Pope's Role In The Vatican State

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Through the Holy See, the Roman Catholic Church enjoys the same sovereign status, rights, and duties of secular states and international organisations. The Holy See, therefore, is not the Vatican State, which represents the territoriality constitutive of states in the modern interstate system; not falling within the traditional definitions of statehood and sovereignty, the Holy See is accepted as a sovereign engaging in diplomatic relations with other states and that participates in the realm of international institutions as a permanent observer (Pizzoli, 2015).
The Holy See is incorporated in the persona of the Pope and not in the Vatican state or the Catholic Church and is, effectively, an international legal person; the question here is why the Pope was granted such status in the first place.
The status of the Holy See has been developing for centuries and the establishment of the Vatican state through the Lateran Treaties reinforced this concept (Rozario, 2014).The Pope can be defined as the sovereign of the Catholic Church in the Vatican State; specifically, the prestige of the Pope is based on its role as …show more content…

Its position has not derived from the international private law as regular NGOs and other organisations but stands on its own; despite being effectively a monarch, the Pope does not have power over law but his behaviour is controlled by the Church and its traditions (Pizzoli, 2015).In addition, the Holy See makes another important claim, not based on political power but as the one responsible for educating the faithful and

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