wfn.org | WARC Urged to Question Vatican's Special Status at U.N.

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

30-August-1996 
 
 
96307WARC Urged to Question Vatican's Special Status at U.N. 
 
                         by Stephen Brown 
                   Ecumenical News Intenational 
 
DETMOLD, Germany--A report to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches 
states that there is growing concern about the "unique and certainly 
questionable" status enjoyed by the Vatican at the United Nations. 
 
     The report expresses deep concern about the Vatican's use of its 
influence at the U.N. and calls for Christians to discuss whether the 
Vatican should relinquish its special status. 
 
     No other religious body -- Christian or otherwise -- has the same 
status or privileges as the Vatican.   The pope has an automatic right to 
address -- as a head of state -- the U.N. General Assembly, and the Holy 
See has full rights to participate and speak at UN meetings.  Other 
religious groups relate to the United Nations as nongovernmental 
organizations.  Heads of other religious traditions have at times been 
invited or permitted to address the General Assembly, but no other 
religious body has official rights to address the U.N. 
 
     However, the Vatican does not participate in voting at the United 
Nations, nor is it obliged to contribute to financing the U.N., as it has 
chosen the status of an observer state. 
 
     "This arrangement for voice but no vote allows the Vatican to 
influence debate at the highest level, and to use its leverage with other 
states that have been traditionally  Catholic' in identity, politics or 
history. Yet the Vatican bears no responsibility," according to the report, 
presented this week to the executive committee of the World Alliance of 
Reformed Churches (WARC), meeting in Detmold, Germany. The WARC has 200 
member churches around the world. 
 
     The report -- a review of United Nations activities over the past year 
-- was prepared by Robert F. Smylie, official observer for the WARC and the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at U.N. headquarters in New York.  The report 
is not a statement of the official policy of the World Alliance of Reformed 
Churches. 
 
     The issue of the Vatican's role at the U.N. has been particularly 
controversial since its high-profile intervention at the U.N. conference in 
Cairo on population and development in 1994, when the Vatican made vigorous 
efforts to have its views on population and birth control adopted by the 
conference. 
 
     The Cairo conference's agenda was delayed for "almost a week because 
of Vatican politics," according to the report. At the U.N. Fourth World 
Conference on Women in Beijing last year, the Vatican used its position to 
"object to language well established in UN documentation." 
 
     Smylie told the meeting that he was bringing the matter to the 
attention of the WARC because Roman Catholics themselves had raised the 
issue of the Vatican's status at U.N.  
 
     There was also worldwide media attention when Pope John Paul II last 
addressed the U.N.  General Assembly in October 1995 and urged the United 
Nations to go beyond its institutional status to become "a moral center." 
 
     "In the review and reform of U.N. practice and procedure," according 
to Smylie's report, "it may be time to rise above the media blitz, rethink 
a little history and examine the fundamental issues at stake." 
 
     Smylie acknowledged that it was difficult for other religious groups 
to raise the issue publicly for fear of being accused of "sour grapes." 
 
     It was also unlikely that other U.N. states would raise the issue. 
Two-thirds of the world's states maintain diplomatic relations with the 
Holy See. 
 
     "Somehow in inter-Christian dialogue the issue must be raised [so] 
that somehow the Vatican might make the change voluntarily.  I just don't 
think it's going to happen any other way," Smylie said. 
 
     The WARC's communications secretary, Paraic Reamonn, told ENI today: 
"The territorial independence of the Vatican is in itself a good thing. It 
symbolizes, and is intended to guarantee, the spiritual independence of the 
Roman Catholic Church. But the Vatican uses its unique position to try and 
impose on the U.N. a moral agenda that is rejected by increasing numbers of 
Catholics, while contributing nothing to the costs of the U.N. This is an 
abuse of privilege." 
 
     Reamonn added that the WARC's involvement in the U.N. was "quite 
different." 
 
     "We work, with our member churches, in the United Nations Commission 
on Human Rights, to highlight human rights abuses in several countries 
around the world," Reamonn said.  

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 

--