Geopolitics of the Catholic Church. Mental Map of the World According to the Supreme Church Representatives

In reference to the increased interest in religion, both in general and in academic milieus, IR included, the thesis deals with the Catholic Church. The Church is considered a key religious actor in IR, but there are relatively few studies dedicated to the topic. The perspective of this thesis is indebted to critical geopolitics. The goal of the research consists in revealing hegemony, formulated by Gearóid Ó Tuathail, in the mental map of the world constructed through foreign policy speeches given by the supreme Church representatives from 1990 to 2015: the Pope, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary for Relations with States. The research shows that the Church conceives a divided world as obvious from temporal geopolitics and geopolitical dichotomies present in the mental map in order to fulfil its hegemonic intention consisting in unification of the world. The Church pursues this goal by a variety of means: by less emphasising its religious nature, presenting itself positively, stressing human beings’ importance, involving the principle of universality and equality, covering its interests in more generally defined ones, dealing with present events, especially negative ones, taking the role of a speaker fighting for losers and for parts of the world suffering from negative phenomena and asking other actors to tackle those negative facts. The thesis represents a contribution filling the knowledge gap as its perspective is geopolitics of religion and it deals with the universal level of the Church. Moreover, the theoretical and methodological approach, especially the application of the mental map concept allowing the visualisation of certain research conclusions, is unique.