10 May 2007
LECTURE AT SOPHIA UNIVERSITY, TOKIO
10 May 2007
1. Introduction
I feel greatly honoured to be able to speak today in this famous Japanese University, of which Japan, the city of Tokyo, as well as the Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus may be justly proud on account of the high quality of its professors and its cultural contribution. I would like to express my thanks to President Yoshiaki Ishizawa for the invitation to speak today to this distinguished audience.
I extend cordial greetings to all those present, in particular to the Apostolic Nuncio, His Excellency Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello.
Before leaving Rome I had occasion to inform the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI of my visit here, and he asked me to convey to all the Professors and students of Sophia University and to all those present at this colloquium his respectful and cordial greetings and his Apostolic Blessing.
2. Institutional setting and current status of Vatican Diplomacy
The theme that has been proposed to me forms a part of the overall picture of the reality of the Catholic Church. As a social reality, the Church is easily quantified. According to the statistics given in the latest Annuario Pontificio, there are 1,115 million Catholics in the world, and their number increased in Asia in the course of last year by 2.71%, as against an increase of 1.18 % in the total population; the number of priests is 406,411; the number of candidates for the priesthood is 713,000, of whom 26 % are Asian students; religious women - whose role in the Church cannot be overly appreciated - amount to 823,000; the members of Secular Institutes come to 29,000. This being said, however, I must add that the Catholic Church, in her deepest essence, is a spiritual entity that is born in faith and can ultimately be known not on the basis of statistical data, but only in the light of faith.
The diplomacy of the Holy See, on which I intend to speak, is only one aspect among many of the structure of the Church and the service of the Apostolic See within the context of the overall reality - spiritual and social - of the Church. I intend to limit my talk, however, to Vatican diplomacy in practice, as something that can be known also by those who are not well versed in specifically theological questions.1 And I should like to begin by briefly presenting the current status of the Holy See’s diplomatic presence in today’s international society.
There are 175 countries which maintain full diplomatic relations with the Holy See; to these must be added the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. There are, moreover, Special Missions representing the Russian Federation and the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed respectively by an Ambassador and a Director.2 There are currently 101 Pontifical Representations to States with a resident Apostolic Nuncio. It follows that, in order to cover all the countries that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, a number of Nuncios hold more than one title.
The Representations of the Holy See to International Organizations have developed very rapidly: the first was opened in 1949; currently there are 15,3 hence a stable presence of the Holy See may be found in the most important international agencies.4
It is worth pointing out that the Holy See maintains this vast system of diplomatic relations with an extremely small staff. The total number of Apostolic Nuncios, as mentioned earlier, is about one hundred, while there are twelve Representatives to International Organizations. Junior diplomatic personnel - those who serve in the diplomatic missions of the Holy See - number 142 clerics. They come from 50 different nations. This remarkably international character of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See, while it responds to a wish expressed by the Second Vatican Council concerning the composition of the central agencies of the Church (cf. Christus Dominus, n. 10.1), also reflects the prerogative of the Church which the Council describes as a “most certain seed of unity . . . for the whole human race” (Lumen Gentium, 9.2).
The possibility of operating on such a vast scale with such limited personnel and such scarce resources is due in large measure to the active cooperation of the local Churches, who often place at the disposal of the Pontifical Representations suitably qualified priests or religious sisters from the area, who work there as members of the administrative and technical staff, and thereby support the Pontifical Representatives in the exercise of their duties.