Ten years ago, the British embassy to the Holy See seemed as if it was on its way out. The ambassador arrived in Rome via Ryanair with no one to meet him. He had to take the infamous number 64 bus to the Vatican. Then, much to the chagrin of the Holy See, the offices of Britain’s embassy to the Vatican were merged with the British embassy to Italy.
But in the past decade, thanks largely to the hard work of the previous ambassador, Francis Campbell, and his successor, Nigel Baker, a lot has changed. Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See now lives across the street from the Quirinale Palace, the Italian president’s residence. His penthouse in the Palazzo Pallavicini was built in the 17th century and rests atop the Quirinale Hill. The ruins of the baths of Constantine lie buried in its soil and, from the rooftop terrace, you can see across the entire city, from the Castelli Romani mountains, where Rome’s legendary founder Romulus is said to have been born, to the exquisite St Peter’s Basilica.
Baker has spent his time strengthening the bond between Rome and London. In August, he will leave the Eternal City to make room for his successor, Sally Axworthy. His tenure has spanned five years and two pontificates.
In 2014, Baker celebrated the centenary of the reopening of the British embassy to the Holy See. It was at the beginning of World War I when Britain realised that the then pope, Benedict XV, had the power to bring nations together. Britain therefore needed a representative at the Vatican.
“The British government realised that the pope had a role to play in these big issues of war and peace, despite not having an army, despite not having a state at that time and that we ought to have a representative here,” Baker explains.
“Actually, it’s not so different from now. My principal area of engagement with the Holy See is around the big, priority international relations issues: conflict, war and peace, conflict in Syria, conflict in Ukraine, the stability or otherwise of Venezuela, the peace process in Colombia, terrorism in Nigeria, as well as what I would call the broader issues that feed into security, international development, human trafficking and migration, climate change. In that sense, my five years here I see as very much part of a continuity going back to those reasons for re-establishment.”
Baker’s tenure may have coincided with significant change. The ambassador sees a paradigm shift in British-Holy See relations in the last 10 years, half of which have been on his watch. While in the past Britain may have viewed the Vatican as a small state with little “hard” (or coercive) power, it has come to recognise the great influence that the Holy See has through more subtle and less tangible, though still effective means.
“If one looks at the modern relationship perhaps my time has been a more significant piece of time,” he says. “It is in the last 10 years that we have really strengthened the relationship in a substantial way with, I think, a shift at the London end from seeing the Holy See less through the prism of the Vatican City State – sort of the world’s smallest state, with an important leader – to the Holy See as the extensive global soft power network with which we can plug in at all sorts of different levels.”
This reciprocal relationship has manifested itself in the many official visits to the Holy See by British ministerial officials and of curial delegations to London. The largest ministerial delegation ever to the Holy See from Britain took place in February 2012, with seven ministers, including four from the Cabinet.
“When Archbishop Gallagher, the secretary for relationships with states, went to London on an official visit in March doors were open to him,” Baker says. “He visited, I think, five different departments of state: the Home Office, the Northern Ireland Office, Energy and Climate Change, the Foreign Office and International Development. It gives a sense of just how many pieces there are in the puzzle of our relationship, and how much there is to do.”
With his tenure drawing to a close, Baker has been in office during one of the most dramatic shifts in Britain’s relations with other states on the continent: its vote to leave the European Union. Baker is an expert on the 18th-century Italian philosopher and diplomat Ferdinando Galiani, and he sees historical parallels to Brexit in Britain’s past relations with the continent.
“It is interesting,” he says. “There has always been this debate in England principally, and later in Britain, which in the 18th century was encapsulated in the differences between court and country. You had a court which felt there was a need to be engaged with the European continent, particularly linked with the Hanoverian kings of England. They had their own property, their own electorate on the European continent. There were also in military terms people like the Duke of Marlborough, who was always very involved in European alliances. Then you have the country party, which had no interest in Europe apart from as a trading partner, that felt there was no need.
“You can see echoes of that court/country debate in the remain/leave divisions. I don’t think that it is too fanciful to say that some of those historical parallels are linked in some ways with some of these modern debates.
It’s actually a debate that has been around in Britain for a long, long time. Brexit is the latest manifestation of it.”
Pope Francis has used the analogy of throwing the baby out with the bath water to describe the referendum decision, though admitting that there are problems within Europe, specifically a dearth of creativity and dynamism. Contrary to most interpretations, Baker thinks that the Pope’s analogy should not be taken as referring to Britain’s act of exiting from the EU, but rather, perhaps, the reaction to Britain’s leaving. “I think he said we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. I am not sure he necessarily said Brexit was throwing the baby out with the bath water,” says Baker.
The ambassador sees Pope Francis’s real insight to be the importance of relationships: fratellanza, or brotherhood, in Italian.
The key thing is not the institutions, like the EU, but brotherhood among European nations, he believes, and to reduce Europe to its institutions is to miss the mark. “It is very reductive to reduce the sense of Europe to a set of institutions. It is more important to think about the values, the culture, the economic development, the focus on the young, and apply creativity and responsible leadership to develop all these things.” It is the spirit of brotherhood, he thinks, which will allow Europe to regain the dynamism and creativity which it needs.
Baker believes that Pope Francis is telling us to look beyond the material, geographical dimension of Europe to the cultural and philosophical space that it, and its people, inhabit. The spiritual, one might add, is what matters most for a pope. In that regard, in addition to the Pope’s call for fratellanza, Baker sees the Christian roots of Britain and Europe as indispensable. “If you look at the development of the law in Europe, at the development of human rights issues, at the development of many of our values – so many of them you can’t just detach from the Christian roots. And I think that would be the same in Europe as well. It’s an essential element. To deny it would be to deny a key aspect of our own civilisation.”
But he says this does not mean that Europe is, or ought to be, closed to other traditions. “It’s also important not to turn it into something that is closed or exclusive to other cultures or especially not to other faiths or religions. Many Europeans now are of other faiths or indeed of no faith. But I think the reciprocal aspect is a recognition of the roots, but also a recognition that we can draw on other traditions as well, as part of that creativity that Pope Francis is looking for from Europe.”
Asked if Brexit will change the relationship that Britain has with the Vatican, Baker is dismissive. He insists that Britain is not going anywhere. “I keep reminding people geographically we haven’t gone anywhere. We’re still in the same place.”
Britain is still a permanent member of the Security Council and the G7. “We’re still a global player and will continue to be so.” Britain continues to be a country with a global outlook and as such it has a lot of common ground with the Holy See. It will continue to work together with Rome on matters of importance to both.
“I have a strong sense that the UK is a country with a global foreign policy,” Baker says. “Actually, there aren’t that many countries out there with a genuinely global foreign policy, but the UK is definitely one. And the Holy See is the centre of a network with global perspectives. I think we will continue to operate on all sorts of levels closely with the Holy See.”
He continues: “The Holy See has a long historical memory. It has been around a long time. It has seen powers come and go, empires come and go. It’s still there. It was around when the European Union didn’t exist. It was around when Britain joined.
It’s going to be around when Britain leaves. These things change and relationships metamorphose. But I think the fundamentals of the relationship will remain in place.”
The Holy See knows how to deal with these changes in political geography, he thinks, and will continue to work bilaterally with Britain, as it did before the EU existed.
Baker sees his successor’s role as being much the same as his own. Shifting priorities for Britain and the Vatican may provide different areas of emphasis, but the fundamental nature of the relationship will remain unaltered.
But parting from the EU places more importance for Britain upon partnerships within the British Commonwealth, as more embassies from Commonwealth countries are opening up. Baker has for the last several years been working to develop an alliance between Commonwealth embassies to the Holy See. He sees this as something his successor will probably want to continue.
Asked to reflect upon five years’ experience as ambassador in Rome, he is, in proper diplomatic style, reluctant to draw any hasty conclusions. The long history of the Church belies easily drawn conclusions about its development within any short period.
“You can certainly see developments,” he says. “But as I said right at the beginning, we’re dealing with an organisation that has been around for the best part of a couple of thousand years. And that small space of five years in which I am an ambassador, I think I would be careful to talk about epochal changes from the end of one pontificate to the beginning of another. As the Chinese said about the French Revolution: what is your judgment on it? Well, it is probably a bit early to say.”
In the space of five years, Baker has not witnessed “epochal” changes at the Holy See. But he has worked successfully to change how it is perceived back in Britain.
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