The Pope, the Public, and International Relations

Download or read book The Pope, the Public, and International Relations written by Mariano P. Barbato and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume engages a long-standing religious power, the Holy See, to discuss the impact of the structural and postsecular transformations of international relations through the emergence of a global and digital public sphere. Despite the legal construction that enables the separation of the Holy See as a distinct legal entity, it is also an instrument for the papacy to represent externally and regulate internally the global and transnational Catholic Church. The Holy See is also the tool that enables the papacy to address a transnational or a global public beyond Catholic adherence – most prominently through journeys that are often at the same time state visits and pastoral journeys. Instead of understanding these hybrid roles as an irregular exemption, the contributions of the book argue that the Holy See should be seen as a certainly special but nevertheless quite normal actor of international and public diplomacy.