‘The Pope’s own hand outstretched’: Holy See diplomacy as a hybrid mode of diplomatic agency
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148118772247 |
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118772247
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(3) 521 –539
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148118772247
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‘The Pope’s own hand
outstretched’: Holy See
diplomacy as a hybrid mode
of diplomatic agency
Jodok Troy1
Abstract
The unconventional nature of Holy See diplomats rests in the composite character of their
ecclesiastical role as the Pope’s representatives and their legal diplomatic status and commencement
to ordinary diplomatic practice. Holy See diplomacy is a form of conduct created by a set of mixed
secular and religious standards in which agents are guided by practices. I locate this argument
within a classical English School and a conventional understanding of practice, diplomacy, and
agency while incorporating understandings of the diplomat as a stranger. The article situates a
Holy See diplomat’s mode of agency as a hybrid one by nature, located at the intersections of
political and religious modes of agency and substantial and relational conceptions of international
politics. I probe this conceptual framework of hybrid agency by analysing episodes involving papal
diplomats in turmoil-ridden historical episodes, and correspondence with informed agents.
Keywords
agency, diplomacy, English School, Holy See, practice, Pope, religion
Pope John XXIII (1966: 106) referred to the role of the nuncio (the papal ambassador) as
‘The Pope’s own hand outstretched’ to the world of states. Popes before him made similar
statements, and the ones after him keep echoing variations of it. The acclamation for the
expansion of diplomatic missions, for instance, is a common pattern of the pope’s annual
addresses to the diplomatic corps accredited at the Holy See (‘HS’). Although the papacy
is one of the oldest participants in the international society of states, its diplomatic engage-
ment may perplex, as international society is assumed to be a secular compound. Still, the
trajectory of the papacy’s diplomatic entanglement in international society has been con-
stitutive in forming the diplomatic system. Scholars of diplomatic history and diplomatic
1 Department of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria and
Visiting Scholar 2016-2018, The Europe Center, FSI Institute for International Studies, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Corresponding author:
Jodok Troy, Department of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck,
Austria.
Email: jodok.troy@uibk.ac.at
772247BPI0010.1177/1369148118772247The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsTroy
research-article2018
Original Article
522 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(3)
practitioners have long since acknowledged this relevance of the papacy (Barker, 2006:
32; Der Derian, 1987b; Kerr and Wiseman, 2013: 25, 55; Nicolson, 1977; Plöger, 2005;
Rennie, 2013; Roberts and Satow, 2011). Recently, this relevancy has been illustrated yet
again by a cable from the American embassy to the HS to Washington after the election
of Pope Francis:
despite the disparity in size, governance, and history, we are both global powers, with global
interests and influence. From many points of view, the HS is unique to the world in its ability to
pursue its own agenda. The Vatican, with its diplomatic relations […] is second only to the
United States. (Mastrolilli, 2017)
Diplomats are aware of the scope and influence of the HS diplomatic trajectory, but
International Relations tend to set aside the HS diplomatic trajectory and its societal prac-
tices as historical footnotes or proxy variables.
By placing the diplomatic entanglement of the HS in international politics to the his-
torical backburner, international studies disdain insights with grave consequences.
Today, the Church’s members and officials are increasingly from all over the world and
inter-religious dialogue, for example, becomes important as part of the engagement in
political and social policy issues under the aegis of diplomacy. Diplomacy itself is a key
part of this transformation which offers expanded space for actors engaging in diplo-
macy (Constantinou et al., 2016). HS diplomacy transfers its religious and political posi-
tions well beyond its religious constituency, which is a common feature of the global
outreach of religious institutions (Marshall, 2013). Yet unlike other organised religions,
the HS global outreach is highly institutionalised, rests on formal diplomatic representa-
tions around the globe equal to embassies and acknowledged by international law. This
entanglement between the HS and the international sphere of states generates the strange
case of agents that are simultaneously clergy and mirror their secular counterparts. Their
very existence and practice are an example of how religious and political entanglements
in the international realm ‘generate creative, dynamic, and hybrid modes of social and
political agency’ (Agensky, 2017: 21; see also, May et al., 2014; Sheikh, 2012; Thomas,
2000; Wilson, 2014).
Whereas ordinary diplomats are serving the goals of a territorial unit, the unconven-
tional nature of HS diplomats is nested in the hybrid character of their ecclesiastical role
as the Pope’s representatives and their legal diplomatic status and commencement to
ordinary diplomatic practice. Their papal patron’s global perspective renders them unusu-
ally dedicated to influencing the conditions beyond their principal’s immediate posses-
sions (such as a territory). This standing places them at an advantage in an international
society in which such contextual factors are centrally important. This advantage is rein-
forced by the degrees to which HS diplomats constitute a combination of transnational
identity and national interest. This difference is obvious when looking at instances of how
papal diplomats mediate between a conventional approach and the approach of the HS.
Between ‘its supernatural mission of salvation and the mundane reality of world politics’,
the institution of the papacy ‘remains a singular and surprisingly vital factor in the inter-
national scene’ (Conway, 1979: 474). The agents of papal diplomacy are thus a puzzling
case of how to merge the aspirations and expectations of a religious principal with a
conventional approach of diplomatic practice.
Given the religious nature of its principal, its ordained agents, and international socie-
ty’s requirements for diplomatic standards and practice, papal diplomacy cannot be like
ordinary diplomacy. Papal diplomacy is the result of a religious and political entanglement
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