HOLY SEE: Why Have Embassies?
 
The Holy See has fooled many countries into considering it to be a country. As a result, many of these countries go to considerable expense over running embassies to it. This is money that could work miracles for people who suffer serious illness. If the Church wants an embassy then let it pay it itself. Why doesn't it have an embassy to Ireland?
 
Some nations make the mistake of thinking the Embassy is to the Holy See. They think the Holy See and the Holy See is the same thing. They are different. The Holy See claims to be a country. But the Embassy is to the Holy See - that is the Pope!
 
The justification for having embassies:
 
1 - Mainly for economic and market reasons. Embassies are primarily for helping one company trade with another and to provide safeguards.
 
2 - To keep the government informed about what is happening and what issues are arising in the other country
 
3 - To cultivate a good relationship with the country. This relationship is not just for the sake of good relations. Reason 3 is only important if the other nation could be at risk of declaring war.
 
The justification for having an embassy in the Holy See is:
 
Close relations between the nation and the Holy See supposedly provides the nation with a listening post and an outstanding and unique network of contacts that is beneficial in areas including human rights, political and religious freedom, inter-faith dialogue, food security, arms control, refugees and anti-people trafficking, and climate change.
 
But does all that really require an embassy? Of course not! Diplomatic relations can exist without one.
 
The Holy See has a voice in the UN. This gives it an outstanding platform. The Embassy isn't going to affect that.
 
It is boasted that the Holy See has ,many ambassadors all over the world making an un-paralleled network for exchange, dialogue and debate on different political and social issues.
 
What good does the Holy See do through diplomatic channels?
 
What good does the Holy See do?
 
The Catholics who set up Ireland Stand Up were unable to specify and list the alleged good the Holy See has done. They themselves depended on the coverage in hate rags Catholic Voice and Alive! to get started off. Those papers attracted the interest in the campaign from venomous Catholic who want to get unfair religious advantages from the state.
 
What wars have been averted?
 
What good did this listening post do in the face of the impending recession?
 
What has it done about homelessness and the poor being forced to pay Europe's debts to make the rich richer?
 
It did nothing about the universal church cover ups for priests and religious and even bishops abusing minors until public and civic outrage forced it to do something. It won't even remove archbishops and bishops who covered up.
 
It refused to reform its own Vatican Bank until it was forced to. The Vatican Bank was a perpetual scandal. And probably always will be. The reforms are weak and cosmetic.
 
The Holy See's diplomatic channels principally promote evil in the long-term
 
So the Holy See's diplomatic network has done no remarkable good. The good done is only used to empower the evil of the Church so it's hard to be grateful for anything it has done.
 
That aside, does the Statehood of the Holy See actually do harm?
 
Most believers who want an embassy to the Holy See understand this as helping the Holy See to fight abortion. But is it really right to support an ideology that says that if an abortion is 100% known - hypothetically - to save the life of the mother it is still wrong? That is supporting fanaticism not human rights.
 
The Holy See's goal is not to promote human rights but to promote its interpretation of human rights. It is impossible to see how a faith that claims we have no right to enjoy Heaven could seriously believe in human rights.
 
Charity workers have to pay tax but the Holy See makes sure priests are not taxed.
 
The closure of the embassy was the right decision for the Holy See is a pretend country.
 
To have a country treating a religion as a political entity violates secularism and fair play.
 
Reopening the embassy would give credibility to the Holy See's pretence to be a state - and it abuses that credibility.
 
The Holy See was refused membership in the United Nations in 1944 but manipulated and whitewashed until it it got the right to participate in the debates of the United Nations General Assembly in 2004.
 
The Holy See abuses its status as a state in the eyes of many. It plots against AIDS prevention. It opposes needle exchange programs and condoms.
 
It has averted justice by interfering with the International Criminal Court.
 
Marriage is a state matter not a religious one. A marriage is not a marriage unless it is recognised by the state. Any quack can put you through a marriage ceremony. It's nothing unless it's legal. The Church claims exclusive ownership of marriage - it has no right to. It tries to force its understanding of marriage on civil law and on those who are not even Catholics!
 
Tries to force women raped by soldiers to have children instead of letting them have the morning after pill.
 
It supported General Pinochet in Chile.
 
It backed the fanatically militant Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.
 
It protected mafia prelate Archbishop Marcinkus from arrest.
 
It breaks the duty laid down by the Vienna Convention that a state must not meddle in the internal affairs of another state. The Church advocates the breaking of the law of the land under certain circumstances and declares the law invalid when it contradicts its doctrines.
 
The Roman Catholic Church refuses to let women have access to condoms and contraceptives when it is able. These women are usually very poor. It also tells them that they should suffer horrible guilt if they desire to use contraceptives. It tells them that contracepting women are very bad and deserve everlasting torment in Hell. Too many are willing to overlook all that evil and say, "The Church fees the poor and collects money for them." Is that not like praising a Dentist who pulls healthy teeth out and leaves the rotten ones in and gives the patients antibiotics and painkillers at his own expense?
 
The Catholics if they really believe in their religion must believe that if they get the chance to make the law of the land fit the law of the Church and ban contraception (one example out of many) they should take it. Any other view is inconsistent with the Church teaching that birth control is a horrendous moral evil and only assists the detriment of society.
 
Let us examine the arguments against the decision to close the embassy down:
 
The Holy See has worked hard to promote democracy and crush communism - this shows the importance of each country having an embassy to the Holy See.
 
In fact the Holy See tolerates democracy but does not like it. It says a democratic society should agree to ban contraception and abortion. It says the Catholic Church should have special status in every country. Secularists set up democracy - the Church never urged kings and queens to step down so that there could be democracies and republics.
 
The Holy See likes to take the credit for toppling communism when in fact communism was a collapse waiting to happen.
 
The Church gives Catholic papers the freedom to spew hatred and abuse. For example, Alive Catholic Newspaper November 2011 said atheists were incredibly cruel for keeping hope in God away from their children.
 
Ante Pavelic passed laws to force Orthodox Christians to convert to Roman Catholicism. Great persecution of the Orthodox ensued. Those who did not convert were tortured and killed by Catholic priests and religious who were members of the Ustashi. Pius XII never condemned these crimes or tried to discipline the clergy involved. He even helped Pavelic escape to South America. The Holy See to this day has showed no repentance.
 
The Holy See has worked for human rights in relation to fair trade, arms treaties, debt relief, financing for development (especially through the International Finance Facility), immunisation (International Immunisation Bond).
 
But all these things benefit the freedom of the Church to expand its power and influence.
 
A country crippled by war is no good to the Church. The concern of the Church is for religion and faith and not people.
 
The claim that the Holy See cares about human rights is an outrageous lie. The Holy See opposed the rights of the victims of clerical child abuse. It opposes LGBT rights. The pope claims the right to urge the poor and gullible to get infected with AIDS rather than risk using protection.
 
The Holy See opposes the HPV Vaccine for it feels it is about making girls feel safer about having sex while not being married. The pope is a bondholder for the vaccination programs. The Church's interest in this matter is about control not concern.
 
The arms treaties and debt relief and other benefits did not take place because the Holy See had a role. They took place because nations saw the need for them. Nations know these things are important. That is why they acted. The Holy See was not the cause.