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VATICAN diplomacy is a constant growth industry. The recent re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with the United States after a break of 177 years came only a year after establishment of full diplomatic relations with Britain.
Popes come and go but Vatican diplomacy goes on for ever despite the criticisms of it by some participants at the Second Vatican Council.
In 1967 there were 61 diplomatic missions accredited to the Vatican, in 19'7'7 there were 86 and today there are 109.
Obviously the Vatican has corresponding diplomatic missions plus 14 apostolic delegations to National Episcopal Conferences and representations at 12 governmental international organisations (such as the United Nations in New York and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome) and eight non-governmental international organisations.
Vatican officials have long said that the distinctive feature of Vatican diplomacy is that it does not have to protect national interests. This may be less evident since the election of a Polish Pope. It was patent under Italian Popes since Italy had been united by fighting the Papal states.
A high proportion of Vatican diplomats, and often the most important of them, were not only Italian but from the former Papal states. It was said that this ensured that Vatican diplomats had not the least trace of Italian nationalism but a universal vision.
The Vatican diplomatic corps was not nationalistic but predominantly Italian. But this is changing also. Of the 32 students at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome only 10 are Italian. The academy which is situated near the pantheon in central Rome, was founded by Clement XI in 1701 to break the Papal court's nepotism through preparation of professional diplomats.
The present head of the academy is the Italian Archbishop Cesare Zacchi, 69, who was nuncio in Cuba during the early years of Fidel Castro's regime.
Students to the academy are nominated by bishops throughout the world. During the two-year course, students study languages (usually English, Spanish, French. Portuguese, German and Italian) diplomatic law and history, and administration, diplomatic style, religious sociology and international law.
The freedom from the necessity to defend national interests and an international corps are distinctive features of Vatican diplomacy, other characteristics are exemption from the pressure of politics and time.
In other words, it is virtually exempt from public accountability. There is no such thing as the kind of scrutiny the congressional review committee gives to United States foreign policy.
Such a scrutiny might raise questions about the style of Vatican representation in places such as Port Moresby, PapuaNew Guinea.
The Vatican mission is housed in quarters which are similar to those of other diplomatic missions but are out of keeping with the modest residence of the Archbishop and the poverty of the nation.
It raises the difficult question of how Vatican diplomats can be pastoral figures, authentic messengers of the Pope, rather than simply diplomats.
There is some confusion in this respect: Vatican diplomats represent not the Vatican state, as is sometimes said, but the Holy See or rather the Pope.
Evidence of this is that in the 59 years after occupation of papal Rome in 1870, missions accredited to the Holy See increased but the Vatican state received legal recognition only through the concordat with Italy in 1929.
The Vatican Diplomatic Corps enjoys a good professional reputation but Vatican diplomats can be surprisingly tactless. The present nuncio to Italy, Archbishop Romolo Carboni, when in Australia took sides publicly in a dispute between the Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix and Cardinal Norman Gilroy of Sydney.
Perhaps he should have received the Vatican equivalent of the Victoria Cross for this but. instead, was transferred to Peru (earning the headline "Promoted to Peru") where he clashed publicly with the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima. Since he has been within a stone's throw of the Vatican he has made no public statements.