Holy See diplomacy based on active neutrality

Addressing a conference in the San Callisto Palace near the Vatican on October 13, Archbishop Paul Gallagher said papal diplomacy adopts a double approach – addressing immediate crises while at the same time building a long-term vision that transcends “electoral cycles”.

This is not a luxury, but a strategic necessity, which also entails risks, Archbishop Gallagher said. Maintaining relations with the vast majority of the world’s countries can lead to perceptions of the Holy See being “excessively accommodating toward authoritarian regimes”, but a diplomatic presence remains “the only way to influence systems that are otherwise difficult to reach”.

Archbishop Gallagher, who is the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organisations, highlighted the parable of the Good Samaritan as a model for action.

He mentioned some examples, such as the role the Holy See played in the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, the peace process in Colombia and the patient construction of relations with Vietnam and China.

Every intervention by the Holy See is aimed at promoting the common good and translating hope into a “concrete diplomatic act”, the Archbishop said. This is not a “naive optimism”, but is action based “on risk assessment”, which rejects “resignation” and the assumption that there is no room for dialogue or for change in even the most “crystallised” situations.

Archbishop Gallagher also underlined the challenges of rapid technological developments and the ecological crisis, which require “new frameworks of cooperation” that cannot be created by a single state, but which are often hard to implement. These issues, he noted, could become “catalysts” for multilateralism, but that is not always the case.

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Holy See: Vatican diplomacy is for common good, not particular interests (By Edoardo Giribaldi/Vatican News)