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The Vatican is the head of the largest and most centralized religious organization in the world. It is also a sovereign state with diplomatic representatives across the globe. The Vatican, as a religious authority, often challenges secular authorities in areas of international economics, human rights, and security. Consistent with neosecularization theory, the Vatican has greater influence when its efforts resonate with secular justifications for particular policies. The Vatican's efforts in international debt relief, international religious freedom, and against the recent wars in Iraq demonstrate this finding. This has important implications in that we can expect religion to continue to play a significant role in international issues. The Vatican, in particular, provides an intellectually interesting and practically important interlocutor with global Islam.
Pope John Paul II is in declining health, and this has led to speculation as to who the next pope will be, who are the papabili, as the Italians say.1 Of course, the personality and talent of the individual who occupies the Chair of Peter affects the direction of the Roman Catholic Church, but even so, the foreign policy of the Vatican2 will continue in certain directions because of John Paul II's efforts and because of the change in direction that came about as a result of Vatican II.
The Catholic Church is not a political organization, but the pope is one of the few international figures who has a global platform from which to communicate his message. The pope's position makes him a moral authority in global politics and an important participant in the dialogue over the role of religion in international relations.
Religion is part of a larger crisis over authority in the international system. Religions present a transnational challenge to the traditional state claim of sovereignty in the Westphalian sense.3 Religion is especially threatening in situations where religious identity is a facet of state identity or is a motivating factor in political violence.4 As religions continue to force themselves into international relations, the question for scholars is whether these efforts represent a return to religious authority in global politics, whether they are epiphenomenal to other causes, or whether, as I assert, these efforts demonstrate competition among rival authorities.5
This article has three sections. The first describes the idea of neo-secularization...