HOST COUNTRY CHURCH-STATE ISSUES: EMBASSY

UNCLAS STATE 049668 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL KIRF PHUM ACOA VT SUBJECT: HOST COUNTRY CHURCH-STATE ISSUES: EMBASSY VATICAN CAN HELP ¶1. As part of the celebration of 25 years of formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Holy See, Embassy Vatican announces the launch of a new intranet web-based, collaborative information-sharing platform reflecting the broad scope of the bilateral relationship and the Vatican's worldwide presence. The Embassy's portal and community blog page together constitute a "one-stop-shop" for Post and country information, host government policy documents, unclassified and SBU reporting, protocol information, and constantly updated reports about developments affecting the Catholic Church around the world. The portal contains information about bilateral U.S. engagement with the Holy See, at: http://diplopedia.state.gov/index.php?title=V atican. ¶2. On the interactive community blog page, http://vatican.state.gov, the Embassy posts news items of interest to other U.S. missions that follow the Catholic Church's relations in their host countries, as well as some original content generated from Embassy discussions with Vatican officials. On any given day, the blog may highlight topics as diverse as attacks on senior Catholic officials in Latin America, AIDS programs in Africa, human rights in Asia, or religious freedom in the Middle East. ¶3. Embassy Vatican anticipates that Embassy Vatican's Diplopedia and Community Blog sites will be of great interest to officers reporting on human rights and religious freedom, as well as at posts where Church- State relations play a prominent role. Posts interested in learning more about what the Catholic Church is doing in their host country may wish to visit the sites for the latest news out of Rome and beyond. Officers can also subscribe to receive updates to the site via e-mail or RSS feed and select to receive all updates, or select only updates on specific regions or issues of concern. ¶4. Embassy Vatican is also interested in using the sites to learn more from other posts about the Vatican's policies in their host countries and encourage discussion on issues that may affect multiple posts. (Note: Embassy Vatican follows issues that affect U.S. foreign policy and does not follow purely religious issues. End Note) The Embassy invites officers at other posts to leave comments or questions on specific items on the blog, or to post items of their own from local sources. Whenever possible, Embassy Vatican officers may reflect input received from other posts in their discussions with Holy See contacts. ¶5. The information on the sites covers a considerable number of issues reflecting the global perspective and role of the Holy See. Though Vatican City's population numbers only around 800, more than 400,000 Catholic priests, some 750,000 nuns, and close to 75,000 monks and friars provide religious and ethical guidance to the world's 1.3 billion Catholics. The Holy See is second only to the United States in the number of countries with which it has diplomatic relations: 177 as of January 2009. The Catholic Church also runs over three million schools and over 5,000 hospitals worldwide. Caritas -- the Holy See's humanitarian assistance agency -- has 40,000 employees and 125,000 volunteers, operating programs in 162 countries. Caritas reaches 24 million people each year. ¶6. Embassy Vatican is grateful to IRM's Office of eDiplomacy for its invaluable technical assistance and encouragement in the creation of this portal. We are convinced that such collaborative information sharing tools facilitate cooperation among posts -- and with the Department -- to further U.S. diplomatic objectives. ¶7. Minimize considered. CLINTON