Originally published at National Catholic Register
COMMENTARY: In U.S. State Department shorthand, the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See (which marks its 40th anniversary this year) is referred to as ‘Embassy Vatican.’
A change of presidential administrations typically leads to changes in U.S. diplomatic personnel abroad, especially at the ambassadorial level. This, in turn, leads to speculations, some of them zany, about the post of U.S. ambassador to the Holy See (typically mislabeled as “U.S. ambassador to the Vatican”). Herewith, then, some clarifications and demystifications about this position.
The entity that sends and receives ambassadors is not “the Vatican,” but the Holy See. “The Vatican” means several things. “The Vatican” can be a stand-in for the independent micro-state known as “Vatican City State” (Stato della Città del Vaticano), created by the 1929 Lateran Pacts. It can refer to the complex of buildings adjacent to the Papal Basilica of St. Peter’s. But the entity that sends and receives ambassadors — the entity with which the United States has full diplomatic exchange at the ambassadorial level — is the Holy See.
And what is the “Holy See”? It is the embodiment, for purposes of international law and diplomacy, of the ministry of the bishop of Rome
