Vatican: Religion or Polity?
by Sandhya Jain on 13 Apr 2010 18 Comments

Now that the scandal of the sex abuse of minor boys and girls and adult men and women in virtually every country with a church presence has touched the heart of the Vatican, singeing the present Pope himself for his alleged role in the protection of guilty priests, it may be appropriate to seek a review of the unique status the Roman Catholic Church enjoys at the United Nations. The Vatican slipped into the UN in the guise of the Holy See, the government of the Roman Catholic Church, and sits on that august body as a Non-member State Permanent Observer.

 

The UN Secretary-General owes it to the international community to define the church as either a religion or a polity. If the Vatican is a state, it must end its presence as a religion in other countries; if it represents a faith denomination, it should participate in UN forums in exactly the same way as other religions and sects do - as a non-governmental organization. It must no longer be allowed the liberty to practice both religion and politics in other lands, particularly those with predominantly non-Christian populations.

 

Non-member State Permanent Observer status gives the Vatican some of the privileges of a state; it can speak and vote at UN conferences, a privilege denied to other religions and sects. As UN conferences operate on consensus, the power to disagree with an emerging consensus carries weight. It is pertinent that the Holy See was not invited to participate in the UN; it sought recognition as a state in international bodies; it got in though no vote was ever taken on its presence at the UN by the General Assembly.

 

The Holy See is definitionally a “non-territorial religious entity.” It does not meet the legal criteria for statehood as defined by the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

 

The Holy See does not meet these criteria as it does not have a “permanent population,” as it is the governing body of Catholics worldwide and not a territory; for this reason it does not possess a defined territory. As late as 1985, it had diplomatic relations with only 53 countries; America established diplomatic ties with the Holy See only in 1984, possibly as part of its geo-strategic thrust against the then Soviet Bloc.

 

Further, the Holy See is defined by the church as the “supreme organ of government” of the Roman Catholic Church, but a government of a religion cannot be considered a state. Moreover, most state functions within Vatican City are actually carried out by Italy, which provides the police force and punishes crimes committed within Vatican City and provides all the civic amenities.

 

It is pertinent that other states that are theocracies, such as the Islamic kingdoms and nations, satisfy the international criteria for recognition as states. The mere fact of designating a particular religion as the official religion of the state cannot take away its statehood. But the Holy See is the government of a religion!

 

This is an oxymoron. Ironically, none of the major western countries where the Catholic Church has a sizeable presence, such as Italy, Germany, Britain, France, America, all European countries, Australia, the South American and African nations, are theocracies. In no country is the Catholic denomination the official state religion (Britain is Protestant). Yet, the dominant West, as part of its post-Second World War geo-strategy to oppose and vanquish Soviet Russia and the Communist Bloc, cleverly carved out Vatican City from Rome, for use at an appropriate time. Conversion of the rest of the world to Christianity (intra-Christian fights could wait) remained a top but covert agenda.

 

The plot unwound slowly. The myth of the ‘saint’ of the Calcutta slums, Teresa, was created by journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, and her persona built up by sustained propaganda all over the world, though there was no matching social service output on the ground. Teresa is on a fast track to sainthood though her negligible social work has been exposed by western journalists seeking accountability for the huge funds sent to India, and by writer Aroup Chatterjee (Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict). Sadly, it suited the Kolkata communists to have this fake messiah in their midst, and nothing was done to expose the truth that church leaders misuse foreign funds for conversion activities rather than genuine social work.

 

Poor converts neglected by church authorities after being torn from their civilisational moorings are now fighting back, like the victims of sex abuse. The Poor Christian Liberation Movement is demanding full participation for scheduled caste converts, a hundred year moratorium on conversions, and use of the million dollar western donations to improve the lives of the already converted.

 

Challenging the “increasing corruption in Church organisations,” they have asked the UPA government to ensure transparency in the working of Christian NGOs that misuse foreign aid received for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden. While Christian schools, colleges, hospitals and other bodies mint money, the community gets little benefit. Poor converts want all Church bodies to earmark at least 50 percent of their income and profits for the uplift of the poor and downtrodden sections of the community.


Poor Christians are enraged at the Church’s move to push the government to include SC converts in the Hindu Scheduled Caste list, so that it does not have to cater to their social and economic uplift. The church prefers to ‘legalise’ caste in Indian Christianity; but this is untenable as caste is not recognised under Canon Law.

 

Despite so many taints, the Holy See is mysteriously honoured at the UN as a quasi-governmental entity. Pope John Paul II described the role of the Holy See in the UN as “spiritual… very different from that of the states, which are communities in the political and temporal sense.” The UN must treat all religions and religious denominations equally. The Roman Catholic Church must participate in the UN as an NGO, just as the World Council of Churches (apex Protestant body) does; it does not deserve its current privileged status.

 

The author is Editor, www.vijayvaani.com 

User Comments Post a Comment
Sandyaji, wonderful article. This should be published in every newspaper in India.My heart felt thanks.
Of course, (with regret I must say,) that I do not endorse your views on NRIs or on Swamy Dhayanadaji!! That is another matter for another day! Thank you once again.
Rama
April 13, 2010
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Why is India one of the nations having formal relations with this Unholy See? I believe that AB Vajpayee on his way back from the US spent time at the Vatican explaining (pleading?) to the Polack Pope that India "treated all religions equally". The other pathetic fraud, I.K. Gujral, also did pretty much the same thing. So you see, we have an established history of grovelling!!
seadog4227
April 13, 2010
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Excellent article, Sandhyaji
Shree
April 13, 2010
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Excellent Article. Money coming into INDIA for religious conversion have to be seriously looked by the UPA government. Vatican is all set to smile from behind the faces of various dealer and heads of Churches in INDIA. Goa, Daman and Due still follows Portuguese Laws of 1949. The atrocities of Portuguese rulers are still live in the hearts of citizens of bordering villages and states. Let the real movie and book on GOA be published as we are democratic country. Stop money inflow into india for religious conversions
Nagesh
April 13, 2010
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Can we all start using the more appropriate term Christism as against Christianity. If it can be Hindu-ism, Buddh-ism and now Islam-ism why not Christ-ism?
N Gajanan
April 13, 2010
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Ms Jain is steadily gaining on merit and substance. What is baffling is the deficient desire to revert to Hinduism, revealing acquired angst against abandoned faiths. Novel the methods to appropriate wealth and power in India. Can Ms Jain quote any other decrepit nation want in self annihilation? A political leadership shamelessly playing dice with a Nation's heart, mind and soul without an International analogue. If these are strong words, we better eavesdrop.
Trooper
April 13, 2010
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The article is extremely good. Its exposes the true nature of the vultures.
Selvan
April 13, 2010
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Brilliant, original piece Sandhya Jain. Your readers should be alerted to the fact that the Vatican, being what it is, actually had the audacity to welcome Nepal dropping its Hindu identity and be declared as a secular state! The Vatican's target to convert another 1 billion more into Christianity is sufficient ground to disqualify them from the UN. South Asian nations should collectively break diplomatic relations with the Vatican
Maheshwar
April 13, 2010
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Its indeed bizarre that in 21st century, Italy maintains law and order in Vatican and the Vatican doing the same at the UN by proxy. And, and its priests day in and day out doing the headlines in sex scandals - so much for the ideal of moral superiority! Not to talk about the mixed messages of politics in religion (considering religion should be purely spiritual).
Anil
April 13, 2010
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Considering the status of the moral degradation and acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church I would say let all Hindus ignore the Vatican
Uma SV
April 13, 2010
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Will the pope be arrested in UK? There is a call for arrest of Pope during his visit to UK in September 2010. There will be a lot of show on roads against the Pope and his church that has harassed n-number of children and adults in the world. Same is with Evangelical Christians in USA who have abused young boys.
Ramesh
April 14, 2010
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UN AND SECULARISM are two terms used by the same Vatican after it helped Hitler and Nazis and was instrumental in genocide of Jews, like it did to South Americans, Africans, North Americans, Indians , Chinese. THE GENOCIDAL MANIAC VATICAN now rules India through its Plant
Subbu
April 14, 2010
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Sandhya ji is simply brilliant like her illustrious father Girilal Jain. Though I'm a Christian - I feel ashamed at the unscrupulous activities of the evangelists. The media should give full coverage to the horrible sex scandal that has been committed by the Christian priests across the globe. The evangelists have reduced Lord Jesus to nothing more than a saleable item such as a piece of soap and shampoo.
R Sebastian
April 14, 2010
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Unfortunately Indians remain self-destructively innocent. Some vague platitudes are mouthed repeatedly and we merely accept without examination, Christianity is a religion of peace (Why? How? Where? When?).We need the articles by the western journalists and the book by Chatterjee to be publicized, we need studies which establish the role of the Church in violence(e.g. Latin America) to be publicized.
Agrasar
April 14, 2010
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It is a nice article and I think it is the only article in this subject in Indian print media. I haven't seen any of the other media coming up with a detail article on the child abuse case. The thing that bothers me the most is when there is a Hindu godman for a wrong reason all medias run so many article and discussion on it. Why are they keeping quite now even though few of the priests were from India? Can any one of the media that has a backbone find out if Indian kids are also abused?
Kumar
April 14, 2010
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Its indeed bizarre that in 21st century, Italy maintains law and order in Vatican and the Vatican doing the same at the UN by proxy. And its priests day in and day out doing the headlines in sex scandals - so much for the ideal of moral superiority! Not to talk about the mixed messages of politics in religion (considering religion should be purely spiritual).
Anil
April 14, 2010
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The expose by the Kerala nun entitled "Amen," truly shocking by all accounts, is nothing - repeat nothing - compared to what has been described in the book "THE POWER AND THE GLORY" by David A. Yallop. It is imperative that people read this book. It is frightening beyond belief. ISBN 978-1-84529-673-5, first published in UK by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2007. Yallop’s first book "IN GOD'S NAME" stunned the world. He clearly outlined how they had murdered Pope John Paul I in the Vatican in just 33 days because he was against money laundering between the Vatican-Mafia and a Swiss Bank.
VS
April 14, 2010
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Its the pseudo-secularists & the communists who made Teresa an icon of social service although she never did anything very substantial. During her life time she was much attached with the conversion agenda which she blended immaculately with her so called social work. Vatican simply used the hype around her to proselytise Hindus.Thanks for the nice article.
Kuna Mohanty
April 15, 2010
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