Diplomacy School

I have always been amazed at the expertise of the Vatican when it comes to world diplomacy. There is no entity that is better than the Roman Catholic Church when it comes to "politicking" on the world stage.

Here is an example: Late last year, the United Nations approved a non-binding resolution calling for the world-wide abolishment of the death penalty. Although non-binding, approval of the resolution would add a significant measure of clout to the anti-death penalty movement. When it appeared that the measure was going to be approved (fairly easily), Egypt proposed adding an anti-abortion amendment to the proposal. They argued that the proposal should be seamlessly pro-life. In reality, they were trying to kill the resolution - knowing that an anti-abortion amendment would force many spporting nations to withdraw support for the anti-death penalty proposal. To the surprise of a fair amount of U.N. member nations, the Vatican stated that it would fully support a separate resolution on abortion and did not want the amendment to cause a solidly pro-life proposal to be derailed. As a result, the amendment failed and the anti-death penalty resolution was soundly approved. Of course, Egypt assumed that the Vatican would have to support the amendment. Vatican representatives skillfully developed a counter-strategy and used amazing levels of communication to ensure passage of the original resolution without the amendment.

For more details, go to:

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2008a/011108/011108p.htm