Concordats today: from the Second Vatican Council to John Paul II

In U.S. journals, the attention for concordats, that is, the agreements between Church and state that regulate matters of common interest, is not commensurate to the importance that this instrument continues to have in promoting religious freedom and productive church-state relations worldwide. In examining the data from diplomatic practice, in light also of the Second Vatican Council and the new canonical codification, the present article will show how the growing prestige of the Holy See in the international community has been accompanied by a new golden age of concordats, which remain pragmatic and flexible instruments adaptable in form and content to the realities of contemporary life. In this respect, too, there is that element of innovation in continuity regarding contingent matters, to which Pope Benedict XVI has referred as the fruit of the Church's action in the world, in conformity with the true spirit of the Second Vatican Council.