Vatican City 2019
Yearbook 2019
Vatican City. After seven years as the leader of the Catholic Church and at the age of 82, Pope Francis continued his unremitting journey in the world during the year. Often the trips have gone to small countries on the periphery of the Catholic Church. It is in some of the countries in Africa and Asia that Catholicism is growing fastest. The Pope’s travel patterns have clearly shown how gravitational centers are increasingly moving from the historical base in Europe.
During the year, the Pope also visited two countries where the number of Christians is less than 1% of the population: Thailand and Japan. During the visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pope Francis announced that he now intends to incorporate resistance to the possession of nuclear weapons in the official teaching of the Catholic Church.
Common to the message during all the Pope’s travels have been his heart topics: the climate issue, the situation of migrants and the fight against poverty. The Pope’s radical message has made him controversial, not least in the United States, but also at home. Conservative forces within the Vatican also look with unblinking eyes on what they regard as Pope Francis’s overly generous approach to homosexuals and divorced. His simple lifestyle and attempts to clear up the Vatican’s business have also seemed provocative.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG: Click to see the meanings of 3-letter acronym and abbreviation of VAT in general and in geography as Vatican in particular.
During the year, pedophile scandals among the men of the church continued to occupy much of the pope’s time and energy. Francis inherited the issue when he took office seven years ago and the revelations do not seem to end. The pope is initially considered to have underestimated the phenomenon but later came to realize the extent of the abuse of thousands of children around the world. One of the Vatican’s tops, Australian Cardinal George Bell, was sentenced during the year to prison for committed child molestation. At the beginning of the year, the Pope hosted a summit at the Vatican, where bishops from all over the world drew the lines for a common front against an abusive culture of a worldwide scale.
Population 2019
According to CountryAAH, the population of Vatican City in 2019 was 688, ranking number 235 in the world. The population growth rate was -0.250% yearly, and the population density was 0.0000 people per km2.
Vatican City State (SCV) State made up of a small territory located within the city of Rome, on the western bank of the Tiber and corresponding to the Vatican hill. It represents the seat of the Catholic Church and the head of the state is the Supreme Pontiff who has legislative, executive and judicial powers; executive power is exercised through the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City It is the smallest state in the world: it includes the square and the basilica of St. Peter, the surrounding buildings with the artistic collections, the museums and the library, parks, gardens and some streets and squares, and belongs to the Artistic Heritage of Humanity, according to the UNESCO convention (1972) for the protection of the natural and cultural world heritage.
SORTING
The VMS has some particular characteristics that distinguish it from any other state. Its personality as a sovereign body of international law, distinct from the Holy See, is universally recognized. The Vatican City performs the function of an instrument intended to guarantee the independence of the Holy See and the Catholic Church from any other state power. As a consequence of the Holy See’s extraneousness from temporal competitions between states, the Vatican City is neutral: it is not part of the United Nations but is a member of several international organizations (such as the International Postal Union and the International Telecommunication Union). The Vatican City has an articulated juridical system, which sees Vatican laws and canon law norms as the main sources (see law 1 October 2008, n. LXXI “Law on the sources of law”) and, as a supplement and subject to implementation by the competent Vatican authority, the laws and other regulatory acts issued in the Italian State. The Vatican City has a judicial system which, according to the law of 21 November 1987, n. CXIX, has as its organs the single Judge, the Court, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation, which exercise their powers in the name of the Supreme Pontiff.
