Concept
Holy See
Overview
The Holy See (Latin: Sancta Sedes, lit. 'Holy Chair', Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation: [ˈsaŋkta ˈsedes]; Italian: Santa Sede [ˈsanta ˈsɛːde]), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the bishop of the apostolic episcopal see of Rome, and serves as the spiritual and administrative authority of the worldwide Catholic Church and Vatican City. Under international law, the Holy See holds the status of a sovereign juridical entity.
According to Catholic historical records and tradition, the Holy See was founded in the first century by Saint Peter and Saint Paul. By virtue of the doctrines of Petrine and papal primacy, it is the focal point of full communion for Catholics around the world. The Holy See is headquartered in, operates from, and exercises "exclusive dominion" over the Vatican City, an independent city-state enclaved in Rome, where the pope is the elected monarch, and therefore head of state.
The Holy See is administered by the Roman Curia, which is the central institution assisting the pope and through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia includes dicasteries, comparable to ministries or executive departments. The Cardinal Secretary of State is its chief administrator. Papal elections are carried out by members of the College of Cardinals.
Although the Holy See is often metonymically referred to as the "Vatican", the Vatican City State was distinctively established with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, agreed between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy, to ensure the temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence of the papacy. As such, papal nuncios, who are papal diplomats to states and international organizations, are recognized as representing the Holy See and not the Vatican City State, as prescribed in the canon law of the Catholic Church. The Holy See is thus viewed as the central government of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. While the Catholic Church is composed of the Latin Church and 23 other particular churches or rites with their own laws and practices, the Holy See acts as the arbiter of relations between them.
The Holy See maintains bilateral diplomatic relations with 180 sovereign states, signs concordats and treaties, and performs multilateral diplomacy with multiple intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations and its agencies, the Council of Europe, the European Communities, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Organization of American States.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Those who are called Evangelicals, that is, those of the Augsburg Confession, hold the latter opinion: they believe that one need not go into the hidden causes of election while one may find a manifest cause of it shown in Holy Scripture, which is faith in Jesus Christ; and it appears to them that the prevision of the cause is also the cause of the prevision of the effect. Those who are called Reformed are of a…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
States what Holy See is; the author is tied to Holy See in the knowledge graph.
The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary, from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch (which are…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
States what Holy See is.
Other regulations, of a similar tendency, were established in other parts of Europe. But the power of the pope, in the collation of the great benefices of the church, seems, before the reformation, to have been nowhere so effectually and so universally restrained as in France and England. The concordat afterwards, in the sixteenth century, gave to the kings of France the absolute right of presenting to all the…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Holy See is.
Philosophers who discussed Holy See
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Peter Geach
- Thomas More
- Duns Scotus
- Giovanni Gentile
- Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)
- John Haldane (philosopher)
- The Da Vinci Code
- David Novak
- Matteo Liberatore
- Édouard Le Roy
- Constantin François Chassebœuf, comte de Volney
- Giovanni Niccolò Muscat
- Nicholas Zammit
- David of Dinant
- John of Paris
Related ideas
- French Revolution
- City-state
- Laos
- Lombards
- Middle Ages
- North Korea
- UNESCO
- Roman emperor
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Sovereign state
- Paul the Apostle
- Bhutan
- Rome
- Taiwan
- Sovereignty
- Austria-Hungary
- United Nations
- Vatican City
- Saudi Arabia
- Prussia
- Bishop
- Congress of Vienna
- Oxford University Press
- Charlemagne
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Liberalism.