Papal view: While the Irish and British governments
clashed over the Falklands war, the Vatican played a much more careful
diplomatic game, in which Pope John Paul II pushed for a peaceful
solution to the conflict but saw it in the context of the broader
international challenges posed by the cold war.The Vatican involvement is revealed in the British state papers for 1982.
In April, Terry Waite, personal representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was sent to Rome to deliver a note to the pope condemning the Argentine invasion.
British officials worked closely with Archbishop Heim, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the UK, to make sure their case was made to the Vatican and that the papacy would at least remain neutral in the dispute.
Heim was credited with removing a reference to the “Malvinas” – the Argentine name for the islands – from the pope’s speech on the subject.
The Vatican suggested it was “working hard” on Argentina’s leader Gen Galtieri to desist from aggression, but warned it might “contemplate certain politico/econ- omic sanctions should there be a risk that the conflict be extended by the stubbornness of the parties involved”.
London visit
When John Paul II visited London on May 28th, Cardinal Casaroli, his cardinal secretary of state, visited Downing Street where he and Thatcher had a frank discussion about the conflict.
Casaroli conveyed his respect for the “problem for Britain of finding a way out of the situation”, but indicated that the pope “was deeply concerned that the outcome of the crisis could be the psychological, political and military separation of the whole of Latin America from the western world”.
He feared the Soviet Union would take advantage of the situation to create a gap between Latin America and the West.”
Thatcher replied that she had tried diplomacy but Britain had been “the victims of aggression” in this instance.