Pope Francis and Vatican diplomacy: What will he accomplish?
Leave a comment21 March 2013 by SaraGR
With the selection of Pope Francis, as the new leader of the Catholic Church, I find myself extremely interested in the Vatican’s efforts in diplomacy. On Friday, March 22nd Pope Francis met with a number of ambassadors from around the world in one of his first acts as the new Holy Father. During the meeting, to which he invited representatives from other faiths, he talked about how the only way to peace is through dialogue and by “constructing bridges” between differences. In this particular case he was referring to bringing together people of different religions like Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. It’s interesting to see how he is making this a priority of his papacy so early on. While other Popes have worked towards the same goal, I believe it will be interesting to see what Pope Francis can do, given his Latin America worldview. Like this article in Time reports his pledge is to promote “friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions.” I think that having a non-European pope will bring a different perspective to the Holly See, and will hopefully help bring forward more attention to issues in Latin America. He also expressed interest in creating diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China; this seems to indicate that he is really committed to being more involved in international issues. During his years in Argentina Pope Francis was dedicated to fight for the poor and disadvantaged, in a world where inequality among the citizens of nations is a mayor problem, this could be a much-needed reminder for world leaders. It also appears he is planning on differing greatly from Pope Benedict who preferred to remain isolated within the Holy See. Hopefully we will see the return of a well-traveled Pope who desires to connect with people all over the world.
I bring all of this up because I went to a Catholic school so the topics of the Catholic Church and the Pope are not new to me. All my life, like many of us, I’ve only known two Popes (now three counting Pope Francis) and always thought about the role of the Vatican as something separate from international affairs. Yes, I could see their influence, but never thought about the Pope and the Vatican doing diplomatic relations. It wasn’t until I was older and when Pope Benedict was chosen that I realized just how important his role could be. Pope Benedict is known for having made a few blunders during his papacy while trying to engage in dialogue with other religions, he was always viewed as more of a scholar than someone who knew how to connect with the masses. Pope Francis has experience in dealing with the public in Argentina, he might be involved in some issues that some might find controversial, but still he seems to be generating some interesting opinions.
Note: Related to him generating some opinions, there is this article that I found interesting “New pope revives question: What is a ‘Latino’?”. This is actually more personal for me, but it’s a topic I’ve always been interested in. Us Latinos are a mix of many races; do I think Pope Francis ‘qualifies’ as Latino? Yes, but there are some other issues involved there, and that is a whole other post.
