The Church in World Politics

The Merton Lecture at Columbia University honors Thomas Merton, the monk-poet best remembered for The Seven Storey Mountain, the account of his discovery of Christ and the Church. This year the Merton Lecture was given by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, who is the Holy See’s representative, or nuncio, to the United Nations. His lecture is titled “The Catholic Church and International Politics in the Twenty-First Century.” Migliore noted that the Holy See currently has formally accredited diplomatic representation with 174 of the 191 member states of the UN, and underscored that such representation “personifies the government of the pope.” Therein lies an interesting little story.

When the UN was formed after World War II, a number of states had the status of “permanent observer.” One by one they became member states until only Switzerland and the Holy See were left. When Switzerland became a member state, there was fear in Rome that, as the only remaining permanent observer, the Holy See might be in a weakened position. Indeed, an unsuccessful effort was made, led by pro-abortion groups in the U.S., to terminate the Holy See’s representation at the U.N. In Rome, consideration was given to changing the relationship by having the tiny Vatican City become a member state. After widespread consultation, that idea was rejected, and last July the Holy See and the UN refined and ratified the now unique status as permanent observer.

This arrangement, the Archbishop noted, is in continuity with the beginnings of the Holy See’s diplomatic activity when, in the fourth century, the imperial government was moved to Constantinople and it was necessary for the pope to protect the interests of the Church by having a nuntius, or messenger, at the imperial court. So today the nuncios represent the Holy See, meaning the pope, and not Vatican City, which is, as Migliore says, simply “a base from which to exercise his sovereignty over the Catholic Church, independent and autonomous of any earthly authority.” The diplomatic activity has been growing. When John Paul II became pope in 1978, the Holy See was accredited to only eighty states. The purpose of such diplomacy is, of course, to represent the interests of the Catholic Church in various countries, but also, increasingly, to be an advocate for human rights—most particularly, for religious freedom for all believers, Rome being rightly convinced that religious freedom is the most important foundation of all human, civil, and political rights.

Ambitious Goals

Although lacking economic or military power, Migliore notes, the Holy See is energetically engaged in helping to resolve problems among nations and working for international “solidarity.” He recalled Stalin’s scornful question, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” The answer was given decades later when, beginning with Poland, the moral authority of John Paul II was crucial to the dismantling of what Ronald Reagan called “the evil empire.” Today, Migliore said, stealing a phrase from George W. Bush, “faith-based” diplomacy is more and more important in a world in which religion and morality are increasingly assertive in politics among nations. He also describes this as “track-two diplomacy,” in which the Holy See seeks to guide the development of globalization and work against the resort to war.

Market economics and globalization are facts of life; the question is what this means for the peoples of the world, and especially the millions upon millions who are poor. Migliore said: “In the early 1990s, the Pope affirmed in his encyclical Centesimus Annus that, after the fall of communism, it was not enough to say that the opposite system, capitalism, had won and had proven itself to be a better system. Instead, John Paul expressed the hope that capitalism could reform itself and urged that it be remodeled into a socio-economic market based on an ethical-political synthesis of human rights and duties. He proposed a new, universal social contract based on a strong ethic of solidarity. . . . The leitmotif of the Pope’s vision of globalization is that it needs to be governed.”

As for war, the Holy See favors “a presupposition in favor of nonviolent alternatives.” Migliore elaborates: “It is in this sense that the Pope is faithful to the inspiration that comes from the Word of God, from tradition, and from the Church’s social teaching, and stays above any dangerous ambiguity or pacificism-at-all-costs attitude. At the same time, however, Pope John Paul II insists that the world needs a new international order that lessens the need for war as a solution for disputes, with the final goal of making war useless and outmoded.”

These ambitious goals are not without their conceptual and practical difficulties. Many scholars read Centesimus Annus in a way much more sympathetic to market economies than Archbishop Migliore suggests. The accent of the encyclical is on expanding the circle of productivity and exchange, not on establishing a “social market,” which is a phrase favored by democratic socialists in Europe and elsewhere. And one cannot help but wonder if it is helpful to say that globalization “needs to be governed,” if that means that market exchanges are to be governed by individual states or states acting collectively. A governed economy is at least in tension with the free economy so strongly affirmed by Centesimus Annus. If, on the other hand, the Archbishop means to say that economic decisions are very often also moral decisions, and that those making such decisions are morally responsible for their consequences, it is a quite different matter. That is a truth clearly grounded in Centesimus Annus and the entirety of the Church’s social doctrine. The World Trade Organization, for instance, in which the Holy See participates, may be seen as a form of economic governing, but it is governing aimed precisely at enhancing the freedom of the market economy.

Migliore affirms “the final goal of making war useless and outmoded.” That is an interesting formulation. In October 1965, Paul VI declared to the UN general assembly, “No more war, war never again,” and John Paul II has said that war is always “a defeat for humanity.” It is difficult to disagree with such sentiments, but some contend that Catholic social doctrine is moving toward a position of pacifism, if not, as Migliore says, “pacifism-at-all-costs.” Rome’s opposition to the Gulf War of 1991 and to the current action of the American-led coalition in Iraq is well known. The reasons for that opposition have been muddied by the anti-American tone of statements by some curial officials. It would seem that the Catholic Church cannot become pacifist of any sort without repudiating 1,500 years of doctrine regarding just and unjust warfare, and the “rule of faith” by which the Church is governed would seem to preclude the possibility of any such repudiation.

Just war, as carefully defined by the tradition, is understood as an instrument of statecraft. It is very hard to know what is meant by “the final goal of making war useless and outmoded.” It is not “useless” so long as states deem war, whether just or unjust, useful to achieving their ends. And it is not “outmoded” so long as it is the modality chosen to achieve such ends. In short, war will not be useless and outmoded until coercion, including military coercion, is no longer a factor in world politics. In 1991, Saddam Hussein deemed it useful to his purposes to seize Kuwait and assert his dominance in the Middle East. Other nations deemed it very useful, indeed imperative, to foil his ambitions. Likewise in the case of Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Chairman Mao in Korea, the current regime in Sudan, and hundreds of lesser aggressors in the last half century. Certainly war is to be avoided if morally possible, and certainly the Church must strive to ameliorate the evil to which human beings are prone, and certainly the Church must proclaim the promise of the Peaceable Kingdom in which nations “learn war no more.” But to adopt, even as a goal, the proposition that war should be judged “useless and outmoded” is, in history short of that Kingdom, to reinforce a pacifist sentiment that weakens the resolve to resist evil and redress injustice, if necessary by resort to just war.

As to a new international order, Archbishop Migliore is a representative to the UN and so it may be assumed he has that institution very much in mind. In the Merton Lecture and elsewhere he speaks of the need for a reformed and restructured UN. At this time, and not only because of the Food-for-Oil scandal involving billions of dollars in smuggling and bribery, the UN is held in very low esteem, and not only in this country. Although here, for the first time in many years, influential voices are urging that the UN should be allowed to go the way of the League of Nations. It is generally admitted that the UN is corrupt and ineffectual. Even UN-sponsored studies do not attempt to deny that. In thinking about international order, it is not sufficient to speak in rather vague terms of human solidarity. Human solidarity is a moral truth to which the Church must bear witness. But “international order” suggests an institutional embodiment of that solidarity. If such an embodiment is to be consonant with the freedom that the Church teaches is essential to human dignity, it must not stifle the sometimes disorderly variety of cultural, political, and economic dynamics essential to human creativity. More specifically, Catholic teaching must address the continuing role of the nation-state and national sovereignty in securing human goods. One curial prelate, assuming the sovereignty of the UN over that of nation-states, repeatedly asserts, “The force of law, not the law of force.” That is a slogan, not an argument.

The ideas set forth in the Merton Lecture are deserving of close attention. Archbishop Migliore is a man of great intelligence and devotion, and is, not incidentally, a very affable interlocutor. The diplomatic corps of the Holy See renders important service in protecting the interests of the Church, coordinating humanitarian assistance, and advancing human rights, especially religious freedom, around the world. It is good that the permanent observer status of the Holy See at the UN has been clarified and secured. If, however, pronouncements on economics, globalization, war and peace, and international order are to rise to the dignity associated with doctrine, much more scholarly work and much more deliberation, along with much more time, will be required. Generalized dispositions, sentiments, intuitions, and even slogans in reaction to controverted current events do not constitute the mind of the Church, and are less than helpful to the many Catholics who devoutly desire sentire cum ecclesia—to think with the Church