From State to Civil Society and Back Again: The Catholic Church as Transnational Actor, 1965–2005

Abstract

The Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century was a ‘religious international’ by any definition of the term. First, the Church is itself a transnational, global religious body that maintains formal relations with nations abroad, especially through diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The popes from John XXIII (1958–63; b.1881) through Benedict XVI (2005–; b.1927) have seen the Church as an international actor uniquely situated to work for global unity. The Church also includes within the fold semi-autonomous transnational movements that are fluid, mobile and only informally related to local churches. In the period under review in this chapter the Vatican itself began to conceptualize ‘Catholic power’ as rooted in and guaranteed by the Church’s evolution as a transnational civil society – or at least as a leavening agent for civil society in numerous emerging and established democracies.