In a wide-ranging interview with Exaudi, the outgoing British Ambassador to the Holy See, Sally Jane Axworthy, reflects on her five years working with the Vatican.
In the interview, one of the most known and active Vatican ambassadors, who many are sad to see end her stay, says she will miss Rome but that it is time to pass the post on to someone else.
After these years in the Vatican, following her extensive other international posts, including in Russia, Ambassador Axworthy prepares to engage in conflict resolution from the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office in London.
Below is Her Excellency’s conversation with Exaudi:
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EXAUDI: Ambassador Axworthy, it is hard to see you leave. You have been an incredibly active and appreciated Ambassador during your five years here. How is it to leave Rome?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: I am sad to leave Rome. It has been a momentous five years for professional and personal reasons, and so I am sad. It is a great city and I really enjoyed working here and getting to know people here. It’s also the right moment to go because I have been here for five years, so it is time to hand it over to someone else.
EXAUDI: What is your greatest or most meaningful memory from your time here?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: There have been a lot of highlights. The canonization of John Henry Newman was a professional highlight because it was very unexpected. It was our first saint since 1976. As an embassy, we had the opportunity to help celebrate that. That was great. Encounters with the Pope are always very memorable and there have been two or three of them, one of them being my very first audience with the Pope after my initial one. He gave an audience to the conference we were doing on tackling religious-inspired violence. I had to make a speech in Italian that was a bit nerve-wracking. He kind of encouraged us in that piece of work that we were doing by giving us that audience. I think that theme has followed through in his papacy because a feature of his papacy has been outreach to Islam, with his visit to Al Azhar and recently to Iraq to Al Sistani and his document on Human Fraternity and Fratelli Tutti. And I think, we unwittingly played into that theme. I think what Pope Francis has done with outreach to Islam, and outreach to other Christian denominations, but particularly outreach to Islam, has been rather visionary actually. He is reframing the discussion of religion by saying it’s not Christian vs Muslims, it is people of faith working together trying to address some of the world’s challenges. That is really interesting and I hope that will follow through and people will take it up and make it a reality. That is what we are trying to do with our initiative on the COP26. I can go on and on (smiling)…
Another highlight for me was the Pope giving an audience to a group of pilgrims from the BBC on the Road to Rome.
EXAUDI: How was that?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: It was early morning, 8:30. I believe he had arrived from a trip the day before, so he confirmed at the last minute. It was an audience of about 20 minutes long, but really the most intense 20 minutes I ever spent anywhere, because the pilgrims had prepared questions for the Pope. They were not always that friendly; they had experiences they wanted to bring up. He went around this group. There were about eight of them and each asked their questions and he answered each one. It was really very moving. By the end, we were in tears. Just seeing Pope Francis doing his pastoral thing close up, was quite an experience.
EXAUDI: I remember some of the images. It seemed rather moving…
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: Yes. Being ambassador, you often are at events with the Pope but rarely talking with him. He is not someone you see often. Nevertheless, it is the type of relationship, that you obviously follow what he does. Maybe he follows a little bit what the embassy does. I do not know. At the end of five years, you have a sense that we have worked together, even if we haven’t spent a lot of time together.
EXAUDI: How has your experience been to be a female ambassador to the Holy See?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: When I came here, I didn’t expect to be working particularly on the theme of women, but actually I have [smiling]. It’s really something about the place. There is a debate about the role of women in the Church. When I came, it was striking that it was normal to go to a panel or event where there were no female speakers. Many of their events did not include women at all, even at dinners.
So, it’s just really built over the years I have been here. One of my colleagues arranged a lunch with the female employees of the Vatican and we learned what it was like working there. As a female ambassador, I was really interested to work with the [religious] sisters, but also interested in the fact that they didn’t seem to be very prominent in the community. They are the ones who are working on the themes close to Pope Francis’ heart, working on modern slavery, education, healthcare. They are in the most difficult places in the world, providing services in countries that are unstable, often at great personal risk.
They are courageous in their profession, and competent. Having discovered that, I wanted to give them a platform because they have things to say. Also, during lockdown, when we had to go to virtual meetings, we set up a women’s ambassador group.
EXAUDI: Yes, this was a nice outcome of the pandemic.
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: Yes, it became a bit more formal, where we invited speakers, including senior women in the Vatican. I believe I and the other women ambassadors encouraged in some way engaging in this debate about women in positions of authority. We shared our experience and wished to support some of the senior women in the Vatican, as there are few of them.
EXAUDI: What is the greatest challenge you’ve encountered in being a diplomat at the Vatican?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: It was quite a challenge when I arrived to adapt to the culture because the Holy See has a very specific culture, born of its long tradition and long and continuous history I would say. Their traditions go back a millennium, some of them. They are an organization that values their traditions. So, I had to get used to the way of doing things in the Vatican, and luckily, I have been helped by my staff and by people working there, about the way they do business.
EXAUDI: Did anything surprise you in these years?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: This may sound a little “daft”, the first thing that struck me when I arrived here is, this is a place where people talk about religion. We are an embassy, we are accredited to the Holy See, which is the head of a religion, but also a State, and to a certain extent, we do normal diplomatic things, to a certain extent. For instance, we’ll talk to the Holy See about foreign policy issues, conflicts, Syria, we talk to them about cooperation or otherwise in multilateral organizations, what is happening at the UN, and so on. I suppose I thought it would be like another posting, but actually, the thing everyone is interested in here is religion and so that struck me when I came here. It has led me to reflect on the whole issue of religion in foreign policy. Part of that has been having a dialogue with my ministry about the role of religion in foreign policy. We have a policy on freedom in religion or belief, reflected in a recent report.
There is the religious persecution aspect of course, but it is a bit broader than that as it has been about seeing religion as something that affects foreign policy, political life, economic life… It is something we should factor into our foreign policy. And that has been stimulated by being in this place where people talk about the impact of religion on everything.
EXAUDI: Yes.
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: It is also a place where a lot of people live their faith. You can see a lot of people in the Vatican, who are really living their faith in the choices they are making. That is something that really struck me.
With this concentration of people who you work with, generally being priests or religious, or laypeople who work in the Vatican or with a lay organization such as the Focolare [Movement], generally, these are people who have committed their lives one way or another to the Church. You have this concentration of people who are living their faith in what they do every day. I do not know where else you would get that in this intense of a way. It is striking. The people there have different motivations that are often not the ones you would find elsewhere. For instance, I know several heads of Vatican dicasteries, who do not take their salary. They really live their faith. They will live in very modest accommodations.
EXAUDI: What is one of your most vivid memories during your time here?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: That interview with the pilgrims on BBC was very personal. I had never done anything like that before: going to Santa Marta, sitting in this room, no protocol….no one telling me where to sit. The next person coming into the room was the Pope, and with no one preceding him! That was rather striking!
EXAUDI: What has been your greatest satisfaction?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: My personal objective when I came here was to make this role something that was not just to see the Holy See as a “listening post” where you can find out what is going on around the world because of the number of people who come here, even if it is that, but also to see somewhat where we can collaborate on issues of mutual concern. I do think we have managed that. I think in a lot of the things we have done, whether it was the supporting of the religious sisters working to combat modern slavery or the tackling religiously-inspired violence initiative, or now what we are doing on with COP26 and climate change. These are all mainstream foreign policy issues, where I think we were able to add another dimension to our own foreign policy by looking at the religious angle, specifically the strength of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, after all, is the biggest denomination of the world’s largest religion, and it has sort of an unparalleled network. So there has been something about interpreting that for London and also finding ways to collaborate because it hasn’t always been easy. Although the Catholic Church is hierarchical, it is also rather decentralized, and so, actually, collaborating with parts of the Catholic Church can be quite challenging. Looking to healthcare and education, we could collaborate further. The UK has had and still has a great focus on a girl’s education, and the Catholic Church is the world’s largest non-governmental provider of education, and 60% of their services, I believe, are in developing countries. So obviously, there is great strength there.
EXAUDI: You have been at the forefront of protecting the environment, involved in various initiatives also collaborating very closely with Cardinal Turkson and Archbishop Gallagher. What do you consider the greatest achievements so far? And what would you like to be a point of focus for your successor, for him to continue what you have spearheaded?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: We have been doing an initiative with the Italian Embassy to the Holy See and the Vatican, as you know, and I think for me that’s about the ideas that are in the Declaration on humanity in Fratelli Tutti, that religions, or people of faith I would say, face. They have a lot in common in their approach to the great ethical issues. So, from that general starting point, if we see religious leaders as the people who provide moral guidance or values, then they have a role to play on climate change which we definitely can see as an ethical issue. Climate change most affects the most vulnerable, and they are not the ones who caused it.
There are a lot of ethical elements to climate change and so we wanted to see whether we could do something with not just the Catholic Church, but with people of all faiths. We have been having these rather interesting meetings, virtual meetings, to prepare. It has been very striking that every single faith leader whom we have invited, has set out their approach to the environment. It is incredible that their approaches are so similar. They all talk about the earth as something we have to live in harmony with and not exploit, but to treat with care and balance and that is quite common with all faiths. It has been really encouraging because we wondered when we started this whether the divisions, between faiths and obviously there are divisions between the faiths, would get in the way. But they have not. There has been a spirit of collaboration in these meetings, even if they have been virtual.
The other dimension of it is the scientists. Again, sometimes there seems to be an opposition between faith and science, but this is very much faith and science together. Science gives us the data, gives us the evidence and the faith leaders are very good at interpreting that into moral guidance. So there has been a synergy with the scientists as well. My hope is, even if I am unfortunately leaving before this, is that they can give a single message on the subject of the environment and that they can help build momentum for COP26.
Obviously, we want COP26 to be an occasion where countries make very ambitious goals, and nationally determined contributions if they have not done so already, specifically to reduce their emissions and that will raise the finances to enable developing countries to make the transition. Our ambitions are high but they need to be because this is a huge agenda. It needs much more decisive actions than we have had up till now.
EXAUDI: Do you think the Pope needs to do anything specific at this encounter or is there something in particular that you would like to see come to fruition there?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: The faith leaders are working on an appeal.
EXAUDI: For October 4th?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: Yes, an appeal to the COP26. We hope that they are going to ask the political leaders to raise their ambition. It is going to be about building momentum. This is definitely an ethical issue, so if the Pope were to come, I think his presence would underline that point. And, no doubt, in what he would say, he would be speaking about the ethics of climate change and the moral imperative to address it. He will likely be there in October. We hope he will be at the COP26 encounter. Faith leaders will make very short speeches, so they will all say something about their approach to the environment. We hope that will come together as a single message, hopefully in the form of an appeal.
EXAUDI: Now you will return to the UK, working on conflict resolution. What does your next chapter look like?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: It is going to be much informed by my work here in the Vatican. You take with you your experiences, it changes you. Before I came here, I worked on Somalia and Libya from London and those were both quite powerful experiences. I have worked on conflict here: as an Embassy we have tried to support the transition process in South Sudan, we have had the opportunity to focus on some of the conflicts particularly in Africa, such as Cameroon, and Mozambique, and DRC. I think conflict resolution is something in the DNA of the Vatican because they are obviously concerned when there is human suffering. That is where the Pope focuses and that is where the Secretariat of State focuses, also for example with Cameroon. We think the Pope will go to South Sudan with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He keeps expressing his desire to go…
We discuss conflicts very frequently with the Vatican. I suppose being here has made me see, first of all, the role the Vatican itself can play. I think the Vatican often says it will be available at the leaders’ disposal if they are called by both sides of the conflict to mediate as they do sometimes. The constant influence of the Catholic structures, thinking of the religious orders, is especially proactive. They do real grassroots peacebuilding. I think of South Sudan and especially the organization, Solidarity with South Sudan, which I believe trains midwives and teachers and does so by bringing people of all tribes together and living together, to model what peaceful coexistence looks like.
Being here has made me very aware of the role of faith leaders in conflict resolution. I definitely will take that with me.
EXAUDI: Any hard feelings after the game [England’s loss to Italy at the European soccer championships]?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: We are very, very sad we did not win, but I do live in Rome and there was a lot of joy around me (smiling).
EXAUDI: Anything else you would like to add, Ambassador?
AMBASSADOR AXWORTHY: I think every British ambassador to the Holy See, really enjoys their time here. But is also, because the job is so different it stretches you in ways you don’t talk about normally in other diplomatic posts. You look at the world quite differently because you are looking at it from the prism of religion and it gives you a different perspective on the things you do. It has been enjoyable; I have enjoyed my time here enormously. I will miss it, but it is time to go (smiling).
EXAUDI: Heartfelt thanks, Ambassador Axworthy, for taking the time.
