Roman Catholicism, Diplomacy, and the European Communities, 1958–1964

Abstract

This article investigates the Roman Catholic Church's role in the process of European integration from the first Hallstein Commission in 1958 to the failure of the Holy See's application to establish a diplomatic representation at the European Economic Community in 1964. The article focuses on the Church's response toward emerging European institutions and shows that local mobilization in Luxembourg, Strasbourg, and Brussels was instrumental in shaping relations between the Catholic Church and the European Communities (EC). The Church's position toward the EC, placing local communities as prime actors in dialogue with European institutions, reflected the sensitive nature of religion during the Cold War.

Multilingualism and European Identification

“…To overcome this problem, I test H3 by estimating a random-slopes two-level hierarchical model instead of a country fixed-effects model and by replacing the country of residence dichotomous variables with several country-level variables that serve as control variables in the estimation of the relationship between the Q-index and EI. These control variables are GDP per capita (Kuhn 2015), protestantism (Boomgaarden and Freire 2009;Leustean 2013;Nelsen, Guth, and Cleveland 2001), and GDP growth.…”

‘The Pope’s own hand outstretched’: Holy See diplomacy as a hybrid mode of diplomatic agency

“…There is a solid body of literature that situates the HS and the Catholic Church in an international context ( Abdullah, 1996 ; Barbato, 2013 ; Cardinale, 1976 ; Graham, 1959 ; Hanson, 1987 ; Kurth, 1993 ; Martens, 2006 ; Murphy, 1974 ; Rotte, 2007 ). This literature focuses variously on soft power ( Byrnes, 2017 ; Sommeregger, 2011 ; Troy, 2010 ), international organisations ( Abdullah, 1996 ; Araujo and Lucal, 2004a , 2004b , 2010 ; Chong and Troy, 2011 ; Leustean, 2013 ; Neale, 1998 ), bilateral relations, 1 international law ( Casaroli, 1981 ; Morss, 2016 ), the HS and the church as transnational actors ( Barbato, 2013 ; Ryall, 2001 ; Vallier, 1971 ) and their mobilising power ( Barbato, 2016 ; Turina, 2015 ), the Pope as chief diplomat and moral authority ( Hall, 1997 ), or theological explanations of political outcomes where the Church has been involved in peacebuilding efforts ( Cortright, 2008 : 200–203; Riccards, 1998 ).…”

The European Union and the Catholic Church

“…Leustean 2007Leustean , 2011Leustean , 2013Massignon 2007;Leustean and Madeley 2009;McCrea 2009b;Silvestri 2009;de Vlieger 2011de Vlieger and Tananescu 2012). Some pundits provide a chronological account based partly on their own experience as active participants (Jansen 2000;Turner 2012a) or even directly from the perspective of the churches themselves (e.g.…”

“…59 As we indicated above, at the beginning of the integration process, the Catholic Church did not demonstrate systematic interest in the institutional dialogue with the nascent European Communities. Its activities were limited to the initiatives of individual dioceses and even the modest office of the Catholic Secretariat for European Issues which monitored the Council of Europe in the Diocese of Strasbourg and which functioned in 1950-1952 was closed due to the lack of international support and financial means as well as the low level of interest from the Holy See (Leustean 2011(Leustean , 2013. In 1956, the Jesuit European Office was already established in Strasbourg to observe developments in the Council of Europe, followed by an office located in Brussels in 1963 known as the Catholic European Study Information Centre (OCIPE).…”

“…The bishops organized a meeting to discuss European issues every year following the Council but the idea of establishing a roof organization for European bishops' conferences originated in the proposal of Roger Etchegaray in 1965 in which he also called for regular dialogue between this new organization and the institutions of the European Communities (I-CC2; cf. Leustean 2013).…”