How does the Holy See function as a state?
It’s an interesting question. I mean, you have an organization which is the head of one of the biggest churches in the world, and they have a sovereign state, and you have a pope who’s the head of that church — the pope, the successor of Peter and the head of the sovereign state of the Holy See, and it functions in those two different capacities. We in the United States have a diplomatic relationship with that sovereign state, and it has diplomatic relations with 175 countries throughout the world, has had relations with many of them for centuries. It’s one of the most sophisticated diplomatic corps in the world, and in most countries where there is a Vatican ambassador, and they call them nuncios, that nuncio pro forma is the dean of the diplomatic corps. Q: What are some of the contributions the Vatican makes on the world stage? A: The Vatican and the Holy See have been in existence for 2000 years, so it’s an iterative process. But in the last hundred years the Vatican has become a v
