Is it possible without being a member of the Church? I’ve been looking for information online, and I checked the Straight Dope archives, but I’ve been unable to find anything on it. Thanks in advance!
www.vatican.va can answer your question I believe.
I did a google search for ‘vatican citizenship’
From the site, more detailed info is here:
[quote]
As of December 31st 2001, there were 532 persons having the Vatican citizenship, of which 59 Cardinals, 272 of the Clergy having status as members of the Pontifical Representations, 58 other members of the Clergy, 94 members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard and 49 other lay persons.
Since the clergy are obviously Catholic, and the Swiss Guards are also required to be, that would leave only the 49 other lay people who might not be.
Unfortunately, the page describing Vatican citizenship is only in Italian:
However, from relying on a typically comical Google translation of the page, it seems that there may not be any specific requirement to be a member of the Church. However, I suspect that this would be highly unusual, if it occurs at all.
I don’t have a cite handy, but I’m fairly confident to have read the following about Vatican citizenship online the other day:
Vatican citizenship is only granted to people who in some way work for the Catholic Church, which requires to be Catholic (a Vatican-internal requirement - international law does not say anything like this). The Vatican is also the only state in the world that issues only diplomatic passports, no ordinary ones, and only the Pope himself possesses lifetime citizenship since every other citizen loses this status when he leaves the posititon that got it to him.
Of course more or less anecdotal. I’ll google around to find backup material.
And: How the heck is it possible to have a post count of zero?
Vatican City is also the only state with no native-born citizens, the birth rate being pretty close to zero. (I suppose a tourist or the wife of a lay person might at some time have given birth within its boundaries.)
Colibri, Why do you assume that being born on Vatican soil grants the newborn Vatican citizenship. The USA is unusual in this respect. The norm is that the newborn is of the same citizenship as his parents.
>> How the heck is it possible to have a post count of zero?
The count starts at 0 for post counts like for thread posts. A thread with only the OP has “0” posts.
Sailor Colibri says there are no natural born citizens in the Vatican, though he mentions that someone might have been born there without saying that they would get citizenship.
Schnitte refers to the OP’s (audreyayn) post count not the number of replies.
My remark was meant tongue-in-cheek. I should have included a smiley. The links indicate that there is no such thing as native-born Vatican citizenship. But even if there was, very few would qualify. 