Obama Closing US Embassy in the Vatican - Says it's 'unsafe'

buster2010
Why does America need a embassy to a church? Without religion the Vatican wouldn't exist so why should we be doing anything diplomatically?

The Vatican is a country. And it's not 'unsafe'.
Vatican City Information

Biigs
Less to do with the Vatican is only a good thing in my eyes.
Leave that country to its own devious and twisted devices.

If that's the case, then we should pull out of all the countries on the planet.
The whole point of an embassy is for the two countries involved to be able
to get along well and to have good relations. Without an embassy, those
relations are more difficult.

Interesting to read indeed. Of course there are no actual embassies to the Holy See in The Vatican City, not allowed, they are all based in Rome, all 80 of them according to wiki.

That's 80 embassies to a place with a population of around 800, do the maths! Yes I know much of them are linked to the country solely based on religion, but even so.

Most of the population of 800 isn't really resident either, down to those guys who guard his Papalness in their stripey pajamas. All in a country you could almost stand at one end of and piddle to the other end of its borders.

Oh, and the IOR or Vatican Bank as it is sometimes referred to, donates its profits to the Catholic Church, some €50 million in 2012.
"Unlike in banking for profit, the IOR's surplus is at disposal of the Holy See, to which the Institute in 2012 made a contribution of 50 million euros. Moreover, the Institute does not use deposits to lend money and does not issue securities for resale or other financial products"

There are so many things which because we have a "notion" of what a country is, are awkward to understand when it comes to Vatican City.

Maybe the rent on the existing building is just too high, and so they are amalgamating in order to save a few quid?

reply to post by FlyersFan


Just putting it out here,

Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The end.

Maybe Obummer knows something

Senduko
reply to post by FlyersFan

 

Just putting it out here,

Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The end.

Maybe Obummer knows something

Obama knew "something" during Benghazi and chose to do nothing. It is very strange that he is choosing to close this embassy?

Didn't Karen Hudes, the World Bank whisteblower, always state that the Vatican is the cabal and that all the worlds money and power ends up in their hands?

Maybe this has something to do with that?

I just found this article on the BBC that not even the Pope wants to stay at the Vatican anymore.

Pope Francis has called for power in the Catholic Church to be devolved away from the Vatican, in the first major work he has written in the role. In the document, he says he is open to suggestions to changes in the power of the papacy. He also warns that rising global economic inequality is bound to explode in conflict.

www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by FlyersFan


Calm down.

Allen discloses that a contract has already been awarded to house the US embassy to the Holy See on the grounds of the embassy to Italy. The embassy to the Holy See would retain separate offices and a separate entrance at the new location. The US mission to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization already has separate offices on the embassy grounds.

“It’s turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy,” complained James Nicholson, the US ambassador to the Vatican under President George W. Bush. Other former American envoys—Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn, and Thomas Melady—also disapproved of the plan.

The move—which has been under discussion since the Bush administration—has been explained as a measure to boost security. The transfer is currently scheduled for completion in 2015.

The current US ambassador, Ken Hackett, and his immediate predecessor, Miguel Diaz, rejected claims that the move would signal a downgrading of the US relationship with the Holy See.

source

Also, the Vatican is not a "country," it's a 110 acre city-state with a population of under 1,000. If the U.S. had an embassy in Mecca staffed with Muslim envoys, you'd have a meltdown.

I wonder if this has more to do with the Swiss Guard carrying poleaxes instead of M4's?
"It doesn't look safe to me, where's all the guys with automatic weapons?

Really though I wonder if the Vatican wasn't a source of leaks and this is his idea of how to shut it down.

So lets be clear about a few things. The US Embassy to the Vatican is not in the Vatican. It is in Rome. And it is not a traditional Embassy Compound, it just a house. It is on a hill and pretty small and very vulnerable because it is just a house. The US did not have an ambassador to the Vatican until 1984 and considering its small size most things an embassy does (paper work for visiting that country or vice versa to the US, immigration etc.) is non existant so they just tossed them into a villa instead a traditional embassy compound. Keeping two seperate places in Rome is kind of silly when the Embassy Compound to Italy is so close and could ealy handle the small staff from the Vatican one. Makes sense for security and saves money. Kind of hard to argue with that. Using a single Embassy to countries close together is normal.

reply to post by FlyersFan


It looks like the war against Christians is starting REAL SOON and Ohaman....er Obama knows that the first place to go up in flames Benghazi style, will be the spying...er embasy post.

Apparently Yemen is safe.

It has a US Embassy.....

US Embassy Yemen

reply to post by FlyersFan

Anything that threatens one building would also threaten the other, so perhaps "safety" is a less than honest way of saying "cheaper".

reply to post by MrSpad


I agree, how big would the place have to be in order to conduct its affairs?
On the flipside, how big a building does the Vatican equivalent person (Apostolic Nunciature?) have to be?

Answer: Very big..... now I think the images of the building are under some reproduction guidelines of the image, so take a look, address is 3339 Massachusetts Ave in Washington. Looks a big old house for a cardinal to live in.

en.wikipedia.org...

The diplomatic relationship between the two parties is 30 years old in January 2014, guess they will have to rent out a village hall for the celebrations if the official building is closed down.

I wonder if the US has an embassy in Monaco too.


The age of consent in the vatican is 12.
No prizes for guessing who proposed that.

theantediluvian
Calm down.

Strange thing for you to say. I"m not 'upset'.
Deflection from the story to a made up emotion for me? It's not working.
I find this to be big news. And it is. If the Vatican is supposedly unsafe and
we have to pull out .. then why are we still in other more unstable countries?

Also, the Vatican is not a "country," it's a 110 acre city-state with a population of under 1,000.

Is the Vatican A Country

Full Question - Is the Vatican really a country?

Answer - Yes. The history of the Vatican City State is colorful, controversial, and complex. The world's smallest country, at just 109 acres, it has a population of roughly one thousand, with citizenship being largely restricted to those employed by the Vatican. It operates, among other things, a mint, a post office, an astronomical observatory, and a world-class radio station, and it administers a legal system, although in criminal matters (such as the assassination attempt against the pope) Italian courts have jurisdiction. The Vatican uses the Italian lira as its currency. Certain other properties, such as the pope's summer residence, Castle Gandolfo, located outside of Rome, have extraterritorial status similar to that enjoyed by embassies. The Vatican enters into diplomatic relations with other sovereign states, but remains strictly neutral in political matters. The Vatican's territorial independence is guaranteed by Italy in accord with the Lateran Treaty signed in 1929 and revised in 1985. The famous white and yellow flag featuring the papal tiara and the crossed keys, commonly taken as the pope's flag, is actually the flag of the Vatican City State.

The Vatican Meets all 8 Criteria to be a Called a Country
The Vatican City is a Country

8. Has external recognition. A country has been "voted into the club" by other countries.

Yes! It is the Holy See which maintains international relations; the term "Holy See" refers to the composite of the authority, jurisdiction, and sovereignty vested in the Pope and his advisers to direct the worldwide Roman Catholic Church.

Created in 1929 to provide a territorial identity for the Holy See in Rome, the State of the Vatican City is a recognized national territory under international law.

The Holy See maintains formal diplomatic relations with 174 nations and 68 of these countries maintain permanent resident diplomatic missions accredited to the Holy See in Rome. Most embassies are outside of the Vatican City and are Rome. The other countries have missions located outside Italy with dual accreditation. The Holy See maintains 106 permanent diplomatic missions to nation-states around the world. The Vatican City/Holy See is not a member of the United Nations. They are an observer.

Thus, the Vatican City does meet all eight criteria for independent country status so we should consider it as an independent State.

If the U.S. had an embassy in Mecca staffed with Muslim envoys, you'd have a meltdown.

Mecca isn't a country with it's own leadership and it's own Secretary of State and it's own embassy system.

sigh - the " embassy TO the Vatican " does not actually sit in the papal state - its in a suburb in rome , and its not being closed - just relocated into an annex of the US embassy to Italy

diplomatic relations with the papal state are NOT being severed

so whts all the fuss about ?????

StallionDuck
I'm curious to why it's "unsafe". Does he know something we don't?

I doubt it. We're well informed here on ATS.

rupertg
The age of consent in the vatican is 12.
No prizes for guessing who proposed that.

1 - No it's not.
2 - Italian law and church law on marriage set the age of consent.

Vatican Information

The minimum age of consent in Vatican City is 18.

While the Vatican State has not made its own complete separate criminal code, and generally uses the Italian criminal code that was in effect at the time of the Lateran Treaty, there are exceptions to this rule. The "Law of the Source of Law" of the Vatican State requires that any Italian laws must first defer to divine law, to Papal decrees, and to canon law. As the Vatican understands divine law, all sex outside of marriage is illicit, and therefore the only lawful consent that may be made for sexual relations is the consent between a husband and a wife. Canon 1083 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states that "A man before he has completed his sixteenth year of age and a woman before she has completed her fourteenth year of age cannot enter into a valid marriage." [101] Thus, assuming the couple is married, the minimum age of consent for lawful sexual relations according to Vatican law is 15 for females, and 17 for males.

ignorant_ape
diplomatic relations with the papal state are NOT being severed

Never said it was.

so whts all the fuss about ?????

Because the Vatican embassy is supposedly 'unsafe' and has to be closed
... but the Benghazi embassy was just fine.