the Holy See has been a member state of the IOM since 2012.
Those are only examples of the Holy See’s considerable involvement in multilateral international organizations. It is noteworthy to remember that there is also a Holy See Diplomatic Mission in Vienna, accredited to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and to other special organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency, to which the Holy See is a member state and founder.
No less important is the Holy See’s Mission at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. Pope Francis has personally demonstrated that fighting world hunger is a priority to the Holy See. The Pope has visited the FAO headquarters two times, Nov. 20, 2014 and Oct. 16, 2017, and went to the World Food Program Headquarters June 13, 2016. In addition to that, the Pope symbolically donated $25,000 dollars to the FAO to support the Eastern African populations facing food insecurity and famine.
The Holy See’s diplomatic network of bilateral relations also continues to grow.In 1900, only about 20 countries had diplomatic relations with the Holy See. In 1978 the number was 84; in 2005 it was 174. During Benedict XVI’s pontificate, six new countries were added to the list, and, under the leadership of Pope Francis that number has climbed to 183, with Myanmar, also called Burma, joining the list of states with full diplomatic ties with the Holy See.
There are only 13 States who have no diplomatic ties with the Holy See.
Out of them, 8 have no Vatican envoy: Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, Maldives and Tuvalu. The Holy See has apostolic delegates, not fully recognized as ambassadors, in four countries: Comoros, Somalia, Brunei and Laos. The Holy See has started negotiations with Vietnam to reach full diplomatic ties, and in 2011 the Holy See appointed the first non-residential Vatican envoy to Hanoi.
The diplomatic efforts of the Holy See are considerable, and, as Pope Francis emphasized, committed to important and deeply Catholic international goals.
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In pre-colonial and village India the Muslims and Hindus often worshiped in the same temples, but on different days. And, so, it came to pass that the entire world became such a village—a global village.
And all was friendship as in the Garden. The diversity of the Areopagus again worked just fine, as did the pagan Kaaba with its multiplicity of 360 deities, one for each day of the year, or Hinduism with (it is said) its 300 million, or the West with the diversity of worshiping private choice in all things large and small.
And, the followers of Christ, and other religions, found their places once again as millets within a new Ottoman Empire. Or, as they had earlier, by paying into an annual protection racket to persist as encysted dhimmis within the exclusive ummah of Islam—-where there is no doctrine of original sin, and no redemption, and with a totally inscrutable Allah not even the elementary philosophical principle of non-contradiction.
And, so, “identity” religion resonated with the omnivorous ideology of “identity politics,” and even LGBTQ identity and religion…and in the global village they all lived happily ever after with the redefinition of even the inborn and universal natural law.
A deep sleep fell upon the leveled landscape, and even in the halls of the equally-leveled dicasteries of the apostolic Church. And, there was the twilight of universal fraternity, because no fire was cast upon the earth (Luke 12:41). And the world grew old as the Church grew old, with no memory of the successors of the Apostles nor of the backwardist twitchings of such as G.K. Chesterton who once, in a land far away, had said:
“Those runners [messengers of the Gospel] gather impetus as they run. Ages afterwards they still speak as if something had just happened. They have not lost the speed and momentum of messengers; they have hardly lost, as it were, the wild eyes of witnesses. . . .We might sometimes fancy that the Church grows younger as the world grows old” (The Everlasting Man).
Has any man worshiping his own vanity ever second guessed what demons he might unleash?
You are a very confused man, who along with the current pope is spreading universal error throughout the world and especially amongst the young people. All religions are not equal in their approach to God. There is only ONE way and that is Jesus Christ, Who said; “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except by Me.” How dare you and this pope even compare Christianity with some ridiculous primative cult that worships images of beings with twenty eyes, fifty feet and two hundred arms. Are you and this pontiff insane? The answer is an obvious, YES. In the wake of all your nonsense, you are leading millions of innocent souls into confusion, error and darkness. Shame on you and your pope. Shame on you for not pointing the young to the TRUTH, which is Jesus Christ through the Old and New Covenants called the Bible or Sacred Scripture.
Be assured, Almighty God weeps, while Satan rejoices.
“A deep sleep fell upon the leveled landscape, and even in the halls of the equally-leveled dicasteries of the apostolic Church”.
Was it that the Church experienced its Rip Van Winkle moment due to the anesthetizing effect of free choice egalitarianism precipitated by the heady brew of the Kaaterskill Dutchmen Rahner, Kung, Kasper, Häring?
Now there you go again! (Reagan to Jimmy Carter). 44 years later, Now there you go again! (Catholics to His Holiness). I thought the whose religion is right and whose isn’t matter was done with. That all religions are not the same does that mean they’re all right? How’s that? Francis I says diversity is a gift from God [I hear alarm bells].
Although his praise of Albanian Catholic martyr Maria Tuci is warranted, why diversity? During the post WWII period Catholics, Muslims, and Eastern Orthodox were severely persecuted by Marxist Enver Hoxha. Their deadly persecution deserves empathy and respect. Does that warrant praise for religious diversity? Clever these Forwardsts.
For an example of how other religions can lead to God see the sacrificial practices and cannibalism of the Aztec religion: see this review by a scholar and the native painting taken from the Codex Mendoza: https://www.thepostil.com/author/dario-fernandez-morera/
For other wonderful ecumenism see this interview, with an illustration of the slave market in Constantinople: https://www.thepostil.com/christian-slavery-under-islam-a-conversation-with-dario-fernandez-morera/
and this scholarly interview in Catholic World Report:
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/12/16/the-forgotten-history-of-christian-slavery-under-islam/
Will this man ever shut up?
Hmh.
Bergoglio’s suggestion that the diversity of religions is a gift from God would have come as quite a surprise to the prophet Elijah, as we see in 1 Kings 18:40:
“Then Elijah said, ‘Capture the prophets of Baal! Don’t let any of them run away!’ The people captured all the prophets. Then Elijah led them down to the Kishon Valley, where he killed them.”
The takeaway, I guess, is that the Old Testament is archaic and backwardist. Like the Catholic Mass as it was said for the past 16 or 18 centuries.
It would have come as a surprise to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
If Freemasonry were running this “Magisterium” rather than Catholicism, what would change? If your answer is also “not one iota” then we have a deep problem.
Funny that you put it this way. When I was my diocese’s Director of Catholic Charities, I used to ask the staff: “If we took down our Catholic Charities sign and replaced it with one that said ‘United Way’, would anyone be able to detect a difference?”
The Holy Father is in a confusion. He should be open to addressing it; but will he?
This is not what we were taught in Catholic schools even after Vat II.
Good grief.
The purpose of ecumenism is to bring others to Christ.
https://catholicism.org/g-k-chesterton-on-ecumenism-and-dying-of-broadmindedness.html
When the Council was announced in January 1959 we were told that the Ecumenical Council would be a means of bringing protestants into the One True Church.
Were you there?
The fruits of the enterprise have proven tragically quite the opposite. Now we enjoy a Jesuit bishop of Rome who would see us provide credence to philosophical notions paraded as religions which have no reference to Jesus Christ.
We’ve been duped.
Vat II was more like a Vacuum II.
Every road is a gift. All roads on God’s Holy Ground lead to the Divine. Praise be to the Provider of Roads.
Dr. Cajetan: How about the Road to Hell?
How specifically does the Buddhism road lead to God when Buddhists don’t believe in God? Just curious. Which of the millions of gods in Hinduism is the best representation of the God of the Bible? Just curious.
You need to read Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia’s THE DIVERSITY OF RELIGIONS or Mortimer Adler’s TRUTH IN RELIGION before you mislead others to their spiritual harm with such ignorant nonsense.
I was raised a Roman Catholic, was educated in Catholic schools, even as far as graduate school. It was good solid education. However, with the Second Vatican Council, I began to discern the direction that Catholicism was taking, with a watered down doctrine, a sterilized pulpit and a distancing from even the most fundamental of Tradition, to say nothing of Scripture. I deduced that the Church was headed in the direction of a One World Globalist Organization, and not the Apastolic True Church, supposedly founded by Christ. How sad!! I now refer to myself as simply, a lover of Jesus, a Christian ✝️
You need to return to the Catholic faith which has traditionally taught that outside it there is no salvation. You need to return to proclaim the truth to the apostates currently corrupting the faith. By leaving, you allow the Church to further weaken. As a result of your having left, the Church has been emboldened to further falsify the teachings of Christ, her founder. You need the Holy Bread of Life to sustain you, without which you have no life within you. Read John Chap. 6.
There’s nothing going on today that hasn’t happened in some similar form before. Bishops teaching heresy? Check out Arianism, and how many bishops avowed that. Pope teaching heresy? Check out Pope John XXII. Corrupt clergy?
The Vatican was called a pornocracy around 1000 AD, it was so bad. Bad sermons? Shortly before Vatican 2 there were widespread complaints about not having one at all. Unjust hierarchy, beating up good Catholics for being good Catholics? Check out St. John of the Cross, St. Joan of Arc, St. Athanasius, Padre Pio, Jerome Gracian.
As the Cardinal said to Napoleon, who threatened to destroy the Church: “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.” The Church stands on the promises of God, not on the faithfulness of the clergy.
“Contemplate the diversity of your traditions as a wealth, a wealth willed by God…”
As long as the TRADITIONS don’t include the TRADITIONal Latin Mass.
A religion is the group of structures, conceptual and social, which grow out of a revelation of and by God of Himself and which expresses faith in God in the world.. There is only one authentic religious tradition — the Judeo-Christian tradition. All other entities claiming to be “religion” are philosophical constructs deriving from human reflection on existence in the world.
Bergoglio was claiming that manifest error is as worthy of assent as is the Truth. That is a clearly and plainly a falsehood within and without the parameter of theological analysis.
How the One True God, the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit confronts precisely any individual is unknown to us but we have been given principles on how that trasacts. How is God’s understanding, and mercy operative with any individual soul is not ours to know, but the final personal judgement of us all had best be faced with fear and trembling, and trust that the One True Supreme Being will always be just.
He cannot be otherwise because He is all good.
Islam rejects the revelation of Jesus Christ and seeks to obliterate it. 62,000 Christians have been martyred by Boko-Haram in Nigeria since the year 2000. The identity of “Allah” cannot be conflated with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Who Is the Most Holy Trinity. Save me “they have respect of Jesus as a prophet.” Islam is the original fascist cult. It is all about power, subservience and mind control.
Buddhism allows for atheism [Theravada] or monotheism or polytheism [Mahayana].
Hinduism the same — more a spectrum of madness.
How would Bergoglio confront the polytheism the Apostles faced? Hail Caesar? Luva Aphrodite? Good goin Jupiter?
What utter stupidity. What impotent sentimentalism. Do we have Mr. Rodgers for a pope? Bergoglio doesn’t even rise to that level of cognitive engagement.