WHEN THE Vatican state participates in the international system, “religious freedom is endangered, women’s lives are placed at risk and public health efforts are hampered,’’ Jon O’Brien, president of the liberal Catholics for a Free Choice group, has said.
In a statement marking the 80th anniversary of the Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and Italy, he said “since then, various popes have expanded the political reach of this tiny area, gaining recognition and influence at the UN”.
The Vatican was the only non-member state to hold permanent observer status at the UN, he said. This allowed it “to have some state privileges . . . such as being able to speak and vote at UN conferences. No other religious body is granted this elevated status”.
He added that it was represented at these meetings by the hierarchy “whose views are in no way reflective of the views of the one billion-plus Catholics the world over. And when others object to the hierarchy’s policies, the Vatican’s representatives denounce such objections as anti-Catholic or anti-religious”.
At the UN, the Vatican’s “opposition to policies that promote reproductive health, including . . . its opposition to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, overshadows the good work done by many members of the church’’.
He said the Vatican’s claims to statehood can change depending on the circumstances and recently it “claimed statehood to ask for diplomatic immunity from sex abuse cases in the US while denying statehood to refuse co-operation with the International Criminal Court”.
