Date of Award

2023

Degree Name

Master of Arts (Thesis)

Schools and Centres

Arts & Sciences

First Supervisor

Associate Professor Susanna G. Rizzo

Second Supervisor

Professor John Rees

Third Supervisor

Dr Stefania Rawson

Abstract

This research examines the multi-layered agency of Pope John Paul II and the diplomatic relationship between the Holy See and the United States of Mexico from 1990-1993. Specifically, the research aims to examine Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visits to Mexico in 1990 and 1993 and how his activities are shaped by religious mission and statecraft. The pastoral visits of Pope John Paul II to Mexico in 1990 and 1993 are major inflections as the diplomatic relationship changed from one of cold hostility to normalised, and even congenial, in 1992. The research project is established via a detailed description of the primary source material, Pope John Paul II’s public addresses and homilies from the 1990 and 1993 pastoral visit. The study is also framed by the context of a collapsing Soviet Union, and shifting international order, and major political and economic disruption in Mexico. This description is the first of its kind and offers a vignette of a complex interaction between the Pope, the Holy See and Mexico in which to ground a comparative theory analysis. This analysis constructs and utilises three lenses: a state-centric lens, a transnational lens and a theopolitical lens. The state-centric lens analyses the pastoral visits from a foreign policy perspective, foregrounding the Pope’s role as a head of state. The transnational lens takes an English School approach and foregrounds the Pope as the head of a transnational religious community. The third lens is a religio-centred lens drawn from political theology and foregrounds the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, and the guardian and promoter of a particular religious teaching on society, politics and salvation. These three lenses in combination reveal a multi-layered actor who utilised the tools of statecraft to change the political environment thus enabling the Catholic Church in Mexico to fulfill its religious mission. The research makes two original contributions, 1) the descriptive case study of the pastoral visits to Mexico in 1990 and 1993 and 2) the combination of analytical lenses, particularly the addition of a mode of political theology from William T. Cavanaugh’s ‘theopolitical imagination’ to the traditional approaches of IR scholarship.

Download Complete Thesis

Share

COinS