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.

Apostolic

Apostolic (pronounced ap-uh-stol-ik)

(1) Of or characteristic of an apostle.

(2) Pertaining to or characteristic of the twelve apostles.

(3) Derived from the apostles in regular succession as bishops.

(4) Of or relating to the pope as being chief successor of the apostles.

1540–1550: From the French apostolique (pertaining to, related to, or descended from the apostles), from the Church Latin apostolicus (apostolic), from the Ancient Greek ἀποστολικός (apostolikós) (apostolic), from apostolos.  The derived form apostolical emerged also in the fifteenth century.  The construct in the Church Latin apostolicus was apóstol(os) + -ic.  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Apostolic succession

Apostolic succession is the term describing the method through which the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church is held to derive its unique validity by virtue of an unbroken chain of succession from the twelve apostles (or disciples) of Christ.  The mechanics of this are that every bishop is ordained by a previously ordained bishop and that linkage reaches back two millennia to the apostles.  The purity of apostolic succession is an important part of the mystique of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican maintains the linkage is exclusive to them, the schism of 1534, in which Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) separated the English Church from Rome, sundering also the apostolic succession.  Fearing some doubts might exist, Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) in 1896 delivered Apostolicae Curae, stating all the Church of England’s ordinations were "…absolutely null and utterly void…".

In terms of canon law, it’s not hard to see the pontiff’s point but the English archbishops soon issued their retaliatory Saepius officio, a highly technical piece, offering a kind of elaborate Tu quoque defense which did little except answer questions nobody had asked.  Almost a century later, the Anglicans offered another, admittedly more convincing but still legalistic, argument based on Anglican consecrations since the 1930s being co-performed by bishops recognized by Rome, so, given the effluxion of time, all Anglican bishops were now also in the old Catholic succession; Apostolicae curae, while not invalid, had been rendered obsolete by events, most obviously the bishops in dispute having by then dropped dead.

The view probably never had any chance of being accepted by the Holy See but the Anglicans’ ordination of women and embrace of gay clergy ended all discussion.  In 1998, Cardinal Ratzinger (b 1927; Pope Benedict XVI 2005-2013, pope emeritus since), head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the old Holy Office or Inquisition) issued a statement confirming Leo XIII’s view, adding ominously that anyone who denies such truths "... would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church".  There the matter has since rested.

Cardinal Pell places hands on the head of newly ordained bishop Peter Bryan Wells (b 1963; apostolic nuncio to South Africa and Botswana, apostolic nuncio to Lesotho and Namibiaand & titular Archbishop of Marcianopolis since 2016)  of the United States.  St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican, 19 March 2016.

Cardinal Pell’s appointment as a bishop lies in an unbroken chain of apostolic succession from the twelve apostles of Jesus.  By touch, he’s able to add links to the chain.

 

Ambassador

Ambassador (pronounced am-bas-uh-dawr)

(1) A diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign or state to another as its resident representative (ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary).

(2) A diplomatic official of the highest rank sent by a government to represent it on a temporary mission, as for negotiating a treaty.

(3) A diplomatic official serving as permanent head of a country's mission to the United Nations or some other international organization.

(4) An authorized messenger or representative.

(5) A term for a corporate representative, often the public face(s) of the company, mush favoured by fashion houses etc.

1325-1375: From the Middle English ambassadore, from the Anglo-Norman ambassadeur & ambassateur, from the Old Italian ambassatore (ambassador in the dialectal Italian), from the Old Occitan ambaisador (ambassador), a derivative of ambaissa (service, mission, errand), from the Medieval Latin ambasiator, from the andbahti (service, function), from the Proto-Germanic ambahtiją (service, office), a derivative of the Proto-Germanic ambahtaz (servant), from the Gaulish ambaxtos (servant) which was the source also of the Classical Latin ambactus (vassal, servant, dependent).  The early Proto-Celtic ambaxtos (servant), was from the primitive Indo-European ambhi (drive around), from ambi- (around) + ag- (to drive).  The adjective ambassadorial (of or belonging to an ambassador) dates from 1759.

The spellings ambassador and embassador were used indiscriminately until the nineteenth century, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) curiously continuing, well into the twentieth century, to insist the later was the preferred form in US English long after it had there been abandoned everywhere except in the halls of the State Department.  In diplomatic use, the US government had an interesting history of nomenclature, neither sending nor accrediting foreign ambassadors, having only “ministers”.  The reason for this lies in the origins of the United States as a revolutionary state freeing itself from monarchical tyranny; it thus insisted only on ministers who represented states, not ambassadors who historically were the personal emissaries of sovereigns.  Functionally there was no difference and not infrequently, in in casual use ministers were styled as ambassadors with neither offence or declaration of war following and, having made the political point for a century, after 1893, every minister became instead an ambassador.

Margaret Qualley (b 1994), Venice Film Festival, August 2019, Brand Ambassador for French fashion house Chanel.

Diplomatic ranks since 1961

Diplomatic rank is the system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, the seat at the table at state dinners, the person to whom diplomatic credentials should be presented and the title by which they should be addressed.

The current system of diplomatic ranks was established by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) and the modern ranks are a simplified version of the more elaborate system established by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815).  There are now three senior ranks, two of which remain in use:

Ambassador. An ambassador is a head of mission who is accredited to the receiving country's head of state. They head a diplomatic mission known as an embassy, which is usually headquartered in a chancery in the receiving state's capital, often clustered with others is what’s often styled a “diplomatic quarter”, a feature of town-planning especially associated with cities where physical security is a concern.  A papal nuncio is considered to have ambassadorial rank, and they preside over a nunciature and often, in predominantly Roman Catholic countries are, ex officio, appointed dean of the diplomatic corps.  Between Commonwealth countries, high commissioners are exchanged; they preside over a high commission and enjoy the same diplomatic rank as an ambassador.

Minister. A Minister is a head of mission who is accredited to the receiving country's head of state. A Minister heads a legation rather than an embassy. However, the last legations were upgraded to embassies in the late 1960s, and the rank of Minister is now obsolete.  An envoy or an internuncio was also considered to have the rank of Minister; they’re now granted status ad-hoc but tend to be regarded as being on the level of consular appointments.

None of this should be confused with the long and tangled history of the resident minister, appointments sometimes political, sometimes diplomatic and sometime administrative.  At different times and in different places, it’s meant different things, used essentially to mean whatever the immediate situation demanded and, being outside any formal rules or conventions of diplomacy, flexibility was possible.

A chargé d'affaires en pied (usually styled as chargé d'affairs in everyday use) is a permanent head of mission, accredited by his country's foreign minister to the receiving nation's foreign minister, in cases where the two governments have not reached an agreement to exchange ambassadors.  A chargé d'affaires ad interim is a diplomat who temporarily heads a diplomatic mission in the absence of an ambassador.

A variety of titles exist beneath the formal three such as counsellor, first secretary, second secretary, third secretary, attaché and assistant attaché.  The actual roles discharged vary, indeed, some of these jobs are actually covers for spies or other political operatives and, just as ambassadorships are used often as a rewards for helpful services (such as large campaign donations) or as a temptingly lucrative sinecure to get a potential rival out of the country, the lower appointments have been a dumping ground for troublesome public servants when, for whatever reason, they can’t be sacked.  The diplomatic appointment also determines the description of the architecture.  An ambassador works from (and usually lives in) an embassy where other diplomats (except Commonwealth high commissioners who operate from high commissions) tend to be housed in consulates.  Like ambassador and embassador, the terms ambassy and embassy used to be interchangeable but in each case one prevailed and the other went extinct.  Etymology has no explanation for either case except it was just a pattern of use which emerged and that’s how English evolves.

The word embassy evolved in another way.  It now, institutionally and architecturally, refers to something permanent but, until the late nineteenth century was more often a temporary mission and described a delegation which would return home when its business concluded.  The history is reflected in some terms still used in diplomacy such as "Head of Mission".

Uncle Otto and nephew Eric

Uncle Otto, saluting, Paris 1940.

Because the Third Reich never concluded a peace treaty with Vichy France, diplomatic recognition was not possible under international law so no ambassador was accredited.  However, there was a de-facto ambassador, Hitler appointing Otto Abetz (1903-1958) to the German Embassy in Paris in November 1940, a post he held until July 1944 when diplomatic conditions changed a bit.  As the letters patent made clear, he acted with the full ambassadorial powers.  In July 1949 a French court handed Abetz a twenty-year sentence for crimes against humanity; released in 1954, he died in 1958 in a traffic accident on the Cologne-Ruhr autobahn.

Nephew Eric, taking tea, Canberra 2018.

Otto Abetz was the great uncle of Eric Abetz (b 1958 who between 1994-2022, served as a senator (Liberal Party, Tasmania) in the Australian parliament.  Because of the coincidence of one being born in the same year death visited the other, there was speculation about the transmigration of uncle Otto’s soul to nephew Eric.  Spiritualists however generally agree this would have been impossible because the senator was born on 25 January 1958, his old Nazi relative living until 5 May the same year.  Transmigration was known also as metempsychosis and was an idea most associated in the West with pre-Ancient (archaic) Greece but which may (perhaps concurrently) have origins in Egypt and India.

The American Motors Corporation (AMC) Ambassador was produced in eight generations between 1957-1974 although the name had since 1927 been used by a company which would become part of the ultimately doomed AMC conglomerate.  Emblematic of AMC's unsuccessful attempt to compete with Detroit's big three (General Motors, Chrysler & Ford), the Ambassador was in those years offered variously as an intermediate and full-sized car and this unfortunately culminated it's largest ever iteration being sold as the first oil crisis struck in 1973; the universe shifted and the Ambassador was axed in little more than year.  One footnote in the story is that in 1968, AMC's advertising made much of the Ambassador being the only car in the world, except those from Rolls-Royce, which fitted air-conditioning as standard equipment.  That was a bit of a fudge in that at the time a number of European manufacturers fitted air-conditioning (optional in Europe) to all of at least some of the models they shipped to the US but technically, AMC was correct.

Lindsay Logan, nueva embajadora de Allbirds (the new Allbirds ambassador), possibly on a Wednesday.

In 2022, Allbirds appointed Lindsay Lohan as an ambassador for its "Unexpected Athlete" campaign, focusing on her for the new limited edition of its most successful running shoe to date, the Tree Flyer.  The promotional video issued for the announcement was nicely scripted, beginning with Ms Lohan’s perhaps superfluous admission that as an ambassador for running “I am a little unexpected" before working in a few references to her career in film (showing again a rare sense of comedic timing), fondness for peanut butter cookies and the odd social media faux-pas, many of which she's over the years embraced.  The feature shoe is the "Lux Pink" which includes no plastics.  As a well-known car driver and frequent flyer who has for years lived in an air-conditioned cocoon in Dubai, it’s not clear how far up the chart of conspicuous consumption Ms Lohan has stamped her environmental footprint but US-based footwear and apparel company Allbirds claims its design, production & distribution processes are designed to make its products as eco-friendly as possible.  It is a certified “B Corporation”, a system of private certification of for-profit companies of their "social and environmental performance" conferred by B Lab, a non-profit organization which aims to provide consumers with a reliable way to distinguish the genuinely environmentally active from those which cynically “greenwash”.

Lindsay Lohan, Allbirds “Unexpected Athlete Ambassador”.

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.

Cryptic

Cryptic (pronounced krip-tik)

(1) Deliberately mysterious in meaning; puzzling.

(2) A message which is abrupt; terse; short, ambiguous, obscure (ie the effect rather than the intent).

(3) Of things secret; the occult.

(4) Involving use of a code or cipher etc (the stuff of cryptography).

(5) In zoology, fitted for concealing; serving to camouflage (applied especially to the coloring or shape of animals); living in a cavity or small cave (also as cryptozoic).

(6) In cruciverbalism (the compilation of crosswords), the puzzle, or a clue in such a puzzle, using, in addition to definitions, wordplay such as anagrams, homophones and hidden words to indicate solutions (the “cryptic crossword” usually distinguished from the “standard”, “basic” or “simple”.

(7) In biology, apparently identical, but actually genetically distinct.

(7) In biology, as “cryptic ovulation”, a phenomenon noted in certain species where the female shows no perceptible signals indicating a state of fertility (also as “concealed ovulation”).

1595-1605: From the Late Latin crypticus, from the Ancient Greek κρυπτικός (kruptikós) (fit from concealing), from κρυπτός (kruptós) (hidden), from κρύπτω (krúptō) (to hide).  The construct was crypt + -ic.  Crypt was from the Latin crypta (vault), again from the Ancient Greek κρυπτός (kruptós) (hidden).  The suffix -ic was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The alternative spelling cryptick is obsolete.  Cryptic is a noun and adjective, cryptical is an adjective and cryptically an adverb; the noun plural is cryptics.

Cryptic’s synonyms can include ambiguous, arcane, enigmatic, equivocal, incomprehensible, mysterious, strange, vague, veiled, abstruse, apocryphal, cabalistic, dark, esoteric, evasive, hidden, inexplicable, murky, mystic, mystical & perplexing.  However, it’s often necessary to distinguish between that thought deliberately obscure in meaning and messages either badly written or too brief for the meaning to be clear.  The familiar modern meaning “mysterious or enigmatic” is surprisingly modern, emerging only in the 1920s.  The noun cryptography (the art & science of writing in secret characters) sates from the 1650s and was either from the French cryptographie or directly from the Modern Latin cryptographia, the construct being the Ancient Greek κρυπτός (kruptós) (hidden) + graphia (of or relating to writing), the practitioner or code-breaker (the latter sense now more common and known also as crypto-analysts) being a cryptographer, the discipline cryptography (or cryptoanalytics) and the adjectival form the cryptographic.

Novelty birthday card on the theme of Freaky Friday (2003).

In English, the Ancient Greek κρυπτός (kruptós) (hidden) proved productive.  A cryptogram can be just about any form of puzzle although as a commercial name (sometimes as crypto-gram) it has been used (on the model of telegram a la the strippergram, gorillagram, kissogram etc).  The idea of cryptocurrency gained the name from (1) the use of cryptography when storing the underlying data in the blockchain (a big-machine distributed database) and (2) the notion of the blockchain as a secure crypt (vault).  In biology, cryptobiosis is a state of life in which all metabolic activity is temporarily halted (a cryptobiont any organism capable of cryptobiosis).  In critical political discourse, crypto- was used (crypto-communist, crypto-Nazi, crypto-fascist etc) to label someone as something they were attempting to conceal.  In medicine, the unfortunate condition cryptorchism (the plural (where required) cryptorchisms) was the failure of one or both testes to descend into the scrotum.  In geology, a cryptoclastic rock is one composed of minute or microscopic fragments.

Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinal Pell, Australia 2008. 

In his theological writings Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) could be cryptic but when speaking to his flock of 1.3 billion-odd, his thoughts were expressed usually in simple language, his meaning clear.  Not all pontiffs have managed this so Benedict’s pontificate of plain-speaking was welcome, even if his messages didn’t please all.  Even so however, he never manage to issue anything with the raw honesty Pope Adrian VI (1459–1523; pope 1522-1523) showed in the instructions he gave to his nuncio, Francesco Chieregati (1479-1539) his representative at the Diet of Nuremberg, a gathering of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire convened in 1552.  Adrian’s words, a statement of repentance unique in the Church’s history was an admission of the need to reform the corrupted institution which instructed Chieregati to make clear:

“…we frankly confess that God permits this persecution to afflict His Church because of the sins of men, especially of the priests and prelates of the Church. For certainly the hand of the Lord has not been shortened so that He cannot save, but sins separate us from Him and hide His face from us so that He does not hear. Scripture proclaims that the sins of the people are a consequence of the sins of the priests, and therefore (as Chrysostom says) our Savior, about to cure the ailing city of Jerusalem, first entered the Temple to chastise first the sins of the priests, like the good doctor who cures a sickness at its source.

We know that for many years many abominable things have occurred in this Holy See, abuses in spiritual matters, transgressions of the commandments, and finally in everything a change for the worse (et omnia denique in perversum mutata). No wonder that the illness has spread from the head to the members, from the Supreme Pontiffs to the prelates below them. All of us (that is, prelates and clergy), each one of us, have strayed from our paths; nor for a long time has anyone done good; no, not even one.

Therefore, we must all give glory only to God and humble our souls before Him, and each one of us must consider how he has fallen and judge himself, rather than await the judgment of God with the rod of His anger. As far as we are concerned, therefore, you will promise that we will expend every effort to reform first this Curia, whence perhaps all this evil has come, so that, as corruption spread from that place to every lower place, the good health and reformation of all may also issue forth.

We consider ourselves all the more bound to attend to this, the more we perceive the entire world longing for such a reformation. (As we believe others have said to you) we never sought to gain this papal office. Indeed we preferred, so far as we could, to lead a private life and serve God in holy solitude, and we would have certainly declined this papacy except that the fear of God, the uncorrupt manner of our election, and the dread of impending schism because of our refusal forced us to accept it. Therefore we submitted to the supreme dignity not from a lust for power, nor for the enrichment of our relatives, but out of obedience to the divine will, in order to reform His deformed bride, the Catholic Church, to aid the oppressed, to encourage and honor learned and virtuous men who for so long have been disregarded, and finally to do everything else a good pope and a legitimate successor of blessed Peter should do.

Yet no man should be surprised if he does not see all errors and abuses immediately corrected by us. For the sickness is of too long standing, nor is it a single disease, but varied and complex. We must advance gradually to its cure and first attend to the more serious and more dangerous ills, lest in a desire to reform everything at the same time we throw everything into confusion. All sudden changes (says Aristotle) are dangerous to the state. He who scrubs too much draws blood.

We know how prejudicial it has been to the honor of God and the salvation and edification of souls that ecclesiastical benefices, especially those involving the care and direction of souls, for so long have been given to unworthy men.”

Probably plenty of popes could over the centuries have been justified in saying much the same thing but if any were tempted, none did.  Benedict did of course issue the odd statement of apologia for this and that but they bore the mark of a lawyer’s careful vetting to avoid legal troubles rather than a sinner repenting and seeking forgiveness.  Most of the Church’s problems and scandals were of course not of his making and it was unfortunate his time on the throne came when scandals stretching back decades were being exposed because the publicity these attracted meant there was less attention paid to some of Benedict’s genuinely interesting thoughts on the state of Western Civilization.  Unfortunately, there were occasions on which he should perhaps have been rather more cryptic when discussing these matters, such as the famous address delivered at the University of Regensburg in 2006, entitled Faith, Reason and the University, none of which attracted the attention of the popular press except the one notorious sentence:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The comment was originally written in 1391 as an encapsulation of the view of the Manuel II (1350–1425; Byzantine emperor 1391-1425) but the thoughts were not new to Benedict and nor was its expression but what one says as an academic theologian is less scrutinized than when it comes from the vicar of Christ on earth.  That one brief fragment from the lecture overshadowed what was a thoughtful warning to Western civilization about its internal threats and contradictions, specifically the retreat from reason in moral and political life.  Among academics, the similarity of Benedict’s ideas to those of the German philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973) seemed striking and poignant too, the pope among the last of then generation of Germans who, like Strauss, had seen Nazism, probably the most evil of the totalitarianism which was such a feature of the twentieth century.  In their time, Strauss and Benedict both knew the West was facing a crisis, something identified by the philosopher as the very modern culture which had lost “its faith in reason’s ability to validate its highest aims”, understood as the view that notions of right and wrong are historically variable, changing as intellectual fashions shifted.  The pope knew this as moral relativism and understood that a “crisis of political reason… is a crisis of politics as such” which has relegated moral and political knowledge to the realm of radical subjectivity.

As a historical decline, Benedict traced the retreat from the Reformation, through the liberal theology of the last two-hundred years to the latter-day descent of Christendom to cultural relativism.  That didn’t mean the pope wished to undo the Enlightenment, it was rather that scientific positivism should run in parallel with moral certainty.  It might have been better, certainly for the quality of the press coverage, if Benedict had adhered a little more to one of Strauss’ techniques of didacticism: cultured crypticism.  Strauss held that Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was no proto-Nazi but had written in such an accessible manner that it was simply for the Nazis to twist and appropriate his words for their purposes.  Strauss therefore sought to be more elusive, not wishing to be another misused German philosopher, his words were sometimes cryptic, the meaning able to be unlocked only by the few who had long been immersed.  Benedict too might have been well advised on occasion to remain a little more obscure because he had many interesting things to say which could have been plainly spoken.

Benedict XVI lying in state.

The mortal remains of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI were moved early in the morning on Monday 2 January 2023, from his former residence in the Vatican's Mater Eccle.  The archpriest of the basilica, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, received the remains with a liturgical act that lasted about 30 minutes.

Pope Francis conducting the Solemn Requiem Mass.  It's the first time a pope has presided over the funeral of his predecessor since Pius VII (in somewhat different circumstances) attended the funeral of Pius VI in 1802.

A Solemn Requiem Mass was conducted in St Peter’s Square on Thursday 5 January, presided over by Pope Francis.  The readings for the Mass were Isaiah 29:16–19 in Spanish; Psalm 23 sung in Latin; 1 Peter 1: 3–9 in English, and the Gospel of Luke 23: 39–46 read in Italian.  At the conclusion of the service, the coffin was carried to his place of burial in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica, accompanied by the choir singing the Magnificat in Latin.