The Vatican has a huge diplomatic network, but how powerful is a pope?

Let it penetrate who will be at his funeral. The president of the United States. The chairman of the European Commission and the chairman of the European Council. The President of Ukraine. The Chancellor and the President of Germany. The president of Brazil. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Prince William. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Minister Veldkamp – De Oranjes were difficult to miss in Doetinchem.

The Vatican expects this Saturday around 170 foreign delegations and the guests are not all practicing Catholic. Then why are they going? Such a funeral is first and foremost a representative obligation and it is also a bit ‘seeing and being seen’: if you are there this Saturday at St. Pietersplein you can count.

In addition, it is also a possibility to network. Will EU committee chairman Ursula von der Leyen finally meet Donald Trump? The two have not spoken to each other since Trumps comeback. According to her spokesperson, she will definitely try it. And does President Zensky get the chance to advocate his case again at Trump, just in the week that the US impossible for him an impossible peace agreement with Russia?

There is so much power around the coffin on Saturday that you would almost forget that it is about who is in it. Pope Francis, no matter how war he was of luxury, adornment and privileges, gets the last tribute of a star. What on a viewer from the Netherlands, where 55 percent of the population call themselves unbelieving and only 20 percent are Catholic, can come across as a deadly mix of tradition and puppet show, is an important moment elsewhere. King’s Day, however, starts in the secular Netherlands an hour later than planned to not let the party stuff coincide with the ceremony in Vatican City.

The guest list of the funeral alone shows that the deceased was a powerful man, or at least was seen as a powerful man. On the list of the one hundred and most powerful people in the world of the American Forbes, Francis was in 6th place in 2018. How much influence does a pope actually have?

Millions of followers

The Pope, which is in first place Soft-Power, an influencer with 1.4 billion supporters, almost one fifth of the world’s population. On X and Bluesky he has millions of followers (@pontifex). When the pope says something, debate arises.

Pope Francis could not prevent the Genocidal War in Gaza or stop, but he was critical about Israel and always focused attention on the fate of the Palestinians who wonder every day how to survive. The Israeli President Roman Herzog expressed condolences, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not.

A pope cannot prevent climate change itself, but his voice strengthens the choir of the activists. Francis’ predecessor Benedict XVI was already called ‘De Groene Paus’. Francis, concluded researchers in Tilburg, you can rightly call the only real ‘climate break’: he often wrote and spoke about it: also for non-believers. The Catholic Joe Biden saw Francis not only as a spiritual leader, the ‘climate break’ was also an ally in the struggle for green policy for him.

A pope cannot prevent climate change itself, but his voice strengthens the choir of the activists

Francis was a pronounced political pope. He called on the world in 2013 to fast a day in protest against possible American air strikes on Syria. He traveled to Lampedusa to draw attention to the fate of migrants-the Vatican was against the Turkey deal. When he improved the religious relations with China, he was standing on a reprimand of the first Trump government.

A sign of papal power is also the struggle for directions that ignites over his successor. It matters what a pope finds and where he comes from. African Catholics strive for a first black pope. Conservative American Catholics of the Maga school, think JD Vance, would like to see a pope who embraces their conservative agenda. Francis was much too progressive for them.

In addition to well -known world citizen with great visibility in the media, the pope is also the leader of a strongly hierarchically guided organization with branches throughout the world. The pope therefore also has institutional power.

And then he is also a formal player in diplomatic traffic. The holy chair has diplomatic relations with almost all countries in the world -also with countries where hardly any Catholics live. Moreover, the chair is permanent listener at the United Nations. There is no religious leader with a similar status.

Diplomatic network

Of the 193 countries that are members of UN, 184 have diplomatic relations with the holy chair. Only the US with 188 countries have an even larger diplomatic network. Earlier this month, Franciscus appointed a new man for the Netherlands, the Frenchman Jean-Marie Speich, who previously maintained relations with Slovenia. The nunciature is of course located in The Hague.

« The pope has a huge moral influence, » says the Dutch ambassador at the chair, Annemieke Ruigrok. « With 4.4 square kilometers smaller than the city center of Amsterdam and the Vatican, Vatican City has no army, but for 1.4 billion people it is of great importance what the pope says. The secular Netherlands is the exception, not the rule in that regard. »

The Vatican has a network of clergymen to the furthest corners

The Vatican is an active lobbyist within the UN and it is for the Netherlands, explains Ruigrok, important to take note of it. In addition, the Vatican has a great information position. « The Vatican has a network of clergymen to the furthest corners. So if you want to know something about events in a remote area where you don’t have contacts yourself, you make contact with the nunc. » For example, one of the bishops in Syria grew up in the same village as the new rulers – that gives you an information jump.

When it was restless in Venezuela a few years ago, the Netherlands tried through the Vatican to exert political influence there, says Ruigrok. « There were bishops in Venezuela who still have influence. »

Relations with all those states are run from Vatican City by a separate department of the State Secretariat. The chair does not have a formal ‘Foreign Minister’, because, in the Vatican it is said ‘the church has no abroad’.

Support

After the large -scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pope visited the Russian ambassador, called President Zensky and sent two cardinals to Kyiv as a token of support. The pope received criticism in those days because he was convicted of the aggression, but President Putin did not mention.

The pope, Ruigrok explains, was stuck between two interests. He attaches great importance to good contact with other religions. In 2016 there had been a meeting between a Catholic pope and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church for the first time since the separation of the church of 1054. Later Franciscus became harder in his criticism and he called the Patriarch « Putin’s altar boy. »

The Vatican plays a role in repatriating Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. The Vatican would also have presented himself as a mediator in the first weeks after the invasion.

The Vatican is also often asked to mediate. When President Obama wanted to start relations with Cuba again, he called in the help of the Holy chair. Pope Francis, the Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega and State Secretary Pietro Parolin, played an important role as a mediator. The pope was a neutral body that was familiar with both parties. At the end of 2014, the US and Cuba reached an agreement.

Peace

Pope Johannes XXIII (1958-1963) was involved in the Cuba crisis in 1962. After consultation with Moscow and Washington, he addressed the world with a peace message, which was published in newspapers and was read on Radio Vatican. He also wrote a letter to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. In this way, the pope would have contributed to the relaxation of the crisis at the height of the stress between the two nuclear powers.

Relaxation between East and West was the life’s work of the popular John Paul II (1978 -2005). He was the first pope from Communist Eastern Europe and he used his popularity and his own experiences under communism to support the resistance to communist rulers, including in his home country Poland. With US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Michaël Gorbachev, he is a small group of leaders who played a leading role in ending the Cold War.

Just pay attention if there will soon be white smoke.

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