Notes for Brazil: Church arguments

"The Vatican is inserted into the international community because it is a state;
once there, it behaves like a church." - Peter Hebblethwaite 

The Vatican's two hats: In a TV debate in November 2008, the lawyer for the Brazilian bishops disputed the idea that a concordat gave privileges to the Church. The lawyer said "The treaty was not signed with the [Holy See as the government of the] Catholic Church but with the Holy See as [the government of] a sovereign state. [...Therefore] the Catholic Church is not privileged over other religions and the agreement is not unconstitutional". That's becasue the Holy See can change hats at will: it's the government of both church and state, a legal construction which allows it to choose the most advantageous role for each occasion. This means getting past the Brazilian Constitution by claiming to be a state and, once inside the country, acting like a church.

And in May 2009 the chairman of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB), argued on different grounds that the concordat does not give any privilege to the Catholic Church: "The treaty only groups, in a single text, what is already in the Constitution, in jurisprudence and the ordinary law. So it does not hurt anything in the secular state. What the Catholic Church asks for, it also wishes to be granted to other denominations." 

....But if that were indeed the case, why did the Bishops' Conference try a few weeks later to have the concordat rushed to a vote in Congress under an emergency procedure meant urgent matters of foreign relations and national defence?