LEGATION, RIGHT OF. — The right of l. is a public subjective right, an attribute of sovereignty, which is exercised by sending (active l.) and receiving (passive l.) public ministers or representatives. According to international norms, this right is exercised by sovereign States through the accreditation and reception of diplomatic agents (v.).
The right of l. of the Roman pontiff must, however, be understood in a broader sense, inasmuch as the Roman pontiff and the Holy See possess not only the faculty, common to governments that are exclusively temporal, of sending and receiving representatives with diplomatic status, but also that of communicating, whether through their own diplomatic agents or through other representatives, with all pastors and faithful, directly and independently of every civil authority.
The right of l. belongs to the Roman pontiff
as a consequence of the character of the Church as a perfect society, and is exercised by him by virtue of his primacy.
This right was repeatedly denied or challenged at various times, both by States, some of which wished to recognize it only in consideration of the fact that the pontiff was, at the same time as head of the Church, a temporal prince; and by the bishops themselves, who wrongly saw in it a violation of the authority belonging to them by divine right (e.g., the Punctuation of Ems [v.]).
For the historical development of the right of l. and for the organs through which the Roman pontiff actively exercises it, v.: APOSTOLIC DELEGATES; LEGATE; APOSTOLIC NUNCIO.
As already stated, the right of l. also includes the power (which may be a duty contractually assumed toward the accrediting State) to receive representatives of others (passive l.); this concerns, also with regard to the Church, more closely (and one might say exclusively) international law. Representatives of the various civil governments are therefore accredited to the Holy See, with diplomatic status and, in the great majority of cases, permanently (v. DIPLOMATIC CORPS). This continued to occur even during the period in which (between 1870 and 1929) the temporal regime did not in fact exist; and, notwithstanding the denials of part of legal scholarship and the pressure initially exerted by the Italian government on the powers to withdraw their representatives from the Holy See, it had to be recognized also in the Law of Guarantees (Arts. 11 and 12).
The Lateran Pacts recognize, in addition to « the sovereignty of the Holy See in the international sphere as an attribute inherent in its nature », the right of l., both active and passive, in its broader sense and in conformity with the doctrine of the Church (Art. 12 of the Treaty; Art. 19 of the Treaty and Art. 2 of the Concordat); and they ensure that diplomats accredited to the Holy See, papal diplomats and envoys, and the couriers of both, as well as those dispatched by the Holy See, may cross Italian territory while enjoying the customary immunities (v. DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITIES; DIPLOMATIC CORPS; DIPLOMATIC COURIERS).
The diplomatic representatives of the Holy See also represent the Vatican City State.