Is the Pope Catholic? Mysteries of the Vatican Explained

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By: Molly Mann

Dan Brown’s 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code, sparked popular interest in the arcane world of the Vatican. In his mystery-detective fiction, Brown revealed fictionalized details about the Roman Catholic Church, Opus Dei, and the Knights Templar. Since the novel’s publication (and 2006 film adaptation by director Ron Howard), critics have panned The Da Vinci Code, claiming that Brown’s descriptions of core aspects of Christianity and the history of the Catholic Church are inaccurate. The Vatican has certainly remained cloaked in mystery for most of history. But its allure doesn’t come solely from obscurity; once you find out the answers to some common questions about the Vatican, it actually becomes more and more intriguing.

Is the Vatican a political or religious entity?
Both, actually. There are two Vaticans: the Vatican city-state, established in 1929 as a walled enclave within the city of Rome, and the Holy See itself. According to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Vatican, at about 0.7 times the size of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is the world’s smallest state. When people refer to the Vatican, however, they usually mean the Holy See itself, the Episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome and its central government. Though Vatican City was officially established in 1929, the pope’s authority in Rome has been recognized since the eighth century, according to the CIA.

Why does the Vatican have its own postage stamp and does it really work for mailing letters?
The Vatican does produce its own stamp, mostly as a souvenir for visitors since the city earns most of its revenue through tourism. According to the Vatican Philatelic Society, the Vatican released its first stamp series in 1929. (Collectors know this as the Conciliation Series.) These stamps carried real postage values, and new series have been reissued several times since this first generation. The best-known Vatican postal issues, however, are the commemorative stamps, which have been printed and reprinted since 1935. Each series of commemorative stamps honors a famous person and events associated with church history, and is therefore of special interest to collectors. Some of the stamps feature great Catholic artists, like Fra Angelico and Peter Paul Rubens, as popes have often been great patrons and art collectors. (The artist who most frequently appears on Vatican stamps is, of course, Michelangelo Buonarroti.) New popes also appear on stamps after they are elected.
Italian stamps can’t be used on Vatican mail, and vice versa, but the Vatican post office is so popular in Rome that many Romans who don’t trust the unreliable Italian mail service make weekly trips to the Vatican post office just to send their letters and packages. That’s because, according to the Universal Postal Union, the Vatican post office is “one of the best postal systems in the world,” and “more letters are sent each year, per inhabitant, from the Vatican’s 00120 postal code than from anywhere else in the world.”

The Vatican is an independent government. Does that mean it has its own military, too?
Although the responsibility to defend Vatican City belongs to the Italian government, the Holy See has its own military corps, the Pontifical Swiss Guard Corps. Today, they serve only a ceremonial and security role, but the Swiss Guard soldiers (or Helvetians), all of whom take an oath of loyalty to the pope, have played an important role in church and European history.
According to the Vatican Web site, these mercenary soldiers were blessed by the pope in 1506 and have been part of the church’s structure ever since. Though the troops have not always fought faithfully for the Vatican—during the time of the Borgias, they kept switching sides—they have nevertheless earned the title “Defenders of the Church’s Freedom” for lending their might during trials like the Sack of Rome.

How are popes elected and why does the Vatican release smoke when electing a new pope?
According to the CIA, the pope is elected for life by the College of Cardinals, the body of all church cardinals who also advise the pope about church matters while he is in office. The College of Cardinals has no ruling power itself, though, except during the sede vacante period (when the papal throne is vacant because of the previous pope’s death or abdication). During the sede vacante, the college convenes to elect the next pope.
In its “Papal Succession Primer,” TIME magazine describes the process by which the College of Cardinals elects a new pope. Upon the previous pope’s death, the college’s head, or Camerlengo, verifies the death by standing over the deceased and calling his baptismal name three times. After he receives no response, the Camerlengo arranges for the Fisherman’s ring, inscribed with the reigning pope’s name, to be broken so that another can be made with the new pope’s name on it. Fifteen to twenty days later, the cardinals are locked within a guarded annex of the Sistine Chapel for the election process, or conclave. Each swears an oath of secrecy; breaking this oath carries a penalty of immediate excommunication. When the college eventually reaches its decision, after taking two ballots each morning and evening for however many days are necessary to reach a conclusive vote, each cardinal except the newly elected pope lowers a purple canopy over his chair. They burn the final ballots and their white smoke signals a successful election. The college dean steps out onto the balcony of the Vatican to shout, “Habemus papam!” (“We have a Pope!”) before the new pontiff himself appears.

Are there secret rooms and hidden passages in the Vatican, as shown in The Da Vinci Code?
Yes, but just one (that the CIA has confirmed). The Pasetto links St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City with Castel Sant’Angelo (also known as the Mausoleum of Hadrian), a towering, cylindrical building in Rome that the Roman Emperor Hadrian commissioned as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The Castel Sant’Angelo was later used as a fortress and castle for popes in the fourteenth century and Pope Clement VII’s refuge during the Sack of Rome in 1527. It is now a museum.

So, what’s the deal with the popemobile?
In a Newsweek report on the popemobile, journalist Daniel Stone clears up part of the mystery behind the papal wheels, but only a small part:
The popemobile isn’t its official name, because it doesn’t have one. In fact, Pope John Paul II pleaded with journalists to stop using the term in 2002 because he thought it sounded “undignified.” So it’s not surprising that a Vatican spokesman couldn’t say whether popemobile (small p) describes every car in the pontiff’s fleet or whether only the car in use by the pope is the Popemobile with a big p (the same way any plane carrying the U.S. president becomes Air Force One).
John Paul II may not have liked the term “popemobile,” but he was the first to ride in a vehicle with a bulletproof-glass enclosure, according to Stone. The glass, which looks like a rectangular bubble, was installed after an assassination attempt on the Pope in 1981. Before then, popes rode around in limos and sedans, not the space-age-looking pod we see them in now.
The first papal vehicle was a Nurburg 460 Pullman limousine that Mercedes Benz made especially for Pope Pius XI in 1930. Mercedes still ships new vehicles to the Vatican that are “specially converted for use by the Holy Father.” These rides can all go from zero to sixty in under eight seconds, but the popes’ handlers have never exceeded ten miles per hour.

What does the Vatican flag represent?
Vatican City also has its own official flag, which was introduced in 1825. It features two vertical bands of yellow and white with the arms of the Holy See—the three-tiered papal tiara overlapping the crossed keys of Saint Peter—centered in the white band. Yellow represents the pope’s spiritual power; white represents his worldly power; and the two colors together are heraldry symbols for gold and silver, which in this case represent the keys of Saint Peter. (In heraldry, yellow and white usually don’t appear side by side, but the Vatican flag is an exception.) Although the Vatican City flag is often seen in various sizes, the official proportions are one to one, making the flag a perfect square.

Papal State
The Vatican is a world of its own, nestled inside of Rome. The city-state has its own legal structure, military, history, and international diplomatic status. Though the Vatican’s history and current operations are more transparent than books like The Da Vinci Code would lead us to believe, much of what goes on there is as impenetrable as bulletproof glass. Church Stories , Pope , Stories