The Vatican is a ‘state’ because it originated as part of the Roman state, and has always been at the very least a department of a state, if not a sovereign. It’s a temple complex- wasn’t always Christian, and the Catholic Church adopted the ranking system and bureaucratic techniques of the Roman religious system when it was fully brought in as a state institution.
After the collapse of the western empire, it was still viewed as a part of the state (a handful of other offices survived the fall, including the office of fire marshal) and a pope was even replaced by the Eastern Emperor by the General Belisarius. During the feudal era, when lands were the principle source of lands, it acquired alot of lands to keep it’s activities sufficient across the west. However, it must be noted these lands were heavily depopulated, and not very productive, as this was the plague world… and everyone was either ignorant, or a celibate monk, and both sides died with a alarming regularity. You only got to look at St. Bede’s history to see how often even the best well off and educated classes in this era died.
Around the end of the first millennium, Europe started warming up from the global cooling that occurred during the downfall of the western empire, the population started to expand, information started to be disseminated to a ever increasingly educated and complex population. It was the Vatican itself that instituted the Secular-Religious divide, we don’t find this in Eastern Christian Churches founded on similar principles as the Roman Church, such as the Greek, Coptic, or Assyrian Orthodox when the concept was largely alien.
The civic planning of the Romans, which sound emphasis on siege warfare, as well as Constantine’s Dynasty to rely on Bishops to govern major cities when central authority faultered given the foreign invasions and pagan revolts, allowed the Vatican to legitimately fill a important void in Roman society- the defense and expansion of the city. It’s not unnatural or uncommon for a Roman authority to seek external control over other munincipalities, any more than it is for London to assert itself over other territories in the English lands today, or Paris in France, or DC’s federal government in America. Expected limitations at any given time, yes, but it evolved slowly.
Fact: The vatican was never property of the modern state of Italy, nor does it belong to the state of Italy. NEVER. It was started by the Romans as a institution, and was accepted by the bulk of Europe’s population as soverign in the same sense their overlords were soverign. The vatican didn’t invent the system, it evolved within it. At any point prior to modern times, the preferred government style of the Vatican wouldn’t be universal rule by the vatican, but a restoration of the old roman empire, with empire and a senate, not it’s own independent little state.
Fact: Italy has no more right over the state of the Vatican than say, does, the US. Italy has alot of Catholics, and so does the US, and I am one of them. I am not big on Italians, they annoy me. I am Roman Catholic, not Italian Catholic. I am a American citizen, but my religion is based in a foreign state, THE VATICAN. This isn’t the case for my Greek Friends, who’s Patriarch is under the firm control of a foreign nation, the Turks, given they want to maintain the Holy See in Constantinople where Constantine brought it to, a Roman Emperor. It evolved differently, as the eastern roman empire didn’t fully collapse until the mid 1400s, and was replaced by a slightly sympathetic empire that gave it marginal support. At no point, was it ever a independent state.
The Vatican has 1500 years of independent relations with other states. V-Out-of-the Wilderness has zero years of independent experience with other states. The vatican is a really old soverign power that survived some pretty bad assed enemies. Such as Napoleon or ‘Attila the Hun’. No matter how frustrating you are, it’s done rather well in the surviving category. I hold similar views as you, I get frustrated and pissed whenever I think about France being considered a country. I’m actually more justified, as it really shouldn’t be one, given how often it collapses and has to be bailed out by other counties- next time I say we don’t bother propping it up. However, this isn’t the case with the Vatican, as it doesn’t collapse on itself and has to be bailed out by other nations. It survives.
Why does it have ambassadors? Well, to a very large extent, because the Vatican practically invented the role of the courier in medieval times, as it was the only state with educated ambassadors- usually Bishops, who could travel around europe and perform duties we would expect of modern day ambassadors. It was in the catholic lands that the art of diplomacy got it’s strangest push, and the modern system we inherited diplomatically originated in their efforts. AT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, THEY ALWAYS HAD AMBASSADORS. They always were influential, and it was never a case of ‘We came first’ before the Vatican in terms of being recognized as a soverign power, or having embassies. They came first, they practically invented the system around them, and that’s why they are still part of the system.
Now, I understand the issues on your end. You feel ‘I am a angry, ignorant man who has jumped on the anti catholic band wagon, and want anything relating to them banned, whipped, and shit on in general, wha wha wha’ and you make angry faces at the catholics, preferring to live in your own, disgruntled, shattered world.
Yes, we all know about your cult experiences, thank you for telling us. It has nothing to do with us, it was your choice all along, and your comparisons to the sundry everything of life is just that- yours. Not ours, and we don’t hold any responsibility to it, we earnestly try to stop it from ever happening in the first place. We offered a way, you went another way. It was always your choice, and the bad pain and hurt that came from it- we do feel compassionately about on one hand, yet that free will factor is expected to sting on occasion- it’s not like our message wasn’t out there, we told you so. There are other branches of Christianity just as Old as the Catholic Church, and are pretty legitimate in their own right, being directly founded by Jesus apostles as well- such as the Orthodox Churches, which doesn’t have the sovereignty issues, and they will very likely be just as split on a compassion yet we did tell you so viewpoint.
I do find it funny- the secular vs religious divide- in your attacking the Catholic Church, was a instrument of Catholicism. Your essentially, and blindly without much awareness, are holding to medieval doctrines of the Catholic Church without much awareness. You have a hurt in the butt on this one- a pain from elsewhere superimposed on us, presented in anti-papist rhetoric. Good for you, continuing the ignorant racist trends of the English since Henry VIII. Your not our first rodeo, and I assure you, long after your dead, there will be a Vatican, with Ambassadors… because it is a state, not in spite of you persay, but in spite of the mentality that has always sought to undermine it, destroy it, and obliterate it. We’re a ancient people, and are not going to foolishly give up our security. As a Catholic, part of my heart is with the security of the Vatican. We’ve stood up to some fools in the past, and existed under so many changes that even we were occasionally the fools. A state surviving as long as the vatican is going to experience up and downs. Right now, it has a few downs, but mostly ups. In the future, the variables, for better as well as for worst, is expected to differ.
Should Vancouver be shut down for it’s advocacy of Pedophilia? Should California be shut down for it’s homosexuality? Should Belgium for it’s state assisted suicide? Should China for it’s public executions? Should England for it’s Anachronistic Monarchy? Should India for it’s federalism? Should Russia for it’s brutal aristocracy?
These locations, however fucked up on their own merits they are, aren’t going to be winked in and out of existence because you or I feel like it should be the case. They exist because they were strong enough to exist, in their own right. We offer embassies not because we love them so much, but because they are foreign, and can be of consequence to us. The vatican has a billion followers around the world, and is therefor of obvious consequence to us. We like to know what they are thinking about us, and vice versa, as a misunderstanding can send our foreign policy out into a uncontrollable spiral without a back and forth communication. An example, we could serious undermine relations with Mexico via a lack of attention to the Vatican’s existence or viewpoints, pretending it’s not there. Alot of potential issues, someday leading to war could arise by denying that route of communication.
We offer embassies not because we like a country, but because we got to deal with them. The vatican is old enough to have relations of some sort with everyone, and has it’s fingers in most nations pies in one form or another, in many cases being there first. It is NOT a byproduct of our civilization, or crafted in the ideal image of our society- in fact, much the reverse- much of our viewpoints arouse from it’s imagining how our world should look- even your viewpoint is apparently saturated by it’s influence.
Being a curmungeon isn’t going to charge this. By all means, you life sucks, but what does it has to do with anyone else? You made the choices, we have our own choices, and our own history. We’re not going to remodel the universe to fit your image all because you got a stick firmly wedged up your butt. No one makes this demand on the Dalai Lama (except the PRC) to give up it’s soverign claims or ambassadorial efforts. We maintain relations with England despite it fitting the definition of a Theocracy, as well as Iran to a limited extent. It’s not justified giving up on ambassador efforts on this loose category. It’s not unknown to send embassies to non-state organizations, such as the UN or to lesser entities for official negotiations, such as The Principality of Sealand, which isn’t even officially recognized as a state by any other state- but Germany still sent a mission to ask them to stop being douchebags.
