There are many religious actors in transnational governance but one of them represents more than one billion people, has an historical record as a political actor, is the only religious actor with a special status to the UN, has full diplomatic relations to most states, acts as a norm entrepreneur on the global public sphere and nevertheless attracts almost no attention from IR scholars: the Holy See. The paper argues that through the study of this actor one can learn how the international society and its diplomacy emerged from European Christendom, that is, how transnational governance became a rather secular enterprise without excluding its religious heritage, being thus open for the importance of religion in the process of globalization. The case of the Holy See can show that religious actors always played a role in the transnational governance of the international society, indeed, this actor ensured that transnational governance was right from the start part of diplomacy. Mainly against this actor the idea of a sovereign state system without transnational aspects was fought for but with very limited success. The analysis starts from the perspective of Hurrell’s interpretation of the English school and constructivism (2007) which combines the perspective of international relations and global governance with the focus on norms but misses the importance of religious actors for both realms. The paper will use historical and contemporary examples to illuminate the influence of the Holy See on secular state systems as well as on the emerging global public sphere and vice versa. The continuation of these examples will show the endurance of religious actors and transnational governance within the state system and globalization.
