The Geopolitics Of Pope Francis

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope in March 2013 with a clear agenda of internal reform of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Yet the reformist Pope Francis has also developed an outspoken political agenda. After more than six years of his pontificate, one can say that he has become an idiosyncratic and remarkable world leader. Among other things, he brokered an agreement between the US and Cuba; brought South Sudan's sworn enemies together in the Vatican, criticized 'the globalization of indifference' toward the plight of refugees and migrants; made the notion of 'periphery' central to his geopolitical approach; was the first Bishop of Rome to meet a Russian Patriarch of Moscow and to visit the Arabian Peninsula; signed an unprecedented agreement with the People's Republic of China; and issued several wake-up calls to Europe. This volume collects the contributions of international experts on different aspects of the geopolitical arena. Its aim is to provide insights into the pope's geopolitical approach and to help us understand the opportunities and challenges, as well as the strengths and weaknesses, of the Vatican's international policy in the era of Pope Francis. With contributions from Sandra Arenas, Jan De Volder, Massimo Faggioli, Brandon Gallaher, Agostino Giovagnoli, Marco Impagliazzo, Terrence Merrigan, Stefano Picciaredda, Giuliana Rotola, Johan Verstraeten and Jan Wouters. Jan De Volder (ed.) is a Belgian historian with particular interest in the roles of the Catholic Church and the world religions in international affairs. Currently, he holds the Cusanus Chair in 'Religion, Conflict and Peace' of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the KU Leuven (Belgium).

This comprehensive collection offers a concise introduction to the institutional framework of the Holy See, conceptualizing papal agency and positions from a range of international theory perspectives. The authors – international scholars from political science, history, and religious studies – explore multiple fields of papal and Vatican influence, ranging from spy networks and inter-religious dialogue to social doctrine and religious freedom. This book demonstrates that, contrary to secularization theory, the papacy is not in decline in world politics. Since World War II, the Holy See has played a steadily increasing role in international relations. Globalization supports the role of the Catholic Church as a transnational actor not only in the advanced industrial societies of the West but also increasingly across the Global South. In this volume, the authors document the legacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI as well as the current pontificate of Pope Francis from a range of contemporary perspectives. This book comprises research articles and commentary essays on the papacy in world politics originally published in The Review of Faith & International Affairs.

Geopolitics of Global Catholicism uncovers the key trends in today’s Catholicism, providing an incisive analysis of its deep entanglement with national, regional, as well as global politics. This book offers an exciting exploration of five versions of local Catholicism(s) and sheds light on the various theo-political constellations that not only differ widely across these national contexts but also have global geopolitical consequences. It is built around a novel theoretical argument showing that Catholic geopolitics contains not only a spatial dimension (as classic geopolitical studies would have it) but also a temporal one. As a consequence, the Catholic role in the world cannot be simply understood as a result of the spatial expansion of the Church but rather as a result of the complex relationships between Catholicism and colonization, inculturation, backwardness, and modernization(s). To counter the lingering Eurocentrism of most studies of the Catholic Church, this book’s case studies explore Catholic geopolitics in five non-European contexts, focusing mainly on the Global South (plus the United States): Latin America (Brazil), North America (the United States), Asia (India and China), and Africa (the Democratic Republic of the Congo). These case studies also show that the successes and failures of Catholicism cannot be explained by a recourse to a single, top-down interpretation of Catholic geopolitics, but rather by exploring the various Catholic spatio-temporal constellations on the global, regional, and local levels. With the accelerating diversification of the Church and the growing role of the Global South, these local and regional influences gain further importance as they are likely to increasingly define the future of Catholicism. This book will be of utmost interest to scholars of International Relations, Religious Studies, Political Science, and Theology, as well as Geopolitics, especially to those studying the global rise of religion. Its accessible language will also appeal to the wider public beyond academia, especially those interested in global Christianity, as well as church leaders, and members of Catholic organizations.

Pope Francis confuses many observers because his papacy does not fit neatly into any pre-established classificatory schemes. To gain a deeper appreciation of Francis’s complicated papacy, this volume proposes that an interdisciplinary approach, fusing concepts derived from moral theology and the social sciences, may properly situate Pope Francis as a global political entrepreneur. The chapters in this volume ask what difference it makes that he is the first pope from Latin America, how and why different countries in the world respond to him, how his understanding of scripture informs his ideas on economic, social, and environmental policy, and where politics meets theology under Francis. In the end, this volume seeks to provide a more robust understanding of the enigmatic papacy of Francis.

A tightly written, dispassionate and unsentimental account of American Catholic political history, one backed by substantial research.” —Jason K. Duncan, The Review of Politics In Rome We Trust examines the unusually serene relationship between the chief global superpower and the world's most ancient and renowned institution. The "Catholicization" of the United States is a recent phenomenon: some believe it began during the Reagan administration; others feel it emerged under George W. Bush's presidency. What is certain is that the Catholic presence in the American political ruling class was particularly prominent in the Obama administration: over one-third of cabinet members, the Vice President, the White House Chief of Staff, the heads of Homeland Security and the CIA, the director and deputy director of the FBI, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top military officers were all Roman Catholic. Challenging received wisdom that the American Catholic Church is in crisis and that the political religion in the United States is Evangelicalism, Manlio Graziano provides an engaging account of the tendency of Catholics to play an increasingly significant role in American politics, as well as the rising role of American prelates in the Roman Catholic Church. “[Graziano’s] convincing conclusions with regard to the current mutually influential relationship between United States and Rome make for fascinating reading.” —Timothy Byrnes, Colgate University “Graziano demythologizes the U.S.-Vatican relationship in the post-World War II era.” —David T. Buckley, Political Science Quarterly “A priceless interpretation of the geopolitics that the Roman Church . . . and America . . . have recently practiced and will continue to practice in the post-Cold War era.” —Corriere della Sera

"A historical analysis of the ways in which Francis's papacy is unusual and thus open to greater possibilities than many of his predecessors"--