The Vatican’s top diplomat cautioned against actions that would escalate conflict in the Middle East in a Monday morning phone call with Iran’s new president.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s Aug. 12 conversation with President Masoud Pezeshkian was well-timed. Iran is widely believed to be preparing to attack Israel following the July 31 assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The Holy See press office said that the Vatican Secretary of State congratulated Pezeshkian on assuming office, after his victory in a July election triggered by his predecessor Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash.
Parolin “expressed the Holy See’s serious concern regarding current events in the Middle East, reiterating the need to avoid by any means the spread of the very grave ongoing conflict, instead favoring dialogue, negotiation, and peace,” the press office said.
Is it surprising that Pezeshkian took Parolin’s call as Iran reportedly gears up for a strike on Israel? How far do Holy See-Iran relations go back?
And why does the Vatican invest in relations with a country that the U.S. cut ties with in 1980 and categorizes as a state sponsor of terrorism?
The Pillar takes a look.
Was the call surprising?
When world leaders are on the warpath, they are typically reluctant to take phone calls from the Vatican.
While they may appreciate Holy See diplomacy in abstract terms, they are usually unwilling to listen directly to the Vatican’s appeals for restraint and negotiation.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, for example, President Vladimir Putin eluded Pope Francis’ attempts at a direct conversation.
Why was Pezeshkian willing to pick up the phone to Parolin? Was it because he’s new to the top office? Or was he expecting a quick congratulatory call with little substance?
These hypotheses are unlikely, given that Pezeshkian has been in politics for more than a quarter-century. More likely is that Iran’s new president thought the call would be beneficial.
How so? An account of the conversation on the Iranian president’s website offers clues.
The readout says: “Emphasizing the principled positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in avoiding war and promoting world peace and security, the president considered and clarified that the actions of the Zionist regime in killing women and children, as well as the criminal act of this regime in the assassination of the guest of our country, are against all humanitarian and legal principles.”
“According to all international standards and regulations, the right to defend and respond to the aggressor is reserved for the aggressed country.”
Pezeshkian seems to have seen the phone call as a chance to present Iran as a country committed to international law, yet constrained to defend itself against external aggression.
The statement also appeared to suggest that Iran and the Holy See’s positions on Gaza were compatible, if not exactly the same.
Cardinal Parolin, it said, noted that the Vatican wished to see “an immediate end to the killing of civilians in Gaza and the immediate establishment of a ceasefire.”
The Iranian president, for his part, “considered the genocide and the killing of oppressed women and children in Gaza, the cowardly assassinations in the countries of the region, and the attack on hospitals and schools where refugees are housed, as part of the criminal actions of the Zionist regime.”
Pezeshkian was no doubt aware that news of his conversation with Parolin would likely reach a global audience. So the president probably concluded that it was in his overall interest to engage directly with the Vatican, seizing the opportunity to portray Iran as an unjustly injured party and any retaliatory action as self-defense.
How far do Holy See-Iran relations go back?
The Holy See has had full diplomatic relations with Iran since 1954, though contacts date back to the reign of 16th-century shah Abbas the Great.
Formal ties were established when Pius XII was pope and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (The Shah) led the country officially called the Imperial State of Iran.
Vatican representatives in Tehran have included the controversial Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who oversaw the reform of the Roman Rite following Vatican Council II. After a reputed falling out with Paul VI, the pope named him apostolic pro-nuncio to Iran in 1976, a position Bugnini held until his death six years later.
Diplomatic relations survived the Iranian Revolution in 1979. In the following decades, Iran invested heavily in its relations with the Holy See. According to a 2007 Time magazine article, only the Dominican Republic had more diplomats accredited to the Holy See than Iran.
While Iran likely sees the Vatican as a potential mediator with Western countries, its relations with the Holy See are probably not driven solely by political calculations.
Another factor may be the surprising affinities between Catholicism and Shiism, the dominant form of Islam in Iran. In his 2006 book The Shia Revival, Vali Nasr cited respect for clerical authority, devotion to saints, healing shrines, holy days, and pilgrimages among other commonalities.
Iran has tended to seek out the Holy See in times in crisis. It turned to the Vatican following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
Iran initiated a phone call that month between its then-foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and his Vatican counterpart Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher. (Amir-Abdollahian died in the helicopter crash that killed Raisi.)
Iran also secured a November 2023 phone conversation between Raisi and Pope Francis.
As Vatican watcher John Allen noted at the time: “While it might be tempting to see these largely as symbolic courtesy calls, in fact there are good reasons to believe the Vatican may be positioned to play a key role in persuading Iran to exercise restraint and to avoid escalating the conflict beyond a point of no return.”
Similarly, Italian journalist Francesco Peloso has suggested that Iran is seeking “interlocutors in the West capable of exerting diplomatic pressure, a sort of moral suasion, on Israel and the United States.”
“Indeed,” he wrote last November, “it is probable that the Holy See is among the few entities capable of acting as an intermediary between the ayatollahs and the White House, considering that the latter seems, as things stand, to be the only one capable of influencing the military reaction of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.”
The well-established bond between Rome and Tehran may prove significant as tensions escalate still further, stoking fears of a Middle East-wide conflict or even a world war.
Why does the Vatican cultivate Iran ties?
If Iran’s interests are clear, what about the Holy See’s? Why does it invest in good relations with a country that the Vatican’s European neighbors consider a pariah?
One reason is that Iran is a major force in Lebanon, the Middle Eastern country with the highest proportion of Christians. Iran exerts a powerful influence through the Islamist political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah.
Currently, Christians in southern Lebanon, near the country’s border with Israel, are living in fear that they will be caught up in a war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The Vatican naturally feels a sense of responsibility toward the more than 1 million Catholics in Lebanon, as well as other members of the Christian minority. Maintaining ties with Iran is one way of promoting their welfare.
Beyond the political realm, the Vatican is also committed to deepening Catholic-Muslim dialogue. While its overtures to Sunni institutions such as Al-Azhar have gained global attention, the Vatican has also supported engagement with Shia Muslims, who number approximately 200 million worldwide.
The Benedictine and Cistercian religious orders have held groundbreaking meetings with Shia scholars, and during his 2021 visit to Iraq, Pope Francis met with the prominent Shia leader Ali al-Sistani.
Good relations with Iran are certainly helpful for protecting Lebanon’s Christians and strengthening relations between Catholics and Shia Muslims. But it’s one thing to be an interlocutor and another to exert influence. The Vatican has extensive ties to Iran, but can it truly sway its leaders?
The Pezeshkian-Parolin has arguably set up a test for judging this. On Monday, the cardinal stressed “the need to avoid by any means the spread of the very grave ongoing conflict, instead favoring dialogue, negotiation, and peace.”
What Iran does next should be instructive.
