Mediation by a Transnational Organization: the Case of the Vatican

Abstract

The Vatican is, in many ways, a peculiar international actor. It is at once an anachronism in the modern world of power politics and, in the words of the US ambassador to the Holy See, the world’s best listening post. It presides over 800 million Catholics worldwide and yet occupies less than a half square kilometer of land in Rome. The Roman Catholic Church is the ‘universal’ Church, open to all, but the Vatican’s doors are closed to all but a select few. And, to paraphrase Stalin, the Vatican’s monarch, the Pope, has no armed divisions.