How is the vatican a monarchy?

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Jennifer_G

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I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the statement that the vatican is a monarchy, since when I think of monarchy, I think of kings, queens, and lineage only by peerage. To me, the church structure seems more like any other institution -

Church -
Pope
Cardinal
Bishop
Monseingur/parish pastor
Priest

Company -
CEO
Executive
Manager
Supervisor
Worker

So, if the church is a monarchy, would that make corporations monarchies, too, in a way? :confused:

Obviously, I’m confused about this. 😛
 
There’s nothing out there like the Vatican, so people have to resort to these weird monarchy comparisons to make sense of it.🤷 Hopefully there’s enough of us out there to explain it to them!
 
The Church has a “flatter” organization than most corporations. The Pope may be analagous to the CEO, and the diocesan bishops report to him. The priests of the diocese report to the bishop.

The rest of the bureaucracy is more like an HR department, used to assist the pope and the bishops in their duties, but the lines of authority are minimal.

And the pope seldom intervenes in the bishop’s management of his diocese, just as the bishop doesn’t normally intervene in the pastor’s management of his parish.
 
The Pope does hold Monarchial power of governance over the Vatican City State. It is part of his temporal power. But, the Church does not consider this the same as the Secular notion of monarchy which seeks to keep it within the bloodline and lets them do whatever they want. The title of the Pope is not “King or Monarch of the State of Vatican City” but “Sovereign of the State of Vatican City.” But, in regards to the Church, it cannot be said he is Monarch, but the one who acts on behalf of the monarch: Jesus Christ.
 
Also, I have to add that the Vatican City State is the smallest country in the world. It is perhaps even smaller than my hometown which is about a little over a mile squared. Everything is within walking distance. Vatican City can be said to be just a big Parish Church. They have no military, just the Swiss Guard which is like a big college campus police force. They don’t even have their own Civil Law Code, they depend on Italian law and perhaps they merely reject the immoral laws that are passed.
 
Monarchy means a government ruled by one person.

What you’re thinking about is a Feudal Monarchy, which is a specific type of monarchy.

To be fair the Vatican is an elective monarchy (a system in which the monarch is initially elected)

I have only heard it called a “monarchy” myself in contrast to the Orthodox Church, which has a government best likened to an Aristocracy, although it also has elements of Monarchy and Democracy as well (although much weaker than the Aristocratic element).

So yes, it is an ecclesiastical government, but that isn’t a form of government - that’s just what the government is. Anglicans, Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians all have ecclesiastical governments, but they are all very different. The reality is the specific form of government is an Elective Monarchy.

Edit: And most corporations would be aristocracies, with the Board of Directors calling the shots and appointing someone to lead - someone who they may fire at any time.
 
We have to recognize there is a difference between the governance of the Church and the governance of the Vatican. The Pope is the ruler of the Vatican State, which is now quite small but at one time not terribly long ago encompassed a big swath of what’s now Italy. In that time the Vatican had lots of ordinary people as subjects, and actual administrative tasks, so the “temporal rule” thing was more significant.
 
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