Oops! Mr. President, the Vatican Is a Country!

The Gateway Pundit caught this diplomatic gaffe:

CNN’s senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman tweeted a picture of his credentials on Thursday morning.  The glitzy press tag issued for President Obama’s multi-nation stop includes the flags of countries he’s visited on this trip…. except for the Vatican.  Apparently, the folks in the White House Travel Department don’t know much about the Catholic Church, and don’t remember that the Vatican is not Rome.

Vatican City-State is a country unto itself, a landlocked sovereign city-state, established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty.  The Lateran Treaty assured that the governance of Catholic Church would not be subject to the influence of the Italian government.

The world’s smallest nation, Vatican City is roughly 110 acres and has a population of just over 800.

Wikipedia explains:

Vatican City State is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the main episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin and Eastern Catholic adherents around the globe. Ordinances of Vatican City are published in Italian; official documents of the Holy See are issued mainly in Latin. The two entities have distinct passports: the Holy See, not being a country, issues only diplomatic and service passports, whereas Vatican City State issues normal passports for its citizens.

The Vatican City governmental administrative offices are in the Governatorato, located in the Vatican Gardens behind St. Peter’s Basilica.

And the flag of Vatican City State (also known as the papal flag) looks like this: