Nuncio

Nuncio (pronounced nuhn-shee-oh, nuhn-see-oh or noo-see-oh)

(1) In the Roman Catholic Church, the ecclesiastic title of a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a foreign court, capital or international organization, ranking above an internuncio and accorded a rank equivalent to an accredited ambassador.

(2) By extension, one who bears a message; a messenger.

(3) Any member of any Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Galicia (of the Austrian Partition), Duchy of Warsaw, Congress Poland, or Grand Duchy of Posen (historic reference only).

1520–1530: From the older Italian nuncio (now nunzio) from the Classical Latin nūncius & nūntius (messenger) of uncertain origin.  It may be from the primitive Indo-European root neu- (to shout) or new (to nod), same source as the Latin nuō, the Ancient Greek νεύω (neúō) (to beckon, nod) and the Old Irish noid (make known).  The alternative view is it was contracted from noventius, from an obsolete noveō, from novus.  Nuncio, nunciature & nuncioship are nouns and nunciotist is an adjective; the noun plural is nuncios but according to the text trawlers, the more frequently used plural is nunciature ((1)the status or rank of a nuncio, (2) the building & staff of a nuncio and (3) the term of service of a nuncio) which seems strange and may reflect the selection of documents scanned. Nunciatory & nunciate are unrelated (directly) and are form of the Latin Latin nuncius & nuntius (messenger, message).

In diplomatic service

An apostolic nuncio (also known as a papal nuncio or nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as envoy or permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or international organization and is head of the Apostolic Nunciature, the equivalent of an embassy or high-commission.  The Holy See is legally distinct from the Vatican City, an important theological distinction for the Vatican although one without practical significance for the states to which they’re accredited.  Most nuncios have been bishops or Archbishops and, by convention, in historically Catholic countries, the nuncio usually enjoys seniority in precedence, appointed ex officio as dean of the diplomatic corps.  Between 1965 and 1991, the term pro-nuncio was applied to a representative of full ambassadorial rank accredited to a country that did not accord precedence and de jure deanship of the diplomatic corps and in countries with which Holy See does not have diplomatic ties, an apostolic delegate may be sent to act as liaison with the local church.  Apostolic delegates have the same ecclesiastical rank as nuncios, but no diplomatic status except those which the country may choose to extend.

Der Apostolische Nuntius (Apostolic Nuncios) to Germany leaving the presidential palace  of Generalfeldmarshall Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of the Weimar Republic 1918-1933): Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (1876–1958, later Pope Pius XII 1939-1958), October 1927 (left) and Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo (1873–1946), May 1930 (right).

The above photograph of Archbishop Pacelli was central to what proved a fleeting literary scandal.  In 1999, journalist John Cornwell (b 1940) published Hitler's Pope, a study of the actions of Pacelli from the decades before the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 until the end of the Third Reich in 1945.  As a coda, the final years of the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) were also examined.  Cornwell’s thesis was that in his pursuit of establishing a centralized power structure with which the rule of the Holy See could be enforced over the entire church around the world, Pacelli so enfeebled the Roman Catholic Church in Germany that the last significant opposition to absolute Nazi rule was destroyed, leaving Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) able to pursue his goals which include military conquest and ultimately, what proved to be the attempted genocide of the Jews of Europe.  For a historian that would be an indictment damning enough but Cornwell went further, citing documentary sources which he claimed established Pacelli’s anti-Semitism.  More controversially still, the author was critical of Pius' conduct during the war, arguing that he did little to protect the Jews and did not even loudly protest against the Holocaust.  

Critical response to Hitler’s Pope was, as one might imagine, varied and understandably did focus on the most incendiary of the claims: the lifetime of anti-Semitism and the almost lineal path the book tracked from Pacelli’s diplomacy (which few deny did smooth Hitler’s path to power) to Auschwitz.  The consensus of professional historians was that case really wasn’t made and by 1933 Pacelli’s view of Hitler as (1) a staunch anti-communist and (2) likely to provide German with the sort of rule Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) had delivered in Italy, then the only model of a fascist regime and one with which the Holy See had successfully negotiated a concordat (a convention or treaty) which resolved issues which between the papacy and the Italian state had festered since 1870.  Pacelli was hardly the only notable figure to misjudge Hitler and few in 1933 anticipated anything like the events which would unfold in Europe over the next dozen years.  The critics however were legion and in the years after publication Cornwell did concede that in the particular circumstances of wartime Italy the “scope” for a pope to act was limited and he needed carefully to consider what might be the repercussions for others were his words to be careless; he was at the time playing for high stakes.  Cornwell though did not retreat from his criticism of the pope’s post-war reticence to discuss the era and appeared still to regard the documents he’d quoted and the events he described as evidence of anti-Semitism.

An example of how the book enraged Pius XII’s Praetorian Guard was the brief controversy about the cover, the allegation being there had been a “constructive manipulation” of the image used on the hardback copies of the US edition, the argument being the juxtaposition of the title “Hitler’s Pope” with the photograph of him leaving the presidential palace in Berlin implied the image dated from March 1939, the month Pacelli was elected Pope.  To add to the deception, it was noted the photograph (actually from 1927) had been cropped to remove (1) one soldier of the guard obviously not in a Nazi-era uniform and (2) the details identifying an automobile as obviously from the 1920s.  Whether any reader deduced from the cropped image that the pope and Führer (the two never met) had just been scheming and plotting together isn’t known but the correct details of the photograph were printed on back flap of the jacket, as in common in publishing.

Pius XII giving a blessing, the Vatican, 1952.  The outstretched arms became his signature gesture after his visit to South America in 1934.  Pius XI (1857–1939; pope 1922-1939), even them grooming his successor, appointed him papal legate to the International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires and his itinerary included Rio de Janeiro where he saw the Redēmptōre statue (Christ the Redeemer) which had been dedicated three years earlier.    

That storm in a tea cup quickly subsided and people were left to draw their own conclusions on substantive matters but it was unfortunate the sensational stuff drew attention from was a genuinely interesting aspect explored in the book: Pacelli’s critical role in the (re-)creation of the papacy and the Roman Curia as a centralized institution with absolute authority over the whole Church.  This was something which had been evolving since Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) convened the First Vatican Council (Vatican I; 1869-1870) and under subsequent pontificates the process had continued but it was the publication of Pacelli’s codification of canon law in 1917 which made this administratively (and legally) possible.  Of course, any pope could at any time have ordered a codification but it was only in the late nineteenth century that modern communications made it possible for instructions issued from the Vatican to arrive within days, hours or even minutes, just about anywhere on the planet.  Previously, when a letter could take months to be delivered, a central authority simply would not function effectively.  It was the 1917 codification of canon law which realised the implications of the hierarchical theocracy which the Roman church had often appeared to be but never quite was because until the twentieth century such things were not possible and (as amended), it remains the document to which the curia cling in their battles.  Although, conscious of the mystique of their two-thousand year history, the Holy See likes people to imagine things about which they care have been unchanged for centuries, it has for example been only sine the codification that the appointment of bishops is vested exclusively in the pope, that battle with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still in an uneasy state of truce.

Concord & Concorde

Concord or Concorde (pronounced kon-kawrd)

(1) Agreement between persons, groups, nations, etc.; concurrence in attitudes, feelings, etc; unanimity; accord; agreement between things; mutual fitness; harmony.

(2) In formal grammar, a technical rule about the agreement of words with one another (case, gender, number or person).

(3) A treaty; compact; covenant.

(4) In music, a stable, harmonious combination of tones; a chord requiring no resolution.

(5) As concordat, under Roman-Catholic canon law, a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Church and the state in matters that concern both.

(6) In law, an agreement between the parties regarding land title in reference to the manner in which it should pass, being an acknowledgment that the land in question belonged to the complainant (obsolete).

(7) A popular name for locality, commercial operations and products such as ships, cars etc.

(8) In horticulture, a variety of sweet American grape, named circa 1853 after Concord, Massachusetts, where the variety was developed.

1250-1300: From the Middle English and twelfth century Old French concorde (harmony, agreement, treaty) & concorder, from the Latin concordare & concordia, (harmonious), from concors (of the same mine; being in agreement with) (genitive concordis (of the same mind, literally “hearts together”)).  The construct was an assimilated form of com (con-) (with; together) + cor (genitive cordis (heart) from the primitive Indo-European root kerd (heart)).  The "a compact or agreement" in the sense of something formal (usually in writing) dates from the late fifteenth century, an extension of use from the late fourteenth century transitive verb which carried the sense "reconcile, bring into harmony".  From circa 1400 it had been understood to mean "agree, cooperate, thus a transfer of sense from the Old French & Latin forms.  Concorde was the French spelling which eventually was adopted also by the British for the supersonic airliner after some years of linguistic squabble.  Concord is a noun & verb, concordance & concordat are nouns, concorded & concording are verbs and concordial & concordant are adjectives; the noun plural is concords.

The Concorde and other SSTs

Promotional rendering of Concorde in British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) livery.  BOAC was the UK's national carrier between 1940-1974 when merged with British European Airways (BEA) to form British Airways (BA).

Concorde was an Anglo-French supersonic airliner that first flew in 1969 and operated commercially between 1976-2003.  It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound (Mach 2.04; 1,354 mph (2,180 km/h)) and seated 92-128 passengers.  Man breaking the sound barrier actually wasn’t modern; the cracking of a whip, known for thousands of years, is the tip passing through the sound barrier and engineers were well aware of the problems caused by propellers travelling that fast but it wasn’t until 1947 that a manned aircraft exceeded Mach 1 in controlled flight (although it had been achieved in deep dives though not without structural damage).  The military were of course immediately interested but so were those who built commercial airliners, intrigued at the notion of transporting passengers at supersonic speed, effectively shrinking the planet.  By the late 1950s, still recovering from the damage and costs of two world wars, France and the UK were never going to be in a position to be major players in the space-race which would play-out between the US and USSR but civil aviation did offer possibilities for both nations to return to the forefront of the industry.  France, in the early days of flight had been the preeminent power (a legacy of that being words like fuselage and aileron) and UK almost gained an early lead in passenger jets but the debacle of the de Havilland Comet (1949) had seen the Boeing 707 (1957) assume dominance.  The supersonic race was thought to be the next horizon and the UK’s Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) was in 1956 commissioned with the development of a Supersonic Transport (SST) for commercial use.

The committee’s early research soon established it was going to be an expensive undertaking so the UK sought partners; the US declined but in 1962 the UK and France signed the Anglo-French Concorde agreement, a framework for cooperation in the building of the one SST.  The choice of name actually came some months after the engineering concord was signed, the manufacturers submitting to the UK cabinet the names Concord and Concorde, it being thought desirable to have something which sounded and meant the same in both languages (the French had already agreed it shouldn’t be called the Super-Caravelle the project name for a smaller SST on which some work had been done in 1960).  The other suggestions put to cabinet were Alliance or Europa.  In the cabinet discussions in London, Alliance was thought to be "too military" and Europa offended those Tories who still hankered for the "splendid isolation" which had been the British view on European matters in the previous century.  Even in the nineteenth century age of Pax Britannica splendid isolation had been somewhat illusory but in the Tory Party the words still exerted a powerful pull.  

Concorde 001 roll-out, Toulouse Blagnac airport, 11 December 1967.

There is some dispute about whether the cabinet ever formally agreed to use the French spelling but, like much in English-French relations over the centuries, the entente proved not always cordial and the name was officially changed to Concord by UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (later First Earl Stockton, 1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) in response to him feeling slighted by Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1958-1969) when Le President vetoed the UK’s application to join the European Economic Community (the EEC which evolved into the present Day EU of which the UK was a member between 1973-2020).  However, the Labour party won office in the 1964 general election and by the time of the roll-out in Toulouse in 1967, the UK’s Minister for Technology, Tony Benn (Anthony Wedgwood Benn, 1925–2014, formerly the second Viscount Stansgate) announced he was changing the spelling back to Concorde.  There were not many eurosceptics in the (old) Labour Party back then.

Concorde taking off, 1973 Paris Air Show, the doomed Tupolev Tu-144 is in the foreground.

The engineering challenges were overcome and in 1969, some months before the moon landing, Concorde made its maiden flight and, in 1973, a successful demonstration flight was performed at the same Paris air show at which its Soviet competitor Tupolev Tu-144 crashed.  Impressed, more than a dozen airlines placed orders but within months of the Paris show, the first oil shock hit and the world entered a severe recession; the long post-war boom was over.  A quadrupling in the oil price was quite a blow for a machine which burned 20% more fuel per mile than a Boeing 747 yet typically carried only a hundred passengers whereas the Jumbo could be configured for between four and five hundred.  That might still have been viable had have oil prices remained low and a mass-market existed of people willing to pay a premium but with jet fuel suddenly expensive and the world in recession, doubts existed and most orders were immediately cancelled.

Eventually, only twenty were built, operated only by BOAC (BEA/BA) and Air France, early hopes of mass-production never materialized; while orders were taken for over a hundred with dozens more optioned, the contracts were soon cancelled.  By 1976 only four nations remained as prospective buyers: Britain, France, China, and Iran; the latter two never took up their orders and by the time Concorde entered service, the US had cancelled their supersonic project and the Soviet programme was soon to follow.  Even without the oil shocks of the 1970s and the more compelling economics of wide-bodied airliners like the Boeing 747, there were problems, the noise of the sonic boom as the speed of sound was exceeded meaning it was impossible to secure agreement for it to operate over land at supersonic speed.  Accordingly, most of its time was spent overflying the Atlantic and Pacific and BA and Air France sometimes made profit from Concorde only because the British and French governments wrote off the development costs.  Concorde was an extraordinary technical achievement but existed only because the post-war years in the UK and France were characterised by national projects undertaken by nationalised industries.  Under orthodox modern (post Reagan cum Thatcher) economics, such a thing could never happen. 

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, bound for New York, crashed on take-off out of Paris, killing all one-hundred and nine souls on board and four on the ground. It was the only fatal accident involving Concorde, the cause determined to be debris on the runway which entered an engine, causing catastrophic damage.  In April 2003, both Air France and British Airways announced that they would retire Concorde later that year citing low passenger numbers following the crash, the slump in air travel following the 9/11 attacks and rising maintenance costs.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998)

Fictional works are usually constructed cognizant of physical reality and technological innovations have always influenced what's possible in plot-lines.  The cell phone for example offered many possibilities but also rendered some situations either impossible or improbable (although Hollywood has sometimes found either of those no obstacle in a screenplay).  The retirement of Concorde also had to be noted.  Not only had it long been used as a symbol of wealth but there was also the speed so plot-lines which included the relativities of the duration of commercial supersonic versus subsonic trans-Atlantic travel were suddenly no loner possible.  Lindsay Lohan's line in The Parent Trap (1998) since 2003 (and for the foreseeable future) is a relic of the Concorde era.     

Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO reporting name: Charger).

The Tu-144 was the USSR’s SST and it was the first to fly, its maiden flight in 1968 some months before Concorde and sixteen were built.  It was also usually ahead of the Anglo-French development, attaining supersonic speed twelve weeks earlier and entering commercial service in 1975 but safety and reliability concerns doomed the project and its reputation never recovered from the 1973 crash.  The Soviet carrier Aeroflot introduced a regular Moscow-Almaty service but only a few dozen flights were ever completed, the Tu-144 withdrawn after a second crash in 1978 after which it was used only for cargo until 1983 when the remaining fleet was grounded.  It was later used to train Soviet cosmonauts and had a curious post-cold war career when chartered by NASA for high-altitude research.  The final flight was in 1999.

Boeing 2707.

While perfecting supersonic military aircraft during the early 1950s, Americans had explored the idea of SSTs as passenger aircraft and had concluded that while it was technically possible, in economic terms such a thing could never be made to work and that four-engined jets like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC8 were the future of commercial aviation.  However, the announcement of the development of Concorde and the Soviet SST stirred the Kennedy White House into funding what was essentially a vanity project proving the technical superiority of US science and engineering.  Boeing won the competition to design an SST and, despite also working on the 747 and the space programme, it gained a high priority and the 2707 was projected to be the biggest, fastest and most advanced of all the SSTs, seating up to three-hundred, cruising at Mach 3 and configured with a swing-wing.  Cost, complexity and weight doomed that last feature and the design was revised to use a conventional delta shape.  But, however advanced US engineering and science might have been, US accountancy was better still and what was clearly an financially unviable programme was in 1971 cancelled even before the two prototypes had been completed.

Lockheed L-2000.

Lockheed also entered the government-funded competition to design a US SST.  Similar to the Boeing concept in size, speed and duration, it eschewed the swing-wing because, despite the aerodynamic advantages, the engineers concluded what Boeing would eventually admit: that the weight, cost and complexity acceptable in military airframes, couldn’t be justified in a civilian aircraft.  As the military-industrial complex well knew, the Pentagon was always more sanguine about spending other people's money (OPM) than those people were about parting with their own.  Lockheed instead used a slightly different compromise: the compound delta.  After the competition, Boeing and Lockheed were both selected to continue to the prototype stage but in 1966 Boeing’s swing-wing design was preferred because its performance was in most aspects superior and it was quieter; that it was going to be more expensive to produce wasn’t enough to sway the government, things being different in the 1960s.  Reality finally bit in 1971.

Depiction of a Boom Overture.

In mid-2021 US airline United announced plans to acquire a fleet of fifteen new supersonic airliners which they expected to be in service by 2029.  It wasn’t clear from the press release what was the most ambitious aspect of the programme: (1) that the Colorado company called Boom, which has yet to achieve supersonic flight, would be able to produce even one machine by 2029, (2) that the aircraft can be delivered close to the budgeted US$200 million unit cost, (3) that what United describe as “improvements in aircraft design since Concorde” will reduce and mitigate the sonic boom, (4) that it won’t be “any louder than other modern passenger jets while taking off, flying over land and landing”, (5) that sufficient passengers will be prepared to pay a premium to fly at Mach 1.7 in a new and unproven airframe built by a company with no record in the industry or that (6) Greta Thunberg (b 2003) will believe Boom which says Overture will operate as a "net-zero carbon aircraft".

Unlikely to approve: Greta Thunberg.

The suggestion is the Overture will run on "posh biodiesel" made from anything from waste cooking fat to specially grown high-energy crops although whether this industry can by 2029 be scaled-up to produce what’s required to service enough of the aviation industry to make either project viable isn’t clear.  Still, if not, Boom claims "power-to-liquid" processes by which renewable energy such as solar or wind power is used to produce liquid fuel will make up any shortfall.  Boom does seem a heroic operation: they expect the Overture to be profitable for airlines even if tickets are sold for the same price as a standard business-class ticket.  One way or another, the path the Boom Overture follows over the next few years is going to become a standard case-study in university departments although whether that's in marketing, engineering or accountancy might depend matters beyond Boom's control.

Abnegate

Abnegate (pronounced ab-ni-geyt)

(1) To refuse or deny oneself (privileges, pleasure, rights, conveniences etc); reject; renounce.

(2) To relinquish; give up.

1650–1660: From the Latin abnegātus (denied), past participle of abnegāre (to deny), the construct being ab- + negate.  The Ab- prefix was from the Latin ab-, from the primitive Indo-European hepo (off, away) and a doublet of apo- and off-.  The alternative prefixes were (1) a- (with root words starting with m, p, or v) & (2) abs- (with root words starting with c or t).  Ab- was used to convey (1) “from” & (2) “away from” & “outside of”.  Negate was from then Latin negātus, past participle of negāre (to deny, refuse, decline), reduced from nec-aiare (or some similar form), the construct being nec (not, nor) + aiere (to say).  Abnegate is a verb, abnegated & abnegating are verbs & adjectives, abnegation & abnegator are nouns; the most common noun plural is abnegations.

Abnegate should not be confused with abdicate.  Dating (perhaps surprisingly) only from 1541, abdicate was from the Latin abdicātus (renounced), perfect passive participle of abdicō (renounce, reject, disclaim), the construct being ab + dicō (proclaim, dedicate, declare), akin to dīcō (say).  Abdicate now (except informally) is used almost exclusively to refer to a reigning monarch renouncing their throne in favour of a successor (chosen or imposed) but was once applied with greater latitude.  Between the mid-sixteenth & early nineteenth centuries, it was used to mean “to disclaim and expel from the family” (as a parent might of a child) and when this is done now, one is said to have disowned (as a statement of family & social relations) or disinherited (at law in the matter of inheritance).  Between the mid-sixteenth & late seventeenth centuries it could mean “formally to separate oneself from or to divest oneself of”.  Between the early seventeenth & late eighteenth centuries, it could mean “to depose” which meant (1) remove from office suddenly and forcefully (ie what might now be thought a forced (or “constructive”) abdication or (2) in law, to testify to or give evidence under oath (usually in writing).  Between the mid-sixteenth & late seventeenth centuries it could mean “to reject; to cast off; to discard (an object, an association, an obligation etc).

The modern meaning has existed since the mid-sixteenth century (though not commonly used for another two-hundred odd years) and means “to surrender, renounce or relinquish, as sovereign power; to withdraw definitely from filling or exercising, as a high office, station, dignity.  This can apply to anyone personally exercising sovereign authority (kings, queens, popes, tsars et al) and is the act of renouncing the throne (and thus sovereignty).  Procedurally, most monarchies have detailed administrative procedures (and abdication has of late assumed a new popularity) to ensure the transfer from old to new is legally identical in consequence to what happens in the case of a sovereign dying but the lawyers have previously resolved cases where formalities were lacking.  In the matter of James VII and II (1633–1701; King of England and King of Ireland (as James II) & King of Scotland (as James VII) 1685-1688 who left the throne in the circumstances of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the act of “abandonment” or “forfeiture”, even in the absence of any formal mechanism, was held to be an abdication, albeit one that might (analogously with use in other aspects of law) be styled a “constructive abdication”.

Pope Benedict XVI in Popemobile (Mercedes-Benz ML 430 (W163)), 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, 2008.

Although the term abdication is sometimes used of papal resignations, the Vatican is emphatic the word is not used in any official documents of the Church.  This imprecise use of abdication is attributable to the Holy See being (as well as the universal government of the multi-national Roman Catholic Church) the authority ruling the Vatican City State, a sovereign, independent territory since the Lateran Concordat of 1929.  The Pope is thus the ruler of both Vatican City State and the Holy See; collectively an absolute theocracy.  It’s thus a fine point and were the Holy See to prefer “abdicate” to “resign”, it would seem not a substantive change and the fact the office is elected and not dynastic is not significant, Holy Roman emperors and the some early kings of England all elected. 

Pope Benedict XVI in Popemobile, Seravalle stadium, San Marino, 2011.

What none can deny is that the Holy See has a long (if of late infrequent) history of precedent, five popes between the tenth & fifteenth centuries resigning with a further four between the third & eleventh possibly having done so.  Mysteriously, there’s even another event which may or may not have been a resignation and indeed the subject may not even have been a pope but rather an anti-pope, somewhat analogous with the idea the MAGA Republicans have of Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) being an anti-president.  The revisions to canon law in 1917 and 1983 only clarified certain aspects of the resignation process and had no effect on anything definitional.  Thus, what Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) did when renouncing office in 2013 was an act of abnegation and not an abdication and that he chose subsequently to be styled pope emeritus remains of no legal or constitutional significance.

Concordat

Concordat (pronounced kon-kawr-dat)

(1) An agreement or compact, especially an official one Agreement between things; mutual fitness; harmony.

(2) A formal agreement between two parties, especially between a church and a state.

(3) In Roman Catholic canon law, a pact, treaty or agreement between the Holy See and a secular government regarding the regulation of church matters.  In early use it was sometimes a personal agreement between pope and sovereign.

1610–1620: From the the sixteenth century French conciordat, replacing concordate from the Medieval Latin concordātum (something agreed), a noun use of the Latin concordatum, neuter of concordātus, past participle of concordāre (to be in agreement; to be of one mind), from concors (genitive concordis) (of one mind)  from concors (genitive concordis) (of one mind).  The original definition in Roman Catholic canon law was "an agreement between Church and state on a mutual matter".  Concordat is a noun, the noun plural is concordats and concordatory is an adjective.  Concord dates from 1250-1300, from the Middle English and Old French concorde from the Latin concordia, (harmonious), genitive concordis (of the same mind, literally “hearts together”).  Concordat is a noun and concordant an adjective; the noun plural is concordats.

The Duce, Benito Mussolini (1883–1945; Prime Minister of Italy 1922-1943) and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934; Cardinal Secretary of State 1914-1930) signing the Lateran Concordat in 1929.

The concordat, a formal agreement between the Holy See and a sovereign state, dates from a time when the relationship between the Church and sovereign entities was different than what now exists.  Indeed, the dynamics of the relationships have changed much over the centuries but, at any given moment, concordats have always been practical application of Church-state relations and, like all politics, were an expression of the art of the possible, a concordat not necessarily what a pope wanted, but certainly the best he could at the time manage, the best known tending to be the controversial, notably (1) the treaty of 1801 with Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815), (2) the Lateran Accord agreed in 1929 with Mussolini which created the modern city-state of the Vatican and which was the final step in Italian unification and (3) The Reich Concordat of 1933, the accommodation with Hitler’s Germany which was supposed to resolve the issue of relations which had been unsettled since Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) time but which Berlin repeatedly violated.

La Signature du Concordat aux Tuileries 15 juillet 1801 (The Signing of the Concordat at the Tuileries, 15 July 1801) (1803-1804) by François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770–1837) (titled as Baron Gérard in 1809); the original hangs in the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles.  

At least those violations weren’t wholly unexpected.  Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (1876–1958; Pope Pius XII 1939-1958) had been Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador; 1926-1929) to Berlin and was Cardinal Secretary of State (foreign minister; 1930–1939) when the Reich Concordat was signed and he was under no illusion.  When it was said to him that the Nazis were unlikely to honor the terms, he replied with a smile that was true but that they would probably not violate all its articles “at the same time”.  The sardonic realism would serve the cardinal well in the years ahead when often he would required to choose the lesser of many competing evils.  Some though, for a while, retained hope if not faith.  As late as 1937, Archbishop Conrad Gröber (1872–1948; Archbishop of Freiburg 1932-1948) thought the Reich Concordat proof that “…two powers, totalitarian in their character, can find agreement, if their domains are separate”.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), another cynic though then still a realist, viewed the concordat much as Hermann Göring (1893-1946) would in his trial at Nuremberg describe all the treaties executed by the Nazis: “so much toilet paper”.  Actually an admirer of the Roman Catholic Church which had survived two-thousand years of European rough and tumble, he was resigned to a co-existence but one on his terms, noting the day would come when there would be a reckoning with “those black crows”.

Two of the twentieth century's great survivors, German vice chancellor Franz von Papen (1879-1969) (second from left) and the Holy See's secretary of state Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) (head of the table) meet in the Vatican on 20 July 1933 to sign the Reischskonkordat which some six weeks later was ratified by the Nazi-dominated Reichstag (the German parliament).  The cardinal calculated the Church would gain from the arrangement but had few illusions about the Nazis.  Upon being told the Nazis would probably violate the agreement, he agreed but observed they probably wouldn't violate all of the clauses "at the same time".  Later when being driven through Rome where he saw two men fighting in the street, he remarked to his companion "I imagine they've probably just signed a concordat".

That’s not to say there haven’t always been theorists who wandered a bit beyond the possible.  After the Reformation, there were those in the Church who held that the Church sits above the state in all things (the “regalist” position), while others (maintaining the “curialist” position) held that although the Church is superior to the state, the Church may grant certain privileges to the state through agreements such as concordats.  In the modern age, the accepted understanding of concordats is that the Church and the various sovereign states are both legal entities able to enter into bilateral agreements.  Concordats are thus no different than other treaties & agreements in that being executed under international law, they are enforceable according to legal principles.  Church and state may in some ways not be co-equal but canon law does recognise the two exist in distinct spheres and is explicit in respecting the bilateral agreements that the Holy See has entered into with other nation-states.  The Code of Canon Law states unambiguously that concordats override any contrary norms in canon law: “The canons of the Code neither abrogate nor derogate from the agreements entered into by the Apostolic See with nations or other political societies. These agreements therefore continue in force exactly as at present, notwithstanding contrary prescripts of this Code.”  This is an unexceptional statement familiar in many constitutional arrangements where two legal systems interact, the need being to define, where conflict may exist, which has precedence and is no more than an application of a legal maxim known to both canon and secular law: pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be honored).  Concordats can both protect and clarify the rights of the Church by precisely defining relationship between the Church and a state, expressed by the Second Vatican Council’s (Vatican II 1962-1965) pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et spes (Joay and Hope) in the statement:

“The Church herself makes use of temporal things insofar as her own mission requires it.  She, for her part, does not place her trust in the privileges offered by civil authority.  She will even give up the exercise of certain rights which have been legitimately acquired, if it becomes clear that their use will cast doubt on the sincerity of her witness or that new ways of life demand new methods.”

In other words, “if you can’t beat them, join them”, or, at least, enter into peaceful co-existence with them, a position in the modern age possible, if not uncontroversial with sovereign and sub-national entities notionally with Catholic majority populations (eg Bavaria 1966, Austria 1969, Italy 1985) but also with countries where Christians exist only as tiny minorities (eg Tunisia 1964, Morocco 1985, Israel 1993).  Nor does a concordat need to be a complete codification, the agreement between the Holy See and Tel Aviv noting that in certain matters, agreement had not been reached and discussions need to continue.  Such “framework” or “stepping-stone” agreements have been in the diplomatic toolkit for centuries but they’re a statement of professed intent and in the decades since there’s been little apparent progress in many of the unresolved matters important to the Holy See regarding physical property in the Holy Land and the “working document” was never ratified by the Israeli parliament (the Knesset).  At least partially filling this diplomatic lacuna was something which has thus far proved a coda to the Holy See’s official recognition in 2012 of the State of Palestine.  In 2015, The Vatican concluded a concordat with “the State of Palestine” (sic), supporting a two-state solution to the conflict between Palestine and Israel “on the basis of the 1967 borders”.  According to Rome, the provisions in the agreement concern technical (ie financial & legal) aspects of the legal status of Catholic facilities and personnel on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  That may be as boringly procedural as it sounds but what’s aroused interest is that the Vatican has refused to publish the text or comment on the details, thus arousing suspicion that the treaty between with the Palestinians might, at least in part, contradict the earlier concordat with Israel.  From Washington to Tel Aviv, many are interested in the small print.

Rome 1929: The Duce reads the Lateran Concordat's small print.

Interestingly, Vatican II struck the term concordat from canon law, apparently in a nod to the Council's declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae (Of the Dignity of the Human Person) which mused on the evolution of a “…different model of relations between the Vatican and various states [which] is still evolving.”  Whatever might have been intended to be the implications of that, it reappeared with the Polish Concordat of 1993 and seems to be here to stay.

Veto

Veto (pronounced vee-toh)

(1) In constitutional law, the power or right vested in one branch of a government to cancel or postpone the decisions, enactments etc of another branch, especially the right of a president, governor, or other chief executive to reject bills passed by a legislature.

(2) The exercise of this right.

(3) In the UN Security Council, a non-concurring vote by which one of the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, UK & US) can overrule the actions or decisions of the meeting on most substantive matters.  By practice and convention, in the context of geopolitics, this is "the veto power".

(4) Emphatically to prohibit something.

1620–1630: From the Latin vetō (I forbid), the first person singular present indicative of vetāre (forbid, prohibit, oppose, hinder (perfect active vetuī, supine vetitum)) from the earlier votō & votāre, from the Proto-Italic wetā(je)-, from the primitive Indo-European weth- (to say).  In ancient Rome, the vetō was the technical term for a protest interposed by a tribune of the people against any measure of the Senate or of the magistrates.  As a verb, use dates from 1706.  Veto is a noun, verb and adjective; vetoer is a noun and in the language of the diplomatic toolbox are the (rare) related forms preveto, reveto, unveto, nonveto & vetoless.

The best known power of veto is probably that exercised by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).  The UNSC is an organ of the UN which uniquely possesses the authority to issue resolutions binding upon member states and its powers include creating peacekeeping missions, imposing international sanctions and authorizing military action.  The UNSC has a standing membership of fifteen, five of which (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA) hold permanent seats, the remaining ten elected by the general assembly on a regional basis for two year terms.  The permanent five can veto any substantive resolution including the admission of new UN member states or nominations for UN Secretary-General (the UN’s CEO).

The term “united nations” was used as early as 1943, essentially as a synonym for the anti-Axis allies and was later adopted as the name for the international organization which replaced the League of Nations which had in the 1930s proved ineffectual in its attempts to maintain peace.  When the UN was created, its structural arrangements were designed to try to avoid the problems which beset the League of Nations which, under its covenant, could reach decisions only by unanimous vote and this rule applied both to the League's council (which the specific responsibility of maintaining peace) and to the all-member assembly.  In effect, each member state of the League had the power of the veto, and, except for procedural matters and a few specified topics, a single "nay" killed any resolution.  Learning from this mistake, the founders of the UN decided all its organs and subsidiary bodies should make decisions by some type of majority vote (although when dealing with particularly contentious matters things have sometimes awaited a resolution until a consensus emerges).

The creators of the United Nations Charter always conceived that three victorious “great powers” of the Second World War ((1) the UK, (2) US & (3) USSR), because of their roles in the establishment of the UN, would continue to play important roles in the maintenance of international peace and security and thus would have permanent seats on the Security Council with the power to veto resolutions.  To this arrangement was added (4) France (at the insistence of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who wished to re-build the power of France as a counterweight to Germany and (5) China, included because Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1940 US president 1933-1945) was perceptive in predicting the country’s importance in the years to come.

This veto is a power however only in the negative.  Not one of the permanent members nor even all five voting in (an admittedly improbable) block can impose their will in the absence of an overall majority vote of the Security Council.  Nor is an affirmative vote from one or all of the permanent five necessary: If a permanent member does not agree with a resolution but does not wish to cast a veto, it may choose to abstain, thus allowing the resolution to be adopted if it obtains the required majority among the fifteen.

The Vatican, the CCP and the bishops

A well-known and economically significant niche in modern Chinese manufacturing is fakes.  Most obvious are fake Rolexes, fake Range Rovers et al but Peking for decades produced fake bishops.  After the Holy See and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sundered diplomatic relations in 1951, papal appointments to Chinese bishoprics were not recognized by Peking which appointed their own.  In retaliation, popes excommunicated the fakes who in turn ignored him, the amusing clerical stand-off lasting until January 2018 when negotiations appeared to produce a face-saving (sort-of) concordat.  As a prelude, Rome retired or re-deployed a number of their bishops in order to make way for new (once-fake) bishops, nominated by the CCP and, in a telling gesture, Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) re-admitted to "full ecclesial communion" seven living Chinese bishops who were ordained before the deal without Vatican approval, and had thus incurred latae sententiae (the act of automatic excommunication).

On 22 September 2018, a provisional agreement was signed.  It (1) cleared the Chinese decks of any bishops (fake or real) not acceptable to either side, (2) granted the CCP the right to nominate bishops (the list created with the help of a CCP-run group called the "Patriotic Catholic Association”) and (3) granted the pope a right of veto.  Although not mentioned by either side, the most important understanding between the parties seemed to be the hints the CCP sent through diplomatic channels that the pope would find their lists of nominees “helpful”.  If so, it deserved to be a secret protocol to the pact but however the sausages were made, it was a diplomatic triumph for Beijing.  Although Rome at the time noted it was a “provisional agreement”, many observed that unless things proved most unsatisfactory, it was doubtful the Holy See would be anxious again to draw attention to the matter; whatever the political or theological implications, to acquiesce to the pope as cipher would diminish the church’s mystique.

Things may be worse even than the cynics had predicted.  In late 2020 the two-year deal handling the appointment of Chinese bishops was extended after an exchange of notes verbales (in diplomatic language, something more formal than an aide-mémoire and less formal than a note, drafted in the third person and never signed), both sides apparently wishing to continue the pact, albeit still (technically) on a temporary basis.  The uneasy entente seems however not to have lasted, Beijing in 2021, through bureaucratic process, acting as if it had never existed by issuing Order No. 15 (new administrative rules for religious affairs) which included an article on establishing a process for the selection of Catholic bishops in China after 1 May 2021.  The new edict makes no mention of any papal role in the process and certainly not a right to approve or veto episcopal appointments in China, the very thing which was celebrated in Rome as the substantive concession gained from the CCP.

Still, Beijing’s new rules have the benefit of clarity and if Pope Francis was under any illusions about the nature or the CCP, he can now enjoy certainty for the remainder of his pontificate.  Order No. 15 requires clergy of the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church (CPCC) to “adhere to the principle of independent and self-administered religion in China” and actively support “the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party” and “the socialist system,” as well as to “practice the core values of socialism.”  They must also promote “social harmony” which is usually interpreted as conformity of thought with those of the CCP (although in recent years that has come increasingly to be identified with the thoughts of Xi Jinping (b 1953; paramount leader of China since 2012) which is historically interesting).  Essentially, the CPCC is to be an arm of the authoritarian CCP regime and formalizing this is the requirement for bishops and priests to be licensed for ministry, much the same process as being allowed to practice as a driving instructor or electrician.

All this is presumably a disappointment to the pope though it’s unlikely to be a surprise to his critics, some of whom, when the agreement was announced in 2018 and upon renewal in 2020, predicted it would be honored by Beijing only while it proved useful for them to weaken the “underground” church and allow the CCP to assert institutional control over the CPCC.  At the time of the renewal, the Vatican issued a statement saying the agreement was “essential to guarantee the ordinary life of the Church in China.”  The CCP doubtlessly agreed with that which is why they have broken the agreement, and, if asked, they would presumably point out that, legally, it really didn’t exist.

Beware of imitations.  Joseph Guo Jincai (b 1968) was in 2010 ordained Bishop of Chengde (Hebei) today without the approval of the pope.  He is a member of the China Committee on Religion and Peace and was appointed a deputy to the thirteenth National People's Congress.  Because of the circumstances of his ordination as a bishop, he was excommunicated latae sententiae but later had the consolation of being elected vice-president of Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.  In September 2018, Pope Francis lifted the excommunication of Joseph Guo Jincai and other six bishops previously appointed by the Chinese government without pontifical mandate.

Politically, one has to admire the CCP’s tactics.  The CCP pursued the 2018 deal only to exterminate the underground Catholic Church which, although for decades doughty in their resistance to persecution by the CCP (including pogroms during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)), were compelled to transfer their allegiance to the CPCC once it received the pope’s imprimatur.  After the agreement, Chinese authorities rounded up underground Catholic clergy, warning that they would defy the pope if they continued baptizing, ordaining new clergy and praying in unregistered churches; most of those persuaded became part of the CPCC and those unconvinced resigned their ministries and returned to private life.  According to insiders, a rump underground movement still exists but it seems the CCP now regard the remnant as a terrorist organization and are pursuing them accordingly.