Vatican Diplomacy in Contemporary Central Asia: A Struggle for Leadership in the Global South?

This article analyzes the Vatican’s foreign policy in Central Asia between 2022 and 2025. The region of Central Asia is viewed as part of the Global South, where the Roman Catholic Church maintains some of its strongest institutional positions. The author advances the hypothesis that, during the period of Pope Francis’s active diplomacy, the Vatican sought to establish global ideological authority in the region. In this context, authority is understood in the specific theological sense of the Latin term auctoritas. Central Asia is interpreted as a projection of the Global South, reflecting its internal diversity. Разговор о дипломатии The discussion of Vatican diplomacy focuses on two key ideas that have shaped its political agenda: ecumenism and integral ecology. Although both concepts have faced criticism from conservative circles, they have nonetheless defined the character of the diplomacy conducted by one of the oldest and most influential transnational actors in world politics. With respect to Central Asia, the Vatican’s engagement has been largely limited to these two ideas and to the practice of evangelization. The article concludes that during Pope Francis’s pontificate, the Vatican acquired the necessary conditions to become, in the near future, one of the centers of influence in the region. By promoting a left-liberal ecological ideology in Central Asia, the Holy See encountered post-communist societies for whom this agenda proved not entirely incompatible. The author concludes that papal diplomacy under Francis, as an extension of the global expansion of left-liberal ideas, is likely to face increasing resistance from traditionalist circles within the region.

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